Sometimes it seems difficult to determine the right steps to becoming a more sustainable San Diego. Environmental issues like water conservation, energy efficiency, and waste management seem like huge tasks to try to address but it may actually not take a lot to be green. A simple way to create a more sustainable San Diego is by reducing our refuse – or in other words, wasting less with One Less Mess.
How Can I Help? Season 2, Episode 4: One Less Mess (Reduce Consumption)
More or Less (Summary)
To learn how to waste less start by discovering more about an exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum called Water: A California Story.
Follow Dr. Michael Hager, President of the Museum and Host, Ronnie Das to some great ways to conserve our most vital natural resource, water.
After that its off to the waterfront to see how the Port of San Diego is proving less is more with the Green Business Challenge. See all the exciting innovations and idea that are enhancing the local economy by creating less waste, increasing energy efficiency, consuming water sustainably, and reducing air pollution.
The Port of San Diego is an economic engine in the region, environmental steward in the community, and leader in raising awareness on opportunities that encourage the very tenants of sustainability.
General Dynamics NASSCO has been implementing green practices and sustainable solutions in its operations before the Port Green Business Challenge, but has successfully implemented many new techniques to ensure environmental quality at there facility.
Located on San Diego Bay and building ships for commercial customers and the U.S. Navy since 1960 this full service shipyard is the only major shipyard on the West Coast conducting new construction and repair.
Get back to shore with Dr. Michael Hager who explains all about ways to save water with simple and sustainable Green Yourself Tips.
Than see how you can be green when you Think Blue. Storm Water Pollution Prevention is a great way to keep our oceans clean. Every time it rains many beaches are shut down because of bacteria and pollution from urban and rural human activities.
Think Blue is an education and outreach program as a part of the City of San Diego Storm Water Department to raise awareness on storm water issues. The main misconception in storm water pollution is that many people don’t know that the storm drains are not connected to the sewer system. Anything that goes into the storm drain system goes directly to the ocean, but when we Think Blue we are green and helping the environment by reducing our Storm Water pollution.
All Aboard as we take this trip through San Diego to see how to reduce our use of water and create One Less Mess.
Reduce Resources
The most important aspects for a sustainable San Diego is our ability to
preserve our natural resources by creating less waste, increasing energy efficiency, consuming water sustainably, and reducing air pollution.
Sounds like a challenge, but its pretty easy when you consider that by using or doing less you get more. Reducing our consumption of natural resources to a sustainable level is convenient, simple, and great for our community.
1. Reduce Air Pollution by taking Public Transportation
2. Natural Cotton Fiber insulation diverts denim out of the landfill and safely processes the blue jeans into a superior insulating product.
3. Increase Energy Efficiency by maintaining an air leak free home.
4. Remember to leave lights off when not being used and replace lower efficiency incandescent or CFL lightbulbs with LEDs.
5. Maintain air filters to uphold HVAC efficiency in every season.
6. Low flow flushing reduces water consumption
7. An air conditioner set at 70 can double the operation cost of setting the thermostat at 78.
8. Energy Star products are efficient appliances. Many rebates and rewards to lower costs for upgrading your home or office appliances.
9. You bought a house not a tent, maintain that comfortable room temperature with efficient windows.
10. Collect rain water during the winter to provide a “summer storm” for your garden to save water and sustain your landscape.
11. Sunny San Diego is Sustainable on Solar Power. Get an estimate on solar panels at your home and office to save green while saving green.
12. Create semi-permeable outdoor walkways so water does not pick up pollutants from your home and simply run off into the storm water system.
By breaking down the environmental issues and trying a few simple Green Yourself Tips its possible to help create a more sustainable San Diego.
The Issue:
Every year, Americans throw away 50 billion food and drink cans, 27 billion glass bottles and jars, and 65 million plastic and metal jar and can covers.
More than 30% of our waste is packaging materials. With packaging materials new opportunities for “old” stuff to end up in the landfill becomes more likely.
Where does it all go? Some 85% of our garbage is sent to a dump, or landfill, where it can take from 100 to 400 years for things like cloth and aluminum to decompose. Glass has been found in perfect condition after 4,000 years in the earth!
We are quickly running out of space. It’s time to learn the three R’s of the environment: reduce, reuse, recycle. Then practice what you preach: don’t buy things you don’t need or items that come in wasteful packaging or that cannot be recycled. Reuse and recycle whatever you can. I’m not saying sleep in a tent (unless you want to), but bringing your own thermos to the coffee shop doesn’t hurt.
Green Yourself Tips
Reducing Waste
Look at the tips and strategies below and find out how to reduce the amount of waste your home or business sends to the landfill.
Buy products that don’t have a lot of packaging. Some products are wrapped in many layers of plastic and paperboard even though they don’t need to be. You can also look for things that are packed in materials that don’t require a lot of energy or resources to produce. Some products will put that information right on their labels.
Sustainability Statistics The average person in the United States generates 4.5 pounds of trash every day, resulting in about 1.5 tons of solid waste per person, per year. Multiply that number by the population of the United States (over 310 million) and you get a lot of trash!
Instead of buying something you’re not going to use very often, see if you can borrow it from someone you know.
Start a compost bin. Some people set aside a place in their yard where they can dispose of certain food and plant materials. Over time, the materials will break down through a natural process called decomposition. The compost is good for the soil in your yard and means that less garbage will go to the landfill.
Sustainability Statistics Americans generate 21.5 million tons of food waste annually. If it were composted, the resulting reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would be equivalent to taking more than 2 million cars off the road.
Composting can help reduce your waste stream, save money, and provide any green-thumbed employees with nutrient rich soil.
You can reduce waste by using a computer! Many newspapers and magazines are online now. Instead of buying the paper versions, you can find them on the Internet. Also remember that you should print out only what you need. Everything you print that you don’t really need is a waste of paper.
Sustainability Statistics In 2005 alone, 63 million computers became obsolete and it is estimated that less than one-fifth of all obsolete computers are reused or recycled. It’s illegal to throw electronic waste, or e-waste, in the trash! Energize e-waste recycling at your business by providing centralized recycling bins for cell phones, used printer cartridges, alkaline batteries, and other e-waste materials.
Lots of families receive a large number of advertisements and other junk mail that they do not want. You can stop the mailings and reduce waste by writing to the following address and requesting that they take your name off of their distribution list:
Direct Marketing Association Mail Preference Service
P.O. Box 9008 Farmingdale, NY 11735-9008
Eco- Deputy
Create a fun family event for your kids to become Eco-Deputies and learn how to reduce waste by understanding the type of waste and potential leads for there point-source pollution investigation. This activity develops a strong sense of self confidence for any child while also instilling family values for a more environmentally-conscious and responsible son or daughter.
Parents, treat your children with this awesome environmental activity:
You can even ask your waste hauler for the volume of waste collected from your home, apartment, or building over the past 12 months to establish a baseline of your waste output. Now your kids can walk through and search for clues on how to decrease waste and increase opportunities for recycling.
Talk to friends, family and neighbors to support your son or daughter efforts to take action and fight waste.
Challenge your family or business to reduce waste by setting waste reduction goals. This can lead to developing home or office “green games” where teams compete to see who can throw away the least and recycle the most. Ensuring success is much easier if the task is convenient and fun, don’t make waste reduction another chore for your family or yourself, make it a fun learning tool for saving, respecting property, helping the environment, and involving your community.
Sustainability Statistics Less than 1% of all plastics products are recycled in the U.S., with Americans throwing away 25 million plastic beverage bottles every hour! Eliminate “one-use” dishware, filter water at home and make sure everyone has access to refillable water bottles and mugs. Free your company up from a Styrofoam standard lunch with and encourage healthy home made brown bag meals. If your already bringing your own meals try encouraging co-workers to bring dishes, mugs, and refillable bottles from home to really keep your office green.
Reduce is the easiest and most overlooked aspect of the environment. When reducing consumption we preserve our natural resources to help sustain the environment we enjoy, San Diego.
Water Conservation Strategies
Improve your businesses performance by adopting water saving techniques, strategies, and technologies, many of which are simple, convenient and low-cost if not free.
Sustainability Statistic One leaky faucet can waste more than 237 gallons of water per month.
Manage the water you consume by understanding the water you waste. Take a tour of your home or office with a notepad to identify areas that can benefit from easy maintenance by saving water and money to create a checklist of simple solutions in water conservation.
Do you have any landscaping or water features? Enhance the irrigation system with improved water efficiency by installing a drip irrigation system, drought-tolerant plant species, and weather monitoring systems.
Further explore the water saving possibilities of upgrading kitchens and washroom water efficiency for the greatest opportunity for water conservation in apartments or commercial buildings!
Check out the strategies and quick tips to see how you can conserve water.
Residential Water Conservation
Coffee Filters
We have a whole section of our website dedicated to Coffee Filters, what gives? Well it turns out coffee filters are very inexpensive and underutilized. Check out some of the facts and tips below to see if you can lower your impact with this easy, cheap, and efficient paper towel substitute.
COFFEE FILTERS
Go figure you can buy 1,000 for about a $1.00, even the large ones.
1. Cover bowls or dishes when cooking in the microwave. Coffee filters make excellent covers. This avoids cleaning a mess in your microwave.
2. Clean windows, mirrors, and chrome… Coffee filters are lint-free so they’ll leave windows sparkling.
3. Protect China by separating your good dishes with a coffee filter between each dish.
4. Filter broken cork from wine. If you break the cork when opening a wine bottle, filter the wine through a coffee filter.
5. Protect a cast-iron skillet. Place a coffee filter in the skillet to absorb moisture and prevent rust.
6. Apply shoe polish. Ball up a lint-free coffee filter.
7. Recycle frying oil. After frying, strain oil through a sieve lined with a coffee filter.
8. Weigh chopped foods. Place chopped ingredients in a coffee filter on a kitchen scale.
9. Hold tacos. Coffee filters make convenient wrappers for messy foods.
10. Stop the soil from leaking out of a plant pot. Line a plant pot with a coffee filter to prevent the soil from going through the drainage holes.
11. Moms, Prevent a Popsicle from dripping. Poke one or two holes as needed in a coffee filter.
12. Using expensive strips to wax eyebrows? Use strips of coffee filters..
13. Put a few in a plate and put bacon, French Fries, chicken fingers, etc on them… It soaks out the grease.
14. Keep in the bathroom. They make great “razor nick fixers.” Most filming days coffee filter on my face before we shoot!!!
15. As a sewing backing. Use a filter as an easy-to-tear backing for embroidering or appliqueing soft fabrics.
16. Put baking soda into a coffee filter and insert into shoes or a closet to absorb or prevent odors.
17. Use them to strain soup stock and to tie fresh herbs in to put in soups and stews.
18. Use a coffee filter to prevent spilling when you add fluids to your car.
19. Use them as a spoon rest while cooking and clean up small counter spills.
20. Can use them to hold dry ingredients when baking or when cutting a piece of fruit or veggies… Saves on having extra bowls to wash.
21. Use them to wrap Christmas ornaments for storage.
22. Use them to remove fingernail polish when out of cotton balls.
23. Use them to sprout seeds. Simply dampen the coffee filter, place seeds inside, fold it and place it into a zip-lock plastic bag until they sprout.
24. Use coffee filters as blotting paper for pressed flowers. Place the flowers between two coffee filters and put the coffee filters in phone book..
25. Use as a disposable “snack bowl” for popcorn, chips, etc.
OH YEAH!
THEY ARE GREAT TO USE IN COFFEE MAKERS
If you use coffee filters in the ways described above (also remembering not to use harsh products when cleaning) than coffee filters are great in compost. So it also reduces waste in landfills.
I got this tip from parts of an e-mail I received from Robin Yam about Coffee Filters and I found it very useful, thanks Robin.
Bottom Line: Better Than Paper Towels And A Lot Less Expensive…
The production and disposal of paper products places several burdens on the environment. Deforestation, air and water pollution from pulp mills, high energy and water use in production and recycling, and consumption of landfill space are notable environmental issues that arise from paper use.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claims that 34 percent of solid waste is made up of paper. Half of that paper is then recycled or composted; the rest ends up in landfills, where it decomposes very slowly.
One Time Only
Paper towels are used only once and then discarded. They’re then thrown in the trash and, ultimately, a landfill.
Effects of Bleaching
Many brands of paper towels are bleached. Dioxin is a byproduct of the bleaching process, and it can cause birth defects and cancer.
Towels From Recycled Paper
As an option to bleached paper towels, some brands are made from recycled materials. They cut down on the waste and take less energy to produce. Paper towels cannot be recycled after use.
Plain as paper facts…
–The paper industry is the 3rd largest contributor to climate change.
-The average American discards of 700 pounds or more of paper each year.
–If every household in the U.S. used just one less 70-sheet roll of virgin fiber paper towels, that would save 544,000 trees each year. Change that to using three less rolls per U.S. household per year, and that would save 120,000 tons of waste and $4.1 million in landfill dumping fees.
-Your typical paper towel is manufactured using chlorine, which releases carcinogenic dioxins and furans.
Thanks for learning about the issue, here’s a bonus tip:
If you use 1 part vinegar and 4 parts water it can be used as a cleaning solution for most surfaces in your home. If you add lemon to that cocktail you’ve got a fresh smelling laundry detergent and a good base for salad dressing.
This helpful tip comes from Lisa Cunningham of Olive Branch Green Building Supply in Episode 3: De-Constructing Construction