waste reduction

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March 8, 2008

Coming Home to Organic Fruits and Veggies

Posted by greenlivingottawa under Ottawa, food, household, waste reduction
[7] Comments 

As was recently pointed out in a comment, I have not been keeping up on my posts lately. My apologies, but these days all I want to do when I get home after an hour and a half to two hour bus-through-snow commute is flake out on the sofa.

However, this weekend I’ve decided not to try to do anything outside of the house, but just to sit tight and weather out this latest storm, so I have time to post. I don’t even have to go grocery shopping because while I was at work yesterday afternoon, Ottawa Organics stopped by my house and filled the cooler I keep on the front porch with fresh organic fruit and vegetables, warm-from-the-oven bread, and milk in a glass bottle.

Ottawa Organics and Natural Foods is a local company that started up in June of 2007.  They offer local and imported organically grown fruits and vegetables through a food box program or a la carte.  They also sell dairy products, local grains and flours, locally-roasted coffee, chocolate bars, locally produced condiments, and baked goods from two bakeries: Art-Is-In and Bread and Sons.

Ottawa Organics makes an effort to offer a wide variety of produce in their box and to change what is included from week to week.  We find the medium-sized food box is perfect for a couple.  They also offer small and large boxes, or you can just pick from a list of fruits and veggies.  Everything we have ordered from them has been high quality.  I have also been impressed by the minimal packaging they use.

While they do try to source as much as possible locally, at the end of a long winter such as we are having this year, most produce comes from elsewhere.  For a carless couple with busy lives, the best part Ottawa Organics is that for a minimum order of $25 they deliver to our door.  Orders have to be placed on-line by Tuesday evening for Thursday or Friday delivery.

Ottawa Organics and Natural Foods, 333 Catherine St #215, Ottawa, (613) 234-1515, matt@ottawaorganics.com

 

February 5, 2008

Solvent-free Dry Cleaning in Ottawa

Posted by greenlivingottawa under clothing, health, household, waste reduction
[3] Comments 

moderncleaners.jpg

My general policy is to buy clothes that can be washed in a regular washing machine with cold water and biodegradable detergent. I include in that category many clothes that are labeled “dry-clean only”. In particular most wool, synthetic or mixed-fibre fabrics can survive a cold water wash on the delicate cycle in a front-loading machine. That said, I have destroyed a couple of items that way, so experiment at your own risk.

The big problem with dry-cleaners is the solvents, perchloroethylene (perc) in particular. Perc is a solvent known to be acutely toxic to wildlife (particularly of the aquatic variety), and which is classified as a possible carcinogen in humans. Perc is what makes dry-cleaned clothes smell like dry-cleaned clothes.

Fortunately a very very very few cleaners offer something called “wet cleaning” or “solvent free cleaning.” These processes use soaps and bleaches instead of solvents. However, the processes are not perfect, and the soaps and bleaches may not be as biodegradable as claimed. However, solvent-free is about as good as it gets for those delicates that cannot stand up to washing machines or bathroom sinks.

The family owned and operated Modern Dry Cleaners in Ottawa offers customers solvent-free cleaning. However, they don’t offer the service, you have to know to ask for it, and it will cost you an extra $3.00 per item. That said, they’ve done a consistently excellent job cleaning the items I’ve brought to them. Plus these wet-cleaned clothes come home smelling like nothing, which is exactly what I like my clothes to smell like.

Modern Dry Cleaners, 571 Bronson Avenue, Ottawa, ON, K1R 6K2, (613) 235-1497

 

January 28, 2008

Green Flooring in Ottawa

Posted by greenlivingottawa under Ottawa, building, health, household, recycled, waste reduction
[3] Comments 

Kudos to the Ottawa Sun for running an article on environmentally-friendly flooring on Saturday (January 28). However, the article was hardly a local-to-Ottawa one. The bamboo flooring distributor they list, Silk Road Flooring, operates out of Toronto, and the eCommerce site provided for cork flooring, Fast Floors, is a US company.  So let me fill in some of the Ottawa details that the Ottawa Sun left out.

My first stop for any green renovation project is The Healthiest Home and Building Supplies in Ottawa West.  In terms of green flooring, they offer the following choices:

  • ECO-logo certified bamboo.  (Note, some other brands of bamboo flooring are finished with formaldehyde resins that give off a lot of VOCs.)
  • Carpeting that has no heavy metals, PVC, or formaldehyde in it and that is made from partly recycled contents in low-impact manufacturing facilities.
  • Cork with no formaldehyde, organic solvents, or VOCs
  •  ”Orchard-salvaged” wood flooring
  • Marmoleum, an environmentally-friendly healthy alternative to linoleum
  • Reclaimed wood flooring

The Healthiest  Home and Building Supplies, 135 Holland Avenue (right behind The Table, vegetarian restaurant), Ottawa, ON, 613.715.9014, info@thehealthiesthome.com

 

January 5, 2008

New Year’s Resolution: Less Stuff

Posted by greenlivingottawa under Ottawa, books, energy, fair trade, household, reduce, waste reduction
[9] Comments 

As you might have been able to tell from all the thingless-Christmas posts I recently made, these days I’m working on reducing my material stuff. So I decided to centre my New Years resolutions around becoming conscious of my addiction to stuff and ultimately reducing the amount of stuff I have in my life.

What’s wrong with stuff? Well first of all, stuff takes natural resources and energy to produce. A lot of stuff requires storage facilities (such as book cases) or requires maintenance, both of which cost money. Some stuff-addicted friends of mine have had to move into bigger apartments or houses just so they had more room for their stuff! Bigger houses take more resources to build, maintain, heat, cool, and clean and they cost more to buy or rent. A lot of stuff also takes up space after it’s been “disposed of” in landfills. Plus making, using and disposing of stuff can produce pollution that poisons air, land and waterways. If you want to know more about stuff and how our addiction to it is destroying our planet check-out the short on-line video “The Story of Stuff” with Annie Leonard.

So how am I addressing my own addiction to stuff? First, I’m keeping track of every penny I spend. This stops me from being in denial about how much of my money and energy is going towards stuff and its maintenance. For more on the cost of stuff in your own life and the importance of keeping track of your spending see the simple living classic Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin.

Second, in order to help me reduce the amount of stuff I’m acquiring, I’m bringing a list of questions with me when I go shopping. I have adapted my questions from a great little book called 30 Days to a Simpler Life, by Connie Cox and Chris Evatt (which they used to have at the Ottawa Public Library, but which has mysteriously disappeared from their catalogue).

My own personal list of 10 shopping questions is as follows:

  • Does this purchase meet my values of environmental sustainability and social justice?
  • Will purchasing this object help me to meet my goals?
  • Will it create more work?
  • Will it create more costs?
  • Will it make my life easier?
  • Am I willing to scrap what it is replacing?
  • Do I need it?
  • Would I buy it at full price?
  • Would I buy it if it did not reduce shipping costs for other items?
  • Do I want it because I believe it will make me feel better?

Again, following the sound advice of Connie and Chris, when I have the desire to make a big purchase I am going to wait a month to see if I actually need it or if it was merely a passing impulse.

My final strategy for this year’s resolution is to get rid of stuff that I no longer use which is taking up space in my house.   Again, I have turned to Connie and Chris for tips on how to tackle such a life-simplifying task.  However, my motivation comes from Annie Leonard who cites a U.S. study that found only 1% of the stuff people purchase is still being used 6 months later.  One Percent!

To help me reduce the stuff in my house without increasing the stuff languishing in landfills I’m going to make use of the Ottawa Full Circles community.  Full Circles is an on-line group that helps people get the things  they no longer use to people who need them, thereby reducing purchases of new items and reducing the stuff going to landfill sites.  All for free.

So there you have my new year’s resolution and my plans for carrying through with it.  I’d love to hear other people’s resolutions…

 

December 21, 2007

Day 7: Library books, a gift of reading with no strings attached

Posted by greenlivingottawa under Ottawa, arts and culture, books, waste reduction
[2] Comments 

by guest blogger, Eloise Collison:

A few years ago my partner and I came up with a better way to buy books, and give great Christmas gifts to each other.
We wanted some last minute, no packaging, truly recycled gifts so we borrowed books from the Ottawa Public Library.
You can “shop” on-line, search your favorite subjects and be as frivolous as you like. Use the on-line catalogue to reserve your books, or browse the shelves at your local branch. You’ll quickly come up with a pleasantly hefty stack of books to give to your favorite book lover.
If you really are working last minute, then browsing is the best bet. If you are organized enough to shop early you can even order your favorite music cds and movie dvds.
This year my partner is getting two Carl Hiaasen mysteries, an author he hasn’t tried before. There’s no risk giving books this way. If he’s read the book, or finds it dull after a few pages, he can just pick something else from the decadent stack of books under the tree.
I also picked up Daniel Ichbiah’s book “Robots” a history of…well…robots and other really geeky things. It’s perfect. It’s the kind of book I could never really afford, and this way I won’t feel guilty looking at it gathering dust on the coffee table come June. In mid-January, after we’ve renewed it a few times, it goes back to the library.
I’m also giving him “Stories from the Bow Seat: the Wisdom and Waggery of Canoe Tripping” by Standfield and Lundell. Another large, lavishly illustrated book, meant to encourage him to finally go on that week long canoe camping trip we’ve been talking about.
To really get that “try all the chocolates in the box” feeling, I try to get a little of everything:

* Biographies…I don’t often reread biographies, so I don’t have any qualms about returning them. Last year I picked “Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood”, by Oliver Sacks. The choices here are endless…how about Frida Kahlo, Isaac Newton, Condoleezza Rice? (maybe not.)

* Non-fiction… Last year’s choice was “Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time”
by Dava Sobel and this year it’s the history of the Halifax explosion with “Curse of the Narrows: The Halifax Disaster of 1917” by Laura M. Mac Donald

* Cooking…If you‘ve had it with cooking by December 25th, this is a great way to inspire your partner to take a turn. From Vegan to Vietnamese, there are so many possibilities to choose from. This year I picked up “Sushi American Style” by Tracy Griffit and “the Naked Chef Takes Off” by Jamie Oliver. Even my 16 year old likes to cook with Jamie Oliver, the recipes are healthy, all made with his trademark pared down technique.

I enjoy receiving library books too, this year I’m hoping for a new knitting book, or maybe some nice fat gardening books, to help me get through the next snowstorm.
I confessed to the staff at the library that we have been giving their books to each other for the last few years. I thought I might get some odd looks, but this year the librarian reminded me in early December that I should think about placing my orders…and that she couldn’t wait to see what I was going to pick!

 

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