To reduce our carbon footprint, clean our air, reduce our landfills, keep trash out of our oceans, etc., we all need to conserve and practice some very serious "R"s - reuse, recycle, re-purpose, rebuild, re-think. What always makes me a bit angry is that those who don't want us doing these things; viz. the supercaps (1) who continue to grow their fortunes by maintaining a consumer society; have people convinced that practicing the Rs is hard, will cost the consumer money, and reduce your quality of life. Nothing is further from the truth. Simple logic tells us that if we stop our continuous, copious consumption and learn to practice conservation and the Rs we will save money and have a far cleaner environment. None of the ideas I mention here are hard. Almost all of them will save you money. And besides improving your quality of life, you will probably find some of them actually fun. Obviously the supercaps will be furious because they do not get richer if you don't buy more and more and more.
The following ideas are things which Pamela and I have been doing since before we became nomads. You don't have to be nomads to do them. They are so natural to us now that we don't even think about them and do them no matter where we are. In fact, they are so much a part of our everyday life that I spent an entire evening just coming up with this list, and I'm sure it isn't complete.
- Pamela cuts down coated cardboard milk cartons to make storage dividers. What she cuts off can be recycled. My point is ... she uses everything. Little goes to waste. It might be a jar that is particularly good for storing leftovers instead of buying more plastic. It might be some sort of packaging material that she reuses as draw dividers so things don't slide around as we travel.
- Mend torn or worn clothing. This requires minimal skill and it can often be done while enjoying an evening around a fire, or sitting with your spouse. Creative thinking might also turn a worn garment into something new and exciting.
- Shop at a thrift store. You can get some really nice things that are like new. Some poor person just outgrew them. Some of my favorite shirts came from a thrift store and I got a pair of boots that look and feel good. If you have something that you can't give directly to someone else, give it to a thrift store. We always try to give things away first. We know so many people, especially women, in the desert who have been screwed by the system and are now living in cars and vans on less than $1200 a month. Many are college educated and some have been professional women; e.g. a newscaster for a major network. When we visit in Hopkinsville we list the item(s) on a forum and have actually delivered them to single mothers who had no transportation.
- Vinegar is a phenomenal product. A small amount mixed with water in a spray bottle has so many applications I'm not sure I could list them all. It cleans, disinfects, is cheaper, not toxic to the environment and you haven't purchased yet another bottle of dish soap or spray cleaner that may or may not end up in a landfill. You can actually do dishes with vinegar and water spray. Everything from dishes to cleaning the truck. We used vinegar and water to get the mud off the back of the camper each night when we were at the Arctic Ocean.
- Consider solar energy. If you have a large house it can be an expensive outlay, but it pays for itself in an amazingly short time. The cost of the panels, batteries and electronics is coming down. The best batteries available used to cost >$1200 each. Today the same battery can easily be had for <$900. We use AGM which cost us just under $300 each, but we get a lot of use out of them and they provide us with 120 amp hours of electricity. We went 100% 12-volt because it is easier, safer and a whole lot cheaper in an RV. Most people run up close to 50% of their cost by buying inverters to turn 12-volt into regular 110 house current. It takes twice the energy to do that. Why bother? A lot of people want to run air conditions, microwaves, coffee makers and hair dryers so they are willing to put out the big bucks for the big pure sine-wave inverters. We like 12-volt. It does everything we want and need. We save money and reduce our use of fossil fuels. Based upon a 60 month battery life, our power costs are $43.33 per month for five years. After the five years that cost will drop to around $10/month.
- Washing dishes by hand can save you and the environment a great deal. It also isn't hard work. The average dishwasher uses 6 gallons of water per cycle. An Energy Star rated machine uses 4 gallons, so at best you are going to use 8 gallons of water and emit 2.13 pounds of CO2 per load. Besides energy use, this costs you money. We use around 2-3 gallons of water a day. We do dishes in a small basin and use the dirty dishwater to flush the toilet. No difficulty. No big deal. Lots of personal and environmental savings.
- Use your own reusable bags when you go shopping. There are times that we take the plastic bags because we reuse them as trash liners or poop bags. If you're not going to reuse them, don't take them. We carry a canvas bag full of shopping bags in the backseat of the truck.
- Carry your own drink cup and reusable straw. What a savings! And it's easy. Pamela and I have not had a single restaurant, fast-food joint or gas convenience store refuse to let us fill our own cups.
- Compost. When we're on the road we don't have anywhere to have a proper compost pile, so we have to contribute to someone else's. That, however, isn't a problem for most people.
Use "Sponge Cloths". They are amazing. 100% natural and compostable, they last forever, do a great job, replace paper towels, and can be washed in a machine 300 times. We love our sponge cloths and they are not only convenient but they are environmentally friendly and a great money saver. - Use produce bags when you go to the grocery instead of the store's plastic. You can use your bags not only to transport, but they are good for storing veges in the fridge. If you want to get an idea how much plastic you will keep out of the environment by this simple and very convenient practice, just stand in the produce department of a supermarket and watch people pull off a plastic bag for everything they buy. All that plastic has to go somewhere.
- Related to that, don't buy single wrapped, plastic wrapped or fancy boxed goods. Yes, we get some strange looks from young cashiers but we will show up at checkout with one apple, one orange, a couple of bananas, two or three onions, a couple of tomato, etc. None are in the store plastic.
- Save coffee bags, heavy mailers and other non-recyclable containers instead of throwing them away. They are very useful for disposing of broken glass, nails or pieces of metal from a project. They are also very useful when a regular bag isn't going to do the job. They will eventually get thrown away, but they'll get a second use before that.
- Lots of recipes produce very nice liquids and broths that end up getting put down a garbage disposal, which, by the way, we don't use. Put the stock in ice cube trays or plastic storage containers. Once frozen you can put them in bags or some other more convenient storage container.
- Pamela loves her Thermal Cooker. A Thermal Cooker uses minimal energy. There is a pot inside the thick insulated device. You boil the contents of the pot for three minutes and close it inside the Thermal Cooker. Six hours later, no electricity or other energy required, you have a perfect meal. You can even bake in them. They are a marvel that makes life on the road simpler and saves tremendous time and energy. Those of you still in the workforce and living in stick-n-brick (a house/apartment) can start your cooker before work and have a complete meal when you get home without using any energy. Safe and cost efficient.
- Do not buy water in individual bottles. I'm sure you know that companies like Nestle are taking water from people who are suffering from drought and selling it. If you are buying water, as we do, buy it in bulk with your own container. It keeps plastic out of the land fills and oceans, reduces our carbon footprint, and doesn't promote water theft by companies like Nestle. We have a 40 gallon fresh water tank on board. That lasts us about two weeks. But we prefer to use that only for washing, bathing, etc. We buy our purified drinking water from vending machines for about twenty-cents a gallon in desert states. In Montana we get it free from mountain springs. In both cases we keep four, one-gallon containers.
- Fix and refinish furniture. Paint or sand and stain cabinets instead of ripping them out and sending them to the landfill. You can create beautiful and unique pieces. If the cabinets are so bad that they just have to go, look for someone who can make use of them. You would be amazed at how many people want your old cabinets. You might even find that you can use them in a workroom or shed. If you have to break up cabinets or other wood items, salvage as much of the wood as possible. Have a scrap/used wood box. I have built gates and made useful items completely from a scrap box. Not only does this help reduce trees cut and hopefully make lumbering virgin or old-growth forests unnecessary, but have you looked at the price of wood recently? You'll save lots of money.
- I'm the cook in the family. Pamela is a good cook but just doesn't like to cook. I love to cook and I love my cast iron cookware. Until I gave it some thought I would have never put it on a list of environmentally friendly items. Cast iron heats more evenly and is easier to clean than any fancy new product on the market. As a result you are going to save time and money, and probably pass it down through generations instead of loads of cheap aluminum going in the landfill every time the coating gets scratched.
- Avoid glass bottles unless you are regularly in an area that recycles glass.
- Buy things you use regularly and go through quickly in larger quantities then fill smaller reusable containers. For example, we buy the larger bags and recyclable containers of sweetener and coffee creamer and put them in more convenient and easy to use small containers. It dramatically reduces the amount of waste and recycling. I use Lucas for the vehicle engines. I used eight of the small single dose bottles and kept them. Now I get a quart bottle and fill my small bottles leaving me with one bottle to recycle. The smaller ones are easier to store and use, and the process saves me lots of money, keeps lots of plastic out of the landfill and CO2 from production out the air.
- Avoid deep frying. It creates a lot of nasty waste. Trying to dispose of rancid cooking oil is as difficult as disposing of the oil from your crankcase.
- Even camping on the Arctic Ocean we turned our furnace off at night. We don't use AC unless it's just too miserable and we have shore-power available. Both save lots of money and help the environment. A good feather quilt is a marvelous investment. No matter how cold it gets outside our feather quilt keeps us comfortable. (P.S. don't buy a down quilt. You don't want to know what cruelty the animal suffers for us to have down.) If you live in sticks-n-bricks (a permanent house or apartment) consider turning your heat down at night. Good for the environment and good for your pocketbook.
- Consider what I call an "Irish shower". When we lived in Ireland we quickly learned how precious water is. Our Irish friends didn't use showers because showers are, by nature wasteful. They put an inch or so of water in the tub. When I take a shower it is simply (i) get wet, (ii) immediately turn off the water, (iii) soap down and wash, then (iv) turn the water on a rinse . . . . quickly. The average American shower uses 17.2 gallons of water. Remember we only use about 3 gallons of water a day. That's a big savings for your pocketbook and the environment.
- Collect rain water for yard, garden and non-potable use.
- Fix it. You would be surprised how often items can be fixed. Recently I fixed a child's music box that is almost 40 years old. Saved it from the landfill and the kids (and even adults) love it. Of course the supercaps don't want us to fix things. They want us to buy new. Afraid to take it apart? Why? The alternative is to throw it away. The worst you can do is fail to fix it, not be able to put it back together and end up throwing it out. At least you gave it a shot. The best case scenario is that you will be able to fix it, save yourself a lot of money and keep it out of the landfill. You will be amazed at how many times you will succeed.
I am absolutely certain that I've forgotten many things, but this list should help you get started, give you ideas, and start you thinking in terms of conservation, reuse, recycle, re-purpose, rebuild, re-think. The effort is minimal. The benefits are tremendous.
FOOTNOTES:
(1) supercaps =df the super-rich capitalist who, despite being only about 1% of the population, literally own most of our country and who need us to continue consuming at an ever increasing rate to keep them rich. Capitalism is not a sustainable system but that's an entire book.
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