Zeroscaping the Back Yard

When we moved into our new house, we knew we were going to have to deal with the inhospitable concrete ocean out back. There was a beautiful deck, and beyond that, a swath of poorly laid concrete. Low water, yes, high style, no. Our goal is to retain the low-water asset that the backyard currently is, but increase the attractiveness of the area beyond the deck. 

The deck was a blank canvas for us, but perfectly serviceable. Here is what we have done with it:

Now we have defined spaces for play, relaxing, and art. We love it! The only thing that needs water on the deck is the little hanging herb garden. Yum!

After we set up the deck, we turned our attention to the concrete. At first, we wanted to remove it. But alas, after a sweaty afternoon of sledgehammering AND jackhammering, Sergio was only able to remove this piece:

Time for plan b!

Plan b is still underway and involves three different pieces. The first is a rockscaped side yard, covered in potted plants. The second is a dining area on the odd, raised concrete bed in the middle. The third (and possibly most exciting) is a raised vegetable bed on the side that needs the most love. 

This project is a work in progress and it will be for a long time. Here's some of the  success we've had so far:

 

The arrival of the rocks was an exciting day for the kids. 

Ruby wore a backpack full of stuffed unicorns throughout this process. 

Around this point, the girls ran out of steam and Sergio trudged on alone. 

This is about as far as we have gotten.  Even a journey of a thousand miles

begins with the first step! Zero waste yard, here we come. 

Holiday Pledge

The holiday tidal wave is approaching.  This year, Sergio and I have pledged to make sure that a minimum of 75% of our holiday gift giving is either homemade, secondhand, or upcycled.  Of course we can't go into too many details, because that would spoil things for family and friends!  But, even gifts that Santa will leave under the zero-waste, fabric printed tree (you remember it from last year!) must fulfill this expectation. I'm excited to unwrap the presents and share more about them when the time comes.

The Recycling Crutch

After a year and a half of editing down our waste, we are faced with a pretty good looking trash situation.  We get the tiniest can possible from our waste hauler, Recology, which is the 20-gallon cart (although, in an interesting side note, we are forced to pay for the price for the 32-gallon cart because we live in an unincorporated county area with little funding and governance, so illegal dumping is a problem and our waste service is embedded in our property tax statement and cannot be downsized.  But, we can have the small bin as long as we are willing to overpay for it!). Here is what we have generated for the landfill in the last month:

As you can see, there's a few pieces of styrofoam in there (the horror!) which came as packaging for a bike rack.  Kind of a good example of how you win some, you lose some.  Now that the bikes are nicely organized, we ride them more! There's also a small, rotten piece of plywood, a full vaccuum bag and a few miscellaneous things I can't identify. And the best part is that they are all way down at the bottom of the tiny cart.

But, there's a huge elephant in the zero waste room: the recycling.

Here is what we generated in recycling in just this past week alone:

Yep, that's a full bin.  I'm going to be honest: recycling is making us lazy. I am totally guilty of thinking things like, "I can buy this!  Sure, it's overpackaged, but the packing is recyclable." I'm afraid recycling has become the final frontier.  And what's worse, I'm still kind of fatigued from having a baby who doesn't sleep through the night yet and I really really really like the convenience of recycling things and so, to quote Homer Simpson (what an awkward thing to do!) "I can't promise I'll try, but I'll try to try" to cut down on bringing so much recycling into the home.  And I need to try in earnest starting in the spring time, at the latest.

The REALLY Scary Part of October 31

Since I began the zero waste journey, I have come to see everything, really everything, with new eyes. Waste generation seems to be embedded in virtually every phase of daily life, and while sometimes identifying the trouble spots and making changes are easy things to do, often they are at best hard to see, and at worst, seemingly insurmountable.

Halloween is mostly fun! But there are a few stressors, such as all of the artificial dyes and high fructose corn syrup. While those are of concern to me, they aren't my fight.  (By the way, I'm really glad that they are somebody's fight!) What keeps me up at night is thinking about all of those candy wrappers in the landfill.

To that end, I would like to urge everyone to partake in the FREE services of TerraCycle.

TerraCycle is generally speaking a really neat service, and one that we use weekly via our SPUD subscription, as you can see in my earlier post here.  TerraCycle offers a Candy Wrapper Brigade, specifically targeted to reduce waste produced by candy wrappers.



Learn more about the TerraCycle Candy Wrapper Brigade at the TerraCycle Website

And yes, this year, I am going to trick-or-treat with my kids dressed as a landfill. What kind of zero waste mom would I be if I didn't? I promise to take a photo.

Plan Toys

I just love Plan Toys!  If I had the means, I would shop exclusively at Plan Toys for children's toys.  We are so fortunate to have a retail location close by in Palo Alto.

Plan Toys: Sustainable Play

Not only is the manufacturing process sustainable, and the packing minimal and 100% recyclable, but the toys themselves are wonderfully engaging for all ages.  We really enjoy playing with them alongside our kids!

We recently bought the following from Plan Toys:

1. Cone Sorting

2. Pets and Accessories

3. Cars

Such a breath of fresh air from the plastic, licensed character abyss that seems to dominate the children's toy market.

Diaper Safari

For all the years that Ruby's little bottom needed diapers, we used Econobums with cloth prefold inserts.  But, after three years of hard wear, the Econobums limped across the finish line.  We tried to use them with Romeo, but they just didn't hold up - lots of little leaks with every wear.  We spent $100 on the Econobum covers and got 3+ years of use out of them.  One point for Team Zero Waste.

So, we recently found ourselves in need of new reusable diapers.  We are still using Bambo and Eco Genesis compostable diapers and wipes for nighttime and outings, but the rest of the time, Romeo is cushioned in reusable luxury.  We found some awesome replacements for the tired Econobums: Diaper Safari.  We have been using Diaper Safari covers for a couple of months now and they are awesome.  Superficially, I like that they come in a variety of colors, whereas Econobums only come in white.  And more substantially, I like that the prefold stays folded up and held in place with POCKETS on either end of the cover. Two points for Team Zero Waste.

I ordered these on Amazon and was mildly horrified when they arrived and I discovered that, ironically, reusable diapers came packaged in single use plastic.  You win some, you lose some. Overall, definitely more of a win.

Zero Waste School Lunch

Here's what I packed Amanda today:

She has macaroni and cheese with shredded chicken, orange slices, graham crackers and peanut butter to dip them in. The macaroni, chicken, crackers, and pb all came in recyclable or compostable containers.

Zero Waste Summer Treat

I Pledge Allegiance

It isn't just the new house that has been filling me with promise; its the start of a New School Year.  The start of the school year rivals January 1 in terms of its promise-filling abilities--if you're the student, there's no missed assignments, no lunchroom embarrassments, no trips to the office, no sleeping past the alarm clock yet.  And if you're the teacher, there's no flopped lessons, no misplaced stack of graded work, no crushing heap of extra duties, no misguided top-down initiatives yet.  Gosh, just thinking about all of that took some of the New School Year wind out of my sails.

This year is special.  This year, Amanda starts kindergarten.  Half of my heart is soaring--the pride! the excitement! the good times ahead! and the other half is trying not to hyperventilate: welcome to THE MACHINE.

And so, with all of this in mind, I pledge allegiance anew to my waste free goals within the context of school lunches.  Now, it isn't just Amanda who is going to school.  We are a three-person Palo Alto Unified team at this point.  We ALL need school lunches.

We already have all of the little boxes and containers and pouches and bags we need to be waste free for lunch.  The issue is twofold: time and energy.

The morning is fast Fast FAST! on school days, and getting the lunches ready to go is tough.  Yes, I know that conventional wisdom suggests preparing the lunches the night before, but here's where I insert my formal complaint:

First, I don't like the not-fresh way the lunch seems by lunchtime when it was constructed the day before.  Second, CAN I PLEASE HAVE SOME TIME TO RELAX IN THE EVENING? Honestly, I punch out about thirty minutes after the last kid falls asleep.  That's just enough time to do damage control on the current day, let alone prep for the one to come. I'm done on my sad violin now.

I'm going to spend some time in the next couple of weeks focusing on making sure the lunches are 100% waste free.  It's all about the habits.  If I can get off to the right foot, I'll dance all the way to June.

Happy Day

One of our many, modest dreams has come true: we have an awesome new house.

Our awesome new house is in a great neighborhood, close to work and school and daycare, close to good friends and stores with good food. Our neighbors are friendly, our mortgage is affordable.  So much promise in our new little house!  And so, so much to do.  And do it soon we must!  Without systems, the waste creeps back.  We have  been generating about one can of trash every ten days or so since we moved because there is just too much to organize, rethink, and figure out. And honestly, a fair number of things to buy, too.

But, I can see the future, and the future is good.  

Already, we have whittled our commute from twenty miles to five.  Now, Sergio bikes to work whenever he can. I drive, but always with at least two or three passengers in my vehicle (ok, ok, nothing new there). We do use our bikes as much as possible on the weekends, and we also tried a couple of different bakfiets.  Big investment, but huge return.  Right now we are debating between a two- or three-wheeled model.  Sergio likes the two-wheeled Work Cycles bike because it handles like a regular bike and is fast, and I like the three-wheeled Babboe model, primarly because it seems safer for the baby, and frankly, I'm a slow and steady kind of rider. Seeing as we are not in the market to spend 7K on bikes any time soon, we'd better decide between them.  And, we still need to test more bakfiets out before we buy anything at all. 

Now that we have a house, we have a little yard for planting vegetables and hanging laundry out to dry.  Have we done these things yet? No! We still have 101 boxes to unpack.  But, the goal exists.

What we have that we value more than anything else in the world is more time.  More time to spend together as a family, and more time to do the things that will help us achieve our waste free goals, like get back to making our own bread and yogurt.  Time, it seems, is one of the only things that can be well wasted.

One Year Down, One To Go

Happy first anniversary, zero waste efforts!

A year ago, we decided to try and become a zero waste household, and we set ourselves a two year window of time in which to accomplish this goal.  So we should be about halfway there by now.

Are we?
Yes, I would say we are.

Some of the major accomplishments in Year One included:

1. Setting up a composting system
2. Switching to compostable diapers
3. Signing up for SPUD.com grocery service
4. Editing our purchases so we only bring home things that will not generate a lot of waste

In the past year, I have learned a lot about myself, my values, and the wide world of waste.  I have become attuned to what motivates my decisions and actions, as well as those of the people around me.  And, it is with great excitement that I leap into Year Two of the zero waste adventure.

Year Two will bring many new opportunities.  While it may be slightly premature to say with confidence, it seems like we will be moving to a very cute, very small house close to work and thus eliminating the commute-related waste.  A house nearly as small as our beloved condo will allow us to keep a similar carbon footprint in terms of heating (no need for cooling) and water consumption, while providing more space to be creative about reducing our waste (a yard to line-dry the clothes, a garage to keep the bikes in, for example).

Cross your fingers that the next entry includes photos of our new little place! What a great way to ring in the new, zero waste year.

So Bling

I was caught in traffic last week behind a car that appeared to represent the antithesis of all that is zero waste.  (And on a side note, just being caught in traffic reminded me about how wasteful the long commute can be, but at least we're working on it now.)  The vehicle I was stopped behind was a black Cadillac Escalade SUV with a license plate that read "SO BLNG," held in a faux-diamond plate frame. I was so appalled that I actually took a photo of this vehicle, with the intention of posting it here on this blog.

But something stopped me.  I have a zero waste agenda, and there are lot of reasons that I am proud of my zero waste agenda.  And of course I wish everybody loved my agenda, too.  Isn't that what we all want with our own agendas, after all?  But I am in no position to judge anybody else's lifestyle without knowing all the details, no matter how at odds with all I believe the other agenda seems to be. So, it is with loving kindness, rather than with sharp criticism, that I dedicate this post to my fellow so bling commuter.

To House or Not To House, Continued

So, this househunting process has kept me busier than I expected.  Ultimately, we decided that owning a condo is very low waste, but living in a single family residence provides a number of opportunities that allow for reducing waste beyond the limitations of condo living.  And on that note, we will plunge into the shark-laden waters of the Bay area real estate market.  More on that later, and with any luck, not that much later, since we're already in escrow with the sale of our current residence.

Condo Versus House

As Sergio and I begin to more seriously consider our move closer to work, an interesting question has come up: Which is less wasteful: a condo or a house?  Now, to be honest, in the current market, we might have no choice at all about where we move because we may have to love wherever we have an offer accepted, and we might even end up in a rental (which was our first plan; however, our current plan is to try to sell and buy again).  Nevertheless, the question is worth the intellectual exercise of a good, old-fashioned compare-and-contrast.

1. Condos
Condos (and townhouses) are compact.  They take up very little space and an especially nice byproduct of the closeness to neighbors is shared heat. In our current condo, we rarely turn on the heat in winter becuase we have neighbors on three sides. Condos also have little to no yard, which means that little to no water is needed to maintain the outdoor space.  And, what outdoor space exists is a shared good.

On the other hand, as we know well, condos have rules and regulations, and some of these run counter to being green.  For example, we can't compost or install solar panels at our current residence.  This is a definite bummer.

2. Houses
Houses almost always have more square footage and yardage than condos.  However, this isn't all bad.  You can reuse your gray water from clothes washing to water your yard, or even zeroscape it, or use native plants.  You can also hang your clothes to dry because there aren't any community bylaws prohibiting you from doing so.  You can renovate with zero waste ideals in mind to your heart's content.

However, you will certainly have more to heat (and possibly cool) than you would in a condo, and by extension, you are contributing in worse ways to climate change issues.

Whichever type of residence we end up in, rentals included, we will certainly be closer to work, which will cut down on commute waste for sure. 

So, which is less wasteful?  Frankly, I'm not yet sure.

From Rags to Rug Pads

My dad got in touch with me recently with an interesting question.  How should he dispose of his ratty, old T-shirts?  Now, by the time my dad decides his shirts are ratty, they are pretty embarrassing by typical standards, so donation to Goodwill or similar is not an option.  I had thought before about this issue, but hadn't had sufficient motivation to do the research.  So it was with a lot of curiosity that I started looking into the world of textile recycling.

It turns out that there are two main options for reusing old, raglike clothing.  The first is to donate the old clothes to a local animal shelter.  Apparently dogs really like snuggling in a pile of tattered garments, and to that end, the majority of shelters will accept worn out clothes.  Just call in advance to confirm.

The second option is to get in touch with your local charity donation center and find out if they accept "textile scraps" for recycling.  Apparently textile recycling is a pretty big business, but the major recyclers only do commercial business.  In fact, the thrift store rejects are their biggest source of recyclable textiles, and many donation centers will accept your old garments to be bundled in with their recyclable textiles.  Again, just call to confirm and don't be afraid to call around if the first call is a strike out.

So what are all of these ratty shirts being recycled into?  The most common end product isn't new shirts, or even new socks.  It's rug pads.

Late Breaking News!

Romeo is in the compostable diapers.  We expect trash quantities to plummet shortly.  Now we can get back to an easier focus on what's still left in the trash!

Hidden Waste: A Long Commute

There's one type of waste that we produce more than we are comfortable producing that never ends up in the trash under our sink: fossil fuel combustion.  Sergio and I both commute about twenty miles each way every week day to get to work.  That's a total of eighty miles of driving each day, or four hundred miles per week, or over twenty thousand miles per year.  Egad!

Since I've worked in Palo Alto, I've lived a fair number of different places.

When I lived in San Francisco, I took Caltrain to work.

When I lived in Menlo Park, I biked to work.

When I lived in Hayward, I carpooled to work.

When I lived in Mountain View, I biked to work.

Now that I live in Union City, I drive alone to work.

Because this is the first time in eight years that I have driven to work, I really feel terrible about doing it.  It just isn't my nature.  But, we pollute so much because we live so far from where we work, and there aren't any viable alternative methods of transportation.  Biking takes over an hour each direction and involves crossing a bridge over the ocean (wind central). There is a bus called the Dumbarton Express, but it takes nearly two hours to get to work because it uses the same regular, traffic saturated streets as all of the other vehicles, plus it makes some stops along the way.

For me, there are two most frustrating aspects of the commute waste issue.  First, although Sergio and I leave the same residence and travel to the same school district for employment, we start at different times (multiple hours apart) so carpooling is not realistic. But, it kills me that we aren't carpooling. Second, between when Sergio leaves (5:30am) and when I leave (8:30am) the number of vehicles on the road increases exponentially.  What is a twenty-five minute ride for him is a seventy-five minute ride for me.  Both directions.

So, it is with some apprehension that we have decided to move as close to work as possible.  In doing so, we hope to preserve our tiny house lifestyle by finding a similar place to live in Palo Alto.  Fortunately, once we move there, a tiny rental is certainly all we will be able to afford!

Will You Be My Valentine, Mother Earth?

Finally, a screen shot of the personalized "eco audit" provided by SPUD grocery delivery! We receive one with every order we make.

We the Tiny House People

I have to be honest: we've been feeling a little crowded in our tiny house lately.  We were starting to fantasize about something a little bigger--not much, you know, just, oh, say, 900 square feet or so.  Really, nothing terribly immodest.

Wait!

We like having a tiny condo, right?

Yes, we do.  But we needed a reminder, some re-inspiration.  So we watched Kirsten Dirksen's documentary We the Tiny House People, available on YouTube:

We the Tiny House People

This film is just over an hour long and served to reinvigorate our small space sensibilities.  If I were to make one criticism of it, I'd point out the irony that she, who totes her husband and two kids along throughout the making of the film, only documents single people and couples living in small dwellings.  Where are the families, Kirsten?  We can do it, too!

The Horror

Well, we aren't on zero waste hiatus exactly, but we are cutting ourselves some slack for a couple of months.  Our beautiful baby has arrived, and his adorable little bottom isn't quite big enough for the smallest size of compostable diapers, nor is he quite ready for cloth ones.  Ruby wore cloth diapers starting at three months, and it looks like Romeo will probably be big enough around the same time.  And, I'm guessing he will fit well in the compostables at that time, too. So, in the meantime, this is what our trash looks like:

Oh, the horror!  As you can sort of see, it's just a bunch of disposable diapers.  We have to take the trash out a couple of times a week now.  Fortunately, we've done such a good job reducing our trash in other regards that it really is almost exclusively diapers we are condemning to the landfill in this twice-weekly transgression, but it still feels terrible.  On the other hand, having Romeo in the family feels wonderful, so I guess reducing waste isn't the only important thing after all.

Until Next Year

I folded up the Christmas tree today.

The Big Clean

My nesting instinct has been telling me to clean the girls' room for weeks. But, I was scared to clean it because I was worried that what would come out would be pounds and pounds of...trash.  Nesting instinct finally won, and I cleaned the room yesterday.

About halfway through the project, I started to freak out.  It got so messy!  It looked like my trash-laden fears were coming true.

Much to my surprise and delight, I was able to generate a whole trunk full of totally donate-able goods, a reasonable sized bag of recycling, and only generated an itty-bitty half-bag of trash.

Here are a few pictures of the finished, clean room; oooh and ahhh.

P.S. I wish the camera on my 2009 iPhone still worked well.  Darn you, planned obsolescence!

About Time

As seen: Target parking lot, Fremont Hub

"Are you reusable bag ready? Due to city ordinance, this Target can no longer provide plastic bags to our guests."

Almost Baby Day!

In preparation for the impending arrival of Baby #3, we have had to make lots and lots of little changes to stay within our 700 square foot lifestyle.  One of the most important pieces of our baby prep has been  to try not to buy anything new for the little one.

Here's our bassinet, now ready to serve its fourth baby (with hospital bag ready to go there on top):

That's right; we fit it in a bedroom that isn't even large enough for a queen sized bed!

And, here are baby's diapers and clothes.  None are new; all are hand-me-downs.  And yes, we ran the diapers for an extra bleach cycle before folding them and deeming them worthy of a new little bottom:

They ALL fit in the little bins beneath the bassinet.  Once baby graduates to the girls' room, he can have a WHOLE drawer in the dresser the girls share.  Yes indeed, we don't even have one dresser per child!

The final, and possibly scariest frontier was to scale car seat mountain.  We love our Jetta TDI Wagon and are totally committed to the idea of clean diesel engines.  We specifically bought this station wagon new to own for as long as possible (think: decades, rest of life, if possible).  But, fitting three car seats across the back seat was looking bleak.  We tried a number of brands and configurations before we found the magic three puzzle pieces:

1. Maxi Cosi Mico
2. Britax Parkway
3. Cosco Scenera

We had to order one special item, the "Booster Buckle," in order to avoid plunging our hands into the rough-edged plastic terrain between the infant seat and the bigger seat every time the oldest sits in her seat (because she uses the adult harness now) but otherwise, we were able to get all three in without making any significant changes to our automotive lifestyle.  When I drive to work now, I'll be in the ultimate carpool machine!

With any luck, baby won't make his big debut for a few more days, and I'll have time to find the perfect diaper bag on Craigslist.  I've been wanting a Petunia Pickle Bottom backpack one, and they're on sale at Nordstrom right now.  But I haven't bought anything new for baby yet, and I'd love to stay true to that intention in every way possible.

Spring Ahead

It's a little early to be thinking about the garden (we've let it go wild for the winter) but this post on Apartment Therapy caught my eye, and lit up my inspiration engine.

Gardening Without a Garden

Although we have space in the community garden, I love these creative options for anybody who doesn't have a yard or a community space nearby.

The Story of Stuff

The Story of Stuff, by Annie Leonard, isn't anything new, but it's definitely an important way to spend twenty minutes if you've never seen it before.  I like to watch it once a year, right after the holiday frenzy, to re-ground myself.  Anyone who shops should give it a view.

Here it is, on YouTube:

The Story of Stuff

And, if you feel like learning a little more, here's the link to The Story of Stuff website:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

How much of a hold does the Golden Arrow have on you?