Chandra Clarke's Blog, page 6

Better Laundry

As much as I’ve tried to escape it, laundry remains an inescapable part of life. In this section, we’re going to look at ways to make laundry lower impact.

Eco-Friendly Detergents

The detergent you use in your laundry can have a huge impact on the environment. Choose detergents with biodegradable ingredients that won’t pollute local water sources or cause harm to wildlife. Avoid phthalates and chlorine bleach, which can be toxic to aquatic ecosystems. Look for products labeled “green” or maybe “natural,” and always check labels carefully before deciding what to buy, to avoid greenwashed claims. (Also remember that “natural” isn’t automatically better. Lava is natural. So are very large tigers. You wouldn’t want either of these in your laundry room.)

Consider avoiding synthetic fragrances. Not only are there are increasing number of people allergic to these things (I’m one of them!), there is some evidence to suggest that they may not be good for us.

Wash Clothes Less Frequently

We all want our clothes to be clean and fresh, but you might be washing your clothes too often. Unless you work in a manual labour job where you’re sweating a lot or exposed to a lot of odours that cling to you, chances are you don’t need to throw them in the wash after one trip out of the closet. This is also true of your bath towels. You’re theoretically clean when you come out of the shower, so you can simply make sure your towel can air dry easily and only throw it in the wash after several uses. You’ll save energy, water, and money on soap. Not to mention time doing laundry…

Use Free Drying Solutions

If you have the time and space, you can hang your clothes up on a line to air dry them, or use one of those indoor drying racks. If you’re like me and are super pressed for time, consider investing in a solar panel and battery setup to provide power for this energy intensive appliance. Speaking of which…

Energy Ratings For the Win

If you’re in the market for a washer or dryer (or both) make sure you’re selecting for high efficiency ratings. Avoid natural gas powered appliances, because methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and the fewer opportunities for methane leaks there are, the better.

Consider Cold Water Washing

Most machines now come with settings for both hot and cold water temperatures when washing clothes but cold water can do just as good of a job. Make sure your detergent works in cold water. If you’re not convinced by cold water, try warm instead of hot. Compromise!

Ditch the Fabric Softener

This is one of things a lot of us buy reflexively because it’s how our parents did it, but unless you’re drying your clothes on the line… you don’t need it! Clothes come out of the dryer softened already as the tumble action ensures they don’t get stiff. Liquid fabric softener is rarely biodegradable and often laden with fragrances; dryer sheets are the same plus the sheets have to go in the garbage when you’re done.

But the static! I hear you cry. Dryer balls eliminate most of this problem. Get one or two wool dryer balls and chuck them into every load. They’re reusable and they may also reduce drying time, saving you money.

Washing Machine Lint

We’re used to thinking about the dryer lint trap, but washing machines generate lint too… and all of those clothing fibres go into the water system. Even if they’re natural fibres (more on that in a second), that’s a lot of lint going back out through your sewer. Check to see if your washing machine has a lint catcher, and if it doesn’t, consider purchasing one to add to laundry loads to reduce what gets washed out of your machine.

Ironing

I don’t know how many people actually iron their clothes anymore, but if you’re one of them, you can cut down on the amount of ironing you need to do by setting a timer on your phone (or elsewhere) and taking clothes out of the dryer when they’re still slightly damp. Hang them up immediately and you’ll avoid one major source of wrinkles: clothes sitting around in dryers.

Synthetic Fabrics?

Finally, let’s consider the clothes themselves. Synthetic fabrics — think polyester, nylon etc. — have many positives, but they’re not particularly earth friendly. They’re hard to recycle, so often end up in the dump, where they take decades to break down, if at all. Washing plastic-infused clothes releases micro plastics into our waterways, where they accumulate in ocean wildlife. As you replace your clothes, make sure your old clothes are properly disposed of and consider using natural fibres.

But What About Cotton? Isn’t it Bad?

It’s true that cotton processing, especially when it comes to making jeans, is a particularly water-intensive affair. Dying cotton makes use of a lot of chemicals that aren’t always handled properly or treated before going back into our rivers, streams and lakes.

On the plus side of the equation, cotton clothes do last pretty much forever with care (think of how many ancient t-shirts there are in your closet right now), so the water costs are at least amortized over a number of years. And it is possible, with a little work, to source from clothiers that are making an effort to clean up their chemical processes and reduce water use.

You can also look into clothing made from hemp fibres and bamboo as alternatives. These can be more expensive to purchase up front, but we’ll talk about wearing them long term and discuss fashion choices in a minute. Just as with your detergents, watch out for green washing. Just because something is made from one of these fibre sources doesn’t mean it’s made in a sustainable way. Take a bit of time to look into the company and their practices. Which brings me to…

Clothes Should Be an Investment

For too long now, we’ve considered clothes to be ‘disposable.’ We’re encouraged by clothing retailers and fashion magazines to change our look almost weekly, and the pace of trends (short hem, long hem, skinny jeans, low riders?) seems to have increased.

Worse, some retailers engage in horrifically wasteful practices. This season’s summer tops? If they don’t sell, they often are deliberately destroyed by floor staff (who are following corporate policy) and head to the dumpster rather than a charity shop. It wouldn’t do to have ‘the look’ of the moment just given to the poors, you see.

So… I would encourage you to ditch fast fashion too. Consider clothing a long term investment. Buy pieces that you can mix and match in a large number of combinations, but resist the urge to follow the latest trend.

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Five Interesting Things – January 2023

Welcome to the January 2023 version of FIT. It’s a short round up of things I’ve found that are: potentially actionable, inspiring, thought-provoking. Hey – if you enjoy my blog posts, please share them with people in your network and suggest they subscribe.

3D printing … wood? – Using cells from the common zinnia, researchers have been able to “bio-print” wooden pieces of any shape and size. This means that, just like with 3d printing in plastic or metal, we may soon see whole tables printed out as one solid piece. Star Trek replicators, anyone?

Eggsellent news – Princeton researchers have transformed egg whites, of all things, into a water-filtration aerogel that can remove almost all of the micro plastics from a sample of seawater. As you may have heard, micro plastics are so ubiquitous in our environment, we’re eating a credit card’s worth on the regular. Blech. Finding a sustainable way to clean up this mess is a big deal.

Biiiiig truck – One of the ‘arguments’ I see against renewable energy online is that it’s supposedly a sham because you need fossil fuels to mine raw materials and manufacture the components for wind turbines, solar panels, geothermal etc. People putting this argument forward seem unaware that you need to use the existing system to create a new system, and that it’s called a ‘transition’ for a reason. This link is one more piece of the puzzle: Caterpillar has developed an electric version of its massive 793 mining truck. While it’s likely to be a while before these supplant the diesel version, it’s a step in the right direction.

Mi casa su… battery? – Cement is also everywhere in our lives, and the production of it is a major source of carbon dioxide emissions. However, future cement installations may be much more beneficial as they could store energy. That’s right, cement batteries.

Liver regeneration – A biotech company has worked out how to grow ‘mini-livers’ to supplement the work of a damaged or diseased liver. When they injected hepatocytes from a donated liver into a lymph node, the cells received distress signals from the ailing liver and began growing, and taking over the lymph node. Over time, the lymph node is replaced by a miniature liver. This tech is still a long way from clinical usefulness, so please don’t take it as license to drink like a fish, ‘kay?

What did you think? Let me know in the comments.

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A small town solution

It’s well known that big cities have lots of problems. They tend to be overcrowded, dirty, noisy, and just basically nasty to live in.

The problems seem intractable. People are generally stubborn about urban living; they absolutely insist on living somewhere there is employment, entertainment, opportunities and other people to chum with. Go figure. 

These are not just minor inconveniences, either. There are a number of studies on the effects of urban living on humans, and most of them are not good. Stress, pollution, loneliness all have serious consequences for our mental health. We need to work out how to mitigate these issues. That is, before the rest of the planet moves into suburbia.

Part of the problem is that cities — especially North American cities — are concrete monstrosities. We’ve built out instead of up, and in most cases, given over far too much space to parking lots instead of parks. We don’t spend much time outside because outside is unpleasant and it takes too long to walk or bike anywhere.

As we rebuild older structures, we need to contract inward, replacing strip malls with smaller footprint buildings, making 3-6 floor apartment buildings instead of either looming towers or dismal fourplexes. And we need much, much, more green space. Electrifying our transit systems and working toward better public transit should help address that. In my book Echoes of Another, I posit a fleet of public, shared electric cars for the ‘last mile’ of public transit, but we also need electric buses and either electric or hydrogen trains.

We’ve also built anonymous, unfriendly places. The fix here might lie in changing our perceptions. For example, instead of looking at cities a single, sprawling complex, maybe should start thinking of it in terms of a bunch of small towns stuck together.

I say this because of an incident that happened in my town over one summer many years ago. It was hot of course, the nights were long, and the local teenagers were bored. The local park was quite vacant between midnight and 6 a.m., and so it was a perfect target for vandalism. Between burnt picnic tables, graffiti, and broken bottles in the swimming pool, the costs were adding up. Officials had tried staking out the park and calling the police, but the kids knew exactly when to scatter. For a while, it looked like the only solution was to shut down the park for good.

Then someone had the novel idea of approaching the teens to talk to them. The connection between the stuff they buy, taxes, and municipal budgets was explained. They were encouraged to think of how much more boredom they’d suffer from without the recreation facilities. Indeed, they were asked to think.

It worked. The older kids didn’t like the idea of a shutdown, so they agreed to try to prevent vandalism. The eldest one even began asking questions about municipal government, and the election process. 

From gang leader to town father? It could happen.

Obviously, it’s not as simple as all that. The “rational discussions” were helped a great deal by the fact that every one knew who the trouble makers were, and more importantly, where their parents lived. Not every kid is approachable either, and there are still incidents of vandalism — but not nearly as many as before.

The point is though, while you may not know who the problem people are fifteen blocks away — you likely have a good idea who they are in your own neighbourhood. Or to put it another way, your small town.

You see, small towns work because everyone knows everyone else. While 75% of the population might not give a darn about the welfare of the community, the top 25% do, and the size of the town is just enough for them to handle.

Cities meanwhile, suffer from anonymity. It’s not unusual for people to spend years in one place and not know a single neighbour. Nobody cares.

Certainly, we don’t want to develop some sort of Big Brother society, but there has got to be a compromise. Maybe there’s a good reason why you don’t want to associate with some of your neighbours; but even if just a few of you on each street get together to form those committees, the urban renewal groups, and the Optimist Clubs — that’s better than watching your community dissolve around you. 

Small town people sometimes complain that everyone knows their business, and that the rumours travel faster than they can in the car. However, small town people almost always say that their communities are the best places to live. Now you know why.

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In the Kitchen

The kitchen is arguably the centre of your home. It’s the modern day hearth; it’s where we ‘break bread.’ Let’s see where we can reduce our impact and save a lot of money to boot.

Reduce Your Use of Disposables

We’ve all been guilty of turning to disposables for convenience, but these items are major contributors to the global plastic pollution problem and the global waste problem. Worse, we’re literally throwing away money every time we use a disposable. Here’s a quick inventory of what you might be using and what you can replace them with:

Paper towels. These are fine for big spills, but should be used sparingly otherwise. Instead, use washable bar towels, wash down cloths, or even cheap face cloths for regular surface cleaning. We have a big pile of these and a little hamper for them in our laundry room to hold the dirty ones until a load of wash goes through. If you do buy paper towel, try to buy paper towel made of recycled paper, and consider disposing of it in the composter. Paper plates and cups. Because these are plastic or wax coated and/or have plastic cores, or worse, made of styrofoam, these are terrible. They use up a lot of resources, and generally aren’t recyclable, even if the packaging says they are, because recycling plants can’t deal with whatever might be stuck on them. Stick with the real stuff. Plastic wrap. I shudder to think how much single use plastic wrap is just lying about in dumps around the world. And there’s no need for it! Use sealable containers instead; either stuff you’ve saved from the grocery store and put into use, or specialized containers with lids. Not only are these easier to handle (how many times have you cursed the plastic wrap for sticking to itself?!) they come in a variety of sizes and can be properly washed to stay clean. You can also use beeswax wraps if you want something prettier to cover your dishes with. Shop Local and Buy In Season

When it comes to shopping for food, look no further than your local farmers market or grocery store. By shopping locally you’re cutting down on carbon emissions produced by transportation along with supporting small business owners in your community. Additionally, try to buy produce that is in season so you can avoid foods imported from other countries and reduce packaging waste.

Conserve Water

Water conservation is key if you want an eco-friendly kitchen. Turn off the faucet while washing dishes and use a bowl while washing fruits and vegetables instead of running them under water from the tap. You can also install low-flow aerators on sink faucets which will help conserve water without compromising efficiency or power. This will save on your water bill, and the water taste better too. Washing dishes? Dishwashers are actually more efficient, because they use high pressure jets and insulated heat to make water use more efficient.

Making Your Appliances Greener

The appliances in your kitchen are responsible for a large portion of your energy consumption. This means they have a significant effect on your carbon footprint. To reduce your environmental impact, opt for energy efficient models when replacing or buying new appliances. Look for those with an Energy Star rating which indicates that it is more efficient than other models on the market. Make sure you follow local guidelines for getting rid of old appliances so they are properly recycled.

… and No More Gas Stoves

While some cooks swear by gas-powered stoves, there’s an increasing body of evidence to suggest that they’re big contributors to indoor air pollution. Bad installs, or vents that haven’t been maintained properly, or forgetting to turn on the hood extraction fan when you cook: all of these can mean you may have small methane leaks, increased nitrogen dioxide, and trace quantities of benzene and other volatile organic compounds in your house. These can cause respiratory and other issues. And of course, methane (natural gas) is an extremely powerful greenhouse gas. The less we use it, the less we’re likely to release it into the atmosphere. Go electric.

Instant Hot Water Heater

Also known as tankless hot water heaters, these are much more efficient because they heat water as you need it, rather than keeping a large tank of water warm all the time. The upfront costs of these are still on the high side; you might want to see if there’s a government subsidy available to make the switch. The operational cost savings are great, though, and you don’t ever “run out” of hot water either.

Reducing Food Waste

Food waste is another major contributor to our carbon footprints, so reducing food waste should be a priority for anyone looking to make their kitchen more eco-friendly. Start by being mindful about how much food you buy and use — only buy what you need and try to use up all leftovers before they go bad! Composting food scraps is another great way to reduce waste — this helps break down organic material into nutrient-rich soil without releasing harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere like landfills do.

Composting doesn’t have to be complicated or hard work. We have a stainless steel bucket on our kitchen counter which holds our food waste. The lid fits tightly enough that it doesn’t smell; we empty it very two to three days. In our yard we have a simple tumble composter; we fill one side at a time and spin it every time we tip stuff into it. We also use a solar digester for overflow compost. The EPA maintains a list of what can and can’t be composted at home.

Opt For Sustainable Materials

Another way to make your kitchen more eco-friendly is by using sustainable materials when possible. For example, bamboo cutting boards are much better for the environment than plastic ones since they are biodegradable and compostable. Bamboo is also much stronger than wood so it will last longer and won’t require replacement as often. Renovating? You can also consider other sustainable materials such as cork or recycled glass for countertops or backsplashes instead of traditional tile or stone options.

Consider coconut “coir” or loofah scrubbies for dish cleaning, and bamboo handled utensils instead of plastic.

Lighting

Replace old light bulbs with LEDs: Replacing the traditional incandescent bulbs with energy efficient LED ones can help reduce your eco footprint. LEDs last longer than regular bulbs and use up to 85% less energy while providing the same amount of light. Make sure you dispose of these properly — they don’t go in the garbage.

Not in the room? Turn out the lights! If your family is objectively terrible about this, motion sensor switches might be a good investment. Pro-tip: don’t attempt to install these, or indeed anything electrical, yourself.

Cookware

Nonstick pans are convenient but there’s evidence to suggest that they do release toxic chemicals into the air and your food when heated. Look for eco-friendly cookware that is free of toxic chemicals like PFOA and non-toxic materials like cast iron, stainless steel, and ceramic.

Cleaning Products

Use eco-friendly cleaning products: Standard cleaning products often contain chemicals that can be damaging to the environment. Choose eco-friendly alternatives such as baking soda, vinegar, or natural soap instead. If you don’t have the time or patience to make and bottle your own eco friendly cleaners, there are an increasing number of these available at the grocery store. Even better, many of these come in large refill sizes.

Packaging, Packaging, Packaging

I saved this for last, not because it’s the least problematic issue in the kitchen. In fact, it’s the worst! But, it will take a bit of sustained effort on your part to whittle this down.

So much of what we bring home from the grocery store involves plastic these days. It’s disheartening. I’ve seen oranges that have been peeled and then put into plastic containers. I’ve seen cucumbers that are shrink-wrapped. All in the name of convenience, supposedly, although I don’t recall any customer petition asking for pre-peeled oranges. It’s one of those things marketed to us to sell more oranges… at the expense of the environment.

What can you do? Pick a product you regularly buy, and look at it more critically. Pasta, for example, typically comes in either a single use plastic bag, or a cardboard box. The cardboard box is at least recyclable. The plastic, not so much. Find a comparable brand that uses better packaging.

Tea bags… a lot of them now come in plasticized individual pouches, which is completely unnecessary. Once you open the box of tea bags, all you need to do is put them in an air tight tin to keep them fresh! So, pick another brand of tea that does better. (Also avoid those brands that have plastic tea bags!)

And so on, and so on. You get the idea. If you want to take it one step further, send a polite, but firm note to the company’s customer service centre and complain about their wasteful packaging. Tell them you’re not buying their product anymore and why.

Another way to reduce grocery store packaging is to buy in bulk, and buy refillable products. At the moment a lot of this stuff is only available at higher end or boutique style grocery shops. But some of the bigger chains are getting into this, so use it when you can.

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Coffee and civilization: coincidence?

Municipalities are having a tough time of these days, no doubt about it. Being the lowest on the governmental totem pole as they are, they get to bear the brunt of all those wonderful initiatives like `restructuring,’ `downsizing,’ and `social contracts.’ 

It works like this: first, the taxpayer puts the squeeze on the federal government for more services and less taxes. After making a few cuts, the federal government passes the worst of the problem on to the provinces. They promptly scream loudly about being “fiscally kneecapped,” make a few cuts themselves, and pass the problem onto the municipalities. Municipal governments, with no other level to pass it down to, are the ones who get to put the squeeze directly on the taxpayer.

Hmm. Put in that light, the whole thing looks rather circular all of a sudden doesn’t it?

Anyway, the municipal officials are the lucky devils who are as close to the people as any government is likely to get. Especially in small towns, where the mayor is likely to be your next door neighbour. In order to avoid being snarled at by an irate ratepayer while out raking the lawn, many of them spend long hours on their budget. They argue, make cuts wherever possible, sweat, empty out reserve funds, and pound the table. Finally, after a great deal of work, they come up with a budget with a 0% increase in taxes.

Only to have the local school boards tack on a 52% hike because they too, have been slashed by the provinces. 

The ratepayer, who only ever looks at the bottom line, goes and snarls at the lawn raker anyway. And deity help that mayor if the ratepayer hit a pothole on the way over. Actually, if I were a mayor, I’d make a point of removing all sharp objects from my backyard. I’d also keep a firm grip on my rake.

So, faced with federal and provincial cutbacks, a stack of bills, a long repair list, and a snarly tax base, what do officials do? A lot of them have discovered that the best way to handle the situation is to attract more people into the town. After all, filling a pothole will cost $50 no matter what. It’s easier though, to split the bill up between five people instead of two.

Thus, economic development departments are born. In some places, the method for attracting tourists and homeowners to a town consists of putting up a statue of a goose, so people can take those goofy “here I am in Anytown, Ontario” shots. In other places, it involves promoting some kind of festival, perhaps having something to do with cherry pits, or those spin-you-`til-you’re-sick midway rides.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some excellent departments out there, working hard on developing historical tours, great fishing spots, and attracting companies by the dozen. I only mention them because I of course, have a much better idea for making towns grow.

Start a coffee shop.

Yes, I’ve spent many long hours researching this, studying it from every conceivable angle. What I’ve discovered is that every town, no matter how tiny, or how big, has at least one coffee shop. The bigger the place, the more coffee shops there are. Coincidence? I think not.

In small towns, they take the form of a little hole-in-the-wall place, usually on main street, with a name like “Darlene’s” or “Mrs. G’s.” The men from the nearby farms come in first, early in the morning, wearing Pioneer Seed hats, and muddy boots. The women come in later, perhaps around 10 a.m., once their husbands are safely out of the way. It’s the place where the coffee is good, the gossip is better, and intractable problems like the Russian situation and the sports strikes are solved over a slice of pie.

In larger places, these cornerstones of population growth take the form of the doughnut franchise, but the principle is the same. Coffee shops are the seeds of civilization.

Recent archeological discoveries prove it. At a dig at one of the world’s first permanent settlements in Ancient Sumeria, scientists have discovered a remarkable store front sign that has the words “Kaffkei Mujj Isa.” Loosely translated, that means “coffee sold here.”

So economic developers take note: skip the fish fry, and start a coffee shop.

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5 Interesting Things – November 2022

It’s time for the November 2022 edition of 5 Interesting Things. It’s a short round up of things I’ve found that are: potentially actionable, inspiring, thought-provoking.

AI Art – The AI here stands for artificial intelligence, and “AI art” means art created by computers. The image on this post is what an AI system came up with when I asked it, using just word prompts, to produce an image about androids dreaming of electric sheep. (Sci-fi readers will recognize this as riff on the title of a Philip K Dick novel.) Yes, you read that right. All I had to do is write what I wanted it to create, and it drew something for me.

Produced just a few weeks ago, my image is already “outdated” in terms of what AI systems can come up with. For example, someone came up with these fake Zelda posters, which supposedly showed stars like Tom Holland and Emma Watson in an upcoming Netflix series. I’ve seen Snoop Dogg rendered as Yoda (Facebook link), and knitted spiders (Facebook link) in realistic jungle scenes. The first link goes to a gallery of all sorts of images.

The implications here are pretty staggering. First, real vs fake is going to be even harder to discern. I’m in a bunch of AI art groups, and I saw when someone created a cat with snake skin. It appeared in someone’s Facebook feed just a few weeks later labelled as an exotic wild cat in Asia. Another creation, cartoon style cats rendered in a mosaic style, showed up later as a “fantastic new discovery” at Pompeii. (There are cats in ancient mosaics. But they’re definitely not in modern cartoons styles and colours.)

Second, this is going to make a total mess out of image copyrights. You can prompt the AI to do images in the style of hundreds of artists, many of them still alive and trying to earn money from their craft. Not only can the AI render hundreds of images in ‘the style of’ a living artist in a matter of minutes, but it will reduce the market for commissioned art.

On the positive side, it is unleashing a torrent of creativity, allowing mothers to create beautiful custom picture books for their children, game players to create things like decks of cards, and we may finally say goodbye to terrible stock photos, like the ridiculous “woman laughing alone with salad” or “scientist with science-y lab coat surrounded by beakers full of coloured liquid.” And for people like me, with zero talent for art and even less patience for learning it, I can finally translate what’s in my head onto a screen with reasonable accuracy in a fairly short amount of time.

Moving on now to…

Autobrewery Syndrome – The human body is hella weird. Apparently, there’s a rare syndrome wherein your own gut can ferment the carbohydrates you eat, giving you a tummy full of booze. All of the intoxication, none of the fun of a decent glass of Bordeaux.

Sewage Treatment Reimagined – Speaking of tummies, here’s how one group has been inspired by cow digestive systems to come up with a better sewage treatment system. Not a sexy topic, to be sure, but a critical one. With 8 billion of us and counting, not to mention all our livestock and pets, we need better, cleaner, more efficient poop management methods.

Sand Batteries – We’re finally decarbonizing and electrifying, but one of the technical hurdles on this journey is energy storage. Current battery tech has come a long way in the last ten years, but batteries are still heavy and not as energy dense as they could be. Community and house level storage systems are going to be critical. Enter this ‘sand battery’ which stores … heat!

Artificial Photosynthesis – Can you grow plants in complete darkness? As of now, the answer is yes. The technique outlined in the article has implications for indoor farming and energy conservation.

Tell me what you think of this month’s selections in the comments!

Image credit: Midjourney AI

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Getting From Point A to B

When we talk about cars — and transportation in general — we have to recognize that the benefits they offer are real, and that the solutions proffered by some environmentalists aren’t universally applicable or practical.

For example, the admonition to “just use a bike instead” only works if you:

Are fit and healthy enough to use a bikeIt’s safe and reasonable to use a bike You can afford the extra time it takes to get to destinationsThe weather conditions are reasonable

A single mother suffering from asthma, living in a smoggy city with long winters, is probably not going to be able to cycle to work very often, if at all. (To say nothing of bicycle theft being a very real problem!)

At the other end of the spectrum, driving electric is an option open to more people than ever before. It’s still fairly expensive to buy in, though, and again, it’s not universally available. And depending on how your local power supply is generated, it might not be the greenest option available… yet. 

So, let’s go over what you can do to be greener on the transportation front.

Easy and Cheap

The first recourse is simply: do it less! You can use your existing vehicles less often by:

Grouping errands and trips and not giving into the temptation to just “run out for something”Changing up your standard routes. Are there ways to get where you’re going that are even slightly shorter? Involve less idling? Remember the law of numbers. Even if you only cut a couple of minutes off a trip, if it’s one you’re always making, those few minutes add up to significant savings over time.Skipping the drive thru. Unless your vehicle is newer and shuts off to avoid idling, you spew a lot of pollution (and waste a lot of money in gas over time) grabbing that morning coffee. Park and go in, or make something to go at home.Take public transit when you can – and advocate for more public transit where you liveAnd yes, walk or bike when you canCarpool when you can — including with your life partner. Two-vehicle families have become the norm, and you might not actually need two. Push back on calls for meetings and pickups. The pandemic forced us to reconsider how often we really need to get together in person. Lots of meetings work just as well on Zoom or Skype, plus you don’t have to spend the time or be stressed by travelling. Likewise, lots of things, like paperwork, can be sent by email or if signatures are required, using things like HelloSign. Whenever possible, push to do things remotely and virtually Definitely cut back on the number of flights you take. A lot of business travel by plane is also unnecessary, and especially in Europe, short hops by plane are better replaced by train trips.

When it’s Time to Replace the Car

Buy only what you need. Take a hard look at how you actually use your existing vehicle. How many people do you have in it at any given time? How much cargo do you routinely transport? Where do you drive it? We get sold based on things like off-road capability and towing capacity, but what do we really do with our cars? Probably go back and forth — alone — to work and the grocery store. Worse, we pay through the nose for all that unused capacity: in gas bills, insurance bills, maintenance bills, and yes, the environmental cost. Remember: you can always rent a vehicle for special needs or trips!Buy used. With stricter quality control processes and inspections for emissions standards, there are fewer “beaters” or “lemons” on the road these days, and you should be able to find a reliable used vehicle. There’s no need to continue to fuel the demand for “new, new, new!” while perfectly viable cars sit around in lots. You’ll save on the overall purchase price, on interest costs if you’re financing, and insurance as well.Buy based on best mileage for the class. Buy hybrid. If electric is not yet an option for you, then do go hybrid, as there’s really no reason not to these days. Yes, they’ll feel a bit different to drive at first, but you’ll get used to it soon enough — especially when you can make a tank of gas last for much, much longer. Incidentally, you’ll be able to get better prices for gas because your window to refill is so much longer. 

Please Do Take a Look at Electric

First, in the interest of full disclosure, I personally drive electric, and have done so since 2017. 

If you haven’t considered electric before now, you should. And when I say consider, I mean: talk to actual electric vehicle (EV) owners (or lurk in their online forums), read about the vehicle specs, take a few different models for a test drive. 

I say this because there is a lot of old information and/or deliberate misinformation about EVs online. I get it: new technology can make you feel uncertain, we have a culture that celebrates gas-powered vehicles, and oil and gas companies aren’t going to go down without a fight. Here’s a list of common objections/myths about EVs.

We don’t have the charging infrastructure yet

Depending on where you live, you might be surprised. Take a look at the Plugshare app, and look at the Tesla supercharger network. Charging stations are popping up all over the place. Charging stations are appearing at malls, and tourist destinations.

And, in case it’s not clear, most EV owners actually do the vast majority of their charging at home, overnight. Being able to charge on the road only comes into play if you’re taking a road trip or have an extra long commute (and if you do, maybe it’s time to reconsider that if you can). Obviously, this currently favours homeowners who have a garage or car port or some such, but apartment and condo buildings are increasingly offering charging spots as well. 

The range is no good

As of this writing, a Tesla Model 3 has a range of 353 miles or 560 kilometres. The American Driving Survey says that the average person drives about 29 miles a day. 

They’re no good in the cold

It’s true that battery performance is affected by the cold. You can temporarily lose a fair amount of potential range when temperatures plummet. However, given what I noted above about total available range vs average range actually driven, there’s still a lot of margin. You can also do things like warm up the car before your trip, recharge at one end, and use the seat heater to stay nice and toasty (rather than more inefficient cabin heat). I live in Canada, and have been through several winters with mine. (Side note: the weight distribution in my EV is awesome for snow driving, as it’s evenly balanced over the chassis, rather than being all under the trunk).

Consider this: Norway has the highest market penetration of electric vehicles per capita in the world, and also has the world’s largest plug-in segment market share of new car sales, 74.7% in 2020⁠1. Other top markets for EVs include Sweden and Iceland.

They take too long to charge

For the most part, you will be plugging your vehicle in overnight, or while you’re doing something else (like shopping at the mall). On longish road trips, you’re going to want to stop for coffee, bathroom breaks, meals and leg stretches anyways. A little bit of planning takes care of both things at once. 

The actual charge time will depend on the charger and the car.  Older models of both will take longer; my car takes about 45 minutes to get to near total capacity on the supercharger network. Newer generation fast chargers and batteries can get to 80% capacity in about 15 minutes.  Cooling cable technology aims to get that down to five minutes.

They’re not actually greener

This is a common myth. Although it’s true that a new electric vehicle and a new fossil fuel car both incur carbon footprints to manufacture them, a fossil fuel car will emit pollutants for it’s whole life. Where the electrical grid is “clean,” the electric vehicle doesn’t go on to emit more pollutants. And recent studies suggest that even cars plugged into ‘dirty’ grids have better carbon footprints. A battery recycling infrastructure is developing as more and more EVs are on the road too. 

Child labour and mining pollution

In social media comments, you quite often see claims about child labour with respect to EV battery components like lithium and cobalt, which come from mines. Strangely, these arguments are typically used to argue against EVs by people who are posting comments with devices that use lithium-ion batteries. Or who are unaware that cobalt is used in the desulfurization of oil. 

Child labour and pollution are things to be concerned about, however, and we should definitely push international governments to enforce existing laws on such things in every industry. EV manufacturers have also made efforts to source their elements from responsible regions, and to eliminate cobalt from their supply chains altogether.

They’re expensive

The price to performance ratio has definitely been on the high side… until recently. As more and more people have gone EV, the price has come down, while performance has gone up. Prices will continue to drop as the big car manufacturers (finally) get serious about producing EVs. 

There may also be government rebates available in your region, so check that out. When calculating cost of ownership, remember that in addition to not needing gas, you also don’t need a lot of the maintenance gas cars require – oil changes, muffler fixes, catalytic converter replacement, etc. 

The grid won’t handle it if we all switch/we need to wait for the grid to be upgraded

It’s true that we’ll eventually need to upgrade our electrical infrastructure; however, upgrades don’t happen without demand pushing them, so if everyone is ‘waiting,’ upgrades will never happen.

It’s also the case that we’re going to need to upgrade the grid one way or the other. Bitcoin mining, for example, is already using a lot of juice in places like Texas, while cryptocurrency itself currently only benefits a small number of wealthy traders.

Meanwhile, climate change is making everything hotter, and we’re going to need to keep our indoor spaces cooler as a result. Climate change fuelled natural disasters are going to disrupt a lot of infrastructure, so building a grid that is far more resilient and has a lot more redundancy is going to be critical over the next couple of decades. 

What happens when emergency X happens?

People who like to argue against EVs online have a fondness for invoking extreme situations as the reason why EVs can’t possibly work.

One popular scenario is a natural disaster that results in power loss. These are a cause for concern … for every motorist. Gas pumps run on electricity, so if there’s no juice, gas car drivers looking to fill up are out of luck too. And someone who has charging capability at home is actually far more likely to “have a full tank” in a sudden emergency because plugging in overnight is a habit EV drivers get into. Meanwhile, Ford has been marketing it’s electric truck as capable of powering a house for several days in the event of a large grid failure, so it effectively becomes backup power. 

Another popular concern is being stranded in a snowstorm. In a big enough snow storm, all drivers are equally pooched, and everyone will need digging out and towing. Ironically, because EV drivers don’t need to run their engines to run their heaters, they’re likely to stay warm for longer, because they’re using less energy overall.

A more common scenario of concern is being stranded by the side of the road. Again, this is also a concern for fossil car drivers. Millions of people run out of gas on the road every year, and also suffer breakdowns if their car is older or not well maintained. 

As an EV has fewer points of failure, you’re less likely to be stranded due to a breakdown, and you avoid running out of juice by planning ahead, just like you try to avoid the same situation in a fossil car by checking the gauge periodically. In the short term, EVs will need towing if they do run out of juice, but in the medium term, we’ll build out mobile charging infrastructure in the same way as we have emergency fuel services through towing companies. 

The batteries die fast and are super expensive to replace

This is another common claim, and sometimes the contention is that the batteries cost more than the car to replace. 

It’s simply not true of current EVs. EV batteries are now warrantied for 8-10 years, and most owners who were early adopters are finding that even previous generations of batteries are lasting much longer than that. 

Once your battery does need replacing (and these typically head for recycling plants), your cost to replace will be equivalent or less than the cost of a small used car. And that’s at battery prices at time of writing. Again, costs will go down as big manufacturers get into the game.

The government wants us all in EVs so they can control where we go!

This is a weird one, but surprisingly common (thanks, Internet). The thinking here seems to be either that you can only go on certain routes in EVs (not true), or that EVs are somehow able to be taken over by mysterious government force because… electricity? I don’t know, it’s never made clear. But given that fossil cars are also loaded with onboard computers and GPS tracking systems, if the government truly wanted to stop you from driving via hacking, they could do that now. Or, you know, just make it illegal to drive.

A corollary to this one is that an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack would prevent you from driving. Again, in this situation, fossil cars would also be disabled by an EMP attack, as would every other computerized system in the vicinity. 

But hydrogen!

Hydrogen powered vehicles will probably be part of our future too. As I write this, it looks like hydrogen will be more practical for bigger vehicles and transportation systems, and right now, there isn’t enough infrastructure for the average driver to consider switching. That may change rapidly or it may take years. 

However, given the very, very short runway we have to decarbonize our economy, I would suggest you switch to EV now, and if hydrogen becomes viable at some point and it works for you, consider it then. The goal here is to stop dumping CO2 into the atmosphere as quickly as possible. We don’t have time to wait.

You can’t build EVs without gas and oil, therefore it’s a sham!

Oy. This one is just annoying. 

In a transition period, like the one we’re in, you still have to use the old system to produce the components of the new system. Much like the first car factories and rail lines were built with the help of horses. Enough said.

One other thing to consider

As of 2020, it was possible to do a cannonball run across the entire span of Canada (the world’s second largest country), in the winter, in a Tesla Model 3. There have been similar runs in the US.

The takeaway here is that in 2020 the technology and infrastructure already existed for that to happen. 

The second takeaway here is that, on the EV front at least, things have only gotten better since then, and will continue to get better in the years to come.

People tend to think that the way things are now are the way they always will be, even when history has shown us, time and time again, that is simply not true. As I mentioned above, there’s already research being done to reduce charge time. There’s now a lot of money being thrown into research and development to make batteries lighter and more energy dense, and also to make use of elements like sodium and sulphur to mitigate extraction issues. This is good news for EVs, but also for energy production, where storage solutions will be needed for renewable electricity systems.  

It also pays to look at history. The first gas cars were extremely expensive toys for the very rich. They had tiny gas tanks, terrible range and we certainly didn’t have gas stations on every corner. Indeed, even now, there are parts of North America where there isn’t a gas station for hundreds of miles. 

People in the horse industry – which had powered our economies for centuries – confidently predicted that cars would not last. They happily pointed out all the problems gas cars had. 

Yet we pivoted from horses to cars in a span of less than 40 years. Change happens slowly and then it happens all at once.

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country

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In Your Garden

Drive through any city, and you’ll see suburban houses with neat and tidy gardens out front, probably a decent number of tree-lined streets, and maybe some veggie plots. All looks pretty “green” in the environmentalist sense, right?

Possibly not.

There are a number of problems with modern urban landscaping, and these issues are contributing to — not improving — habitat degradation, and biodiversity loss.

Let’s start with habitat.

Garden centres, nurseries, and landscaping contractors sell ornamental plants based on two factors: how easy they are to look after, and how pretty they are.

But unless those plants are ‘native’ to your region, they’re almost useless to your local wildlife.

(As is your veggie garden, because you work to keep those “pest” free so you can eat the produce. Which is reasonable, so let’s keep this about ornamental plants.)

Butterflies, for example, require certain host plants on which to lay their eggs and to eat as caterpillars. As adults, they need other plants to feed on.

Now, you might be thinking that no bugs is not such a bad thing, because who wants a lot of creepy crawlies around? And bug-chewed plants aren’t super attractive.

Well, all of the other plants that need pollinators (including food crops!) want those bugs around. As do all the birds, frogs, toads, and other insects that eat those bugs. A single nest of songbirds, for example, needs hundreds of caterpillars to feed their young. And certainly all the creatures that eat birds, frogs, toads, and bigger insects need something to dine on too.

To put it another way, imagine if you were surrounded by buffets that either had completely empty trays, or were only filled with things that you were allergic to (or just can’t stand to eat). That’s what your garden looks like if doesn’t have any native plants in it.

Worse, some of the plants that are sold in stores can be ‘invasive.’ That is, they escape the garden and get established in the wild. There, they can sometimes flourish, outcompeting native plants and destroying habitat. They do this by seeds (which can be relocated miles way by birds or wind); cuttings or through a weed pull where the debris isn’t baked by the sun or composted into mush; through ‘runners;’ or rhizomes. So, even if that invasive plant looks like it’s behaving itself and staying put, it probably isn’t.

Which brings us to biodiversity loss.

If we’re losing bugs and the things that feed on them, we’re reducing the biodiversity of the ecosystem. What that means in plain English is that the whole system becomes a lot more fragile. When you have lots of different bugs, and plants, and animals, and birds, one single disease, or one food source reduction isn’t going to turn the whole area into a desert for you too. The fewer creatures you have in your system, the more vulnerable the whole thing is.

You Can Do Something About This!

That’s the bad news. The good news? This is something you can definitely fix.

Let’s go back to your garden. Figure out what you have already, either by asking gardener friends, snapping pix with the iNaturalist app or using Google Lens, and getting identifications. (You might also have receipts you can look at, or you could ask for a local landscaping company to come and do an audit.)

If you have anything that identified as invasive in your area, target that stuff immediately. Pull it up, cut it down, stick everything in black garbage bags, do the bags up, and leave them in the sun to cook for several days. (Be sure to clean up seeds as much as possible). You want to make sure there isn’t any live material or seeds or cuttings that could spread once you dispose of it. Once it’s thoroughly cooked, you could compost it, or if you must, put it in the trash.

Next, target anything else that isn’t native and consider replacing it. Here’s where you can make use of free resources like your local library, your local state or provincial environmental departments, gardening groups, and horticultural societies. Or you can even do a search online for the term “plants (or trees, or shrubs) native to my area.” In some districts, enthusiasts have started “plant this, not that” lists, which give you similar looking plants to the ones you want to replace.

You don’t have to do everything all at once, of course, as time and money will be considerations. But here again, check out the free resources. Many libraries have started “seed libraries,” where you can “borrow” seeds in the spring to start plants and then you harvest seeds from your plant to take back to the library. There are almost certainly plant or seed exchanges where you live too.

A few words of caution. Be careful of plants labelled “native” or “pollinator friendly” in nurseries or garden centres, because they might not be. For example, “butterfly bush” does attract and feed butterflies, but it’s originally from Asia, and has been declared invasive in several regions of North America. I always take a list of what I want to buy with me, using those hard-to-remember Latin names, so I know I’m getting the real deal. There are also now nurseries specializing in native plants, so check their reputation and then you can shop for everything there with confidence.

And, if you have pets, make sure you’re not planting anything that would be toxic to them in places they access. Your veterinarian can likely point you to a list of things that are bad for cats and dogs.

Join a Group Doing This Work

You don’t have to do this all by yourself either. In Canada, the David Suzuki Foundation has a Butterflyway Project with resource materials and volunteer coordinators set up to encourage more native gardens. The Rotary organization, which is a worldwide service club, also has a pollinator garden initiative. Why not meet new people and make new friends while doing a good deed? See what’s available where you live.

Tell Your Neighbours

Talk up native plant gardening to your neighbours. If you’ve joined a group like I suggested above, there are often signs you can put on your lawn to explain the initiative and start conversations. They also provide flyers you can surreptitiously (or openly!) put in your neighbour’s mail boxes. Spread the word!

What About My City Plantings?

This is something you can influence too. Get together with existing gardening and horticultural groups, and start pressuring city hall to adopt more “native flora” planting policies. As always, see if you can find a way to make it about tax savings, property values, and quality of life. You don’t have to like the system, you can learn to work it!

Corporate & Institutional Plantings

Don’t forget to target corporate or institutional plantings as well. Think of all of those parking lot boulevards, apartment building planter boxes, large acreages around utility company buildings… the list goes on and on. A letter writing campaign can work wonders!

You could also involve your local Scouts and Guides troops, and encourage local schools to start pollinator gardens as teaching projects. Consider reaching out to local indigenous groups while you’re at it. Working together to bring back habitat can be a wonderful reconciliation activity, particularly if you spend a lot of time listening and learning. 

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Let’s Talk About Lawns

The lawn as we know it is a fairly recent invention. You can find its origins in the manicured estates of the European aristocracy. Devoting acres of land to high maintenance grass was a way to flaunt your wealth. It meant you had so much land that you could take some out of crop production and devote it entirely to being decorative. And further, that you had the staff to maintain it to exacting standards.

The standard suburban turf grass lawn — green, neat, tidy — is still a status symbol. It implies that the owner is comfortably middle class or higher. It still requires staff to maintain it too: many a weekend is devoted to trimming, weeding, rolling, spraying, aerating, raking, watering, and fertilizing. If you are especially wealthy, you can afford specialized equipment for the job, or you can have a service in to all this work for you.

The lawn as a concept is so ubiquitous that some 128,000 square kilometres is devoted to it in the USA. According to NASA, that’s three times more acres of lawns than irrigated corn. 

Here’s the thing, though: from an ecological standpoint, that green lawn is a desert. Its also a huge contributor to carbon emissions. 

Let’s address the first point. We clip our lawns very short, so they don’t provide a decent habitat for anything but the smallest of ground dwelling insects. We’re careful to roll everything flat and fill in holes, so nothing dares burrow. We spray for “weeds” and eliminate any flowers for pollinators. We also don’t fancy bugs very much, so we kill grubs and other critters with pesticides.  So from a wildlife point of view, that’s tens of thousands of square kilometres that are essentially no longer habitable or food bearing.

As for carbon emissions, we can look at direct and indirect production. Most of us still use gas lawnmowers (and gas-powered weedwhackers and leaf blowers), which are highly inefficient. The US Environmental Protection agency (EPA) estimates that hour-for-hour, gas-powered lawn mowers produce 11 times as much pollution as a new car. The government of Canada suggests that a single lawn mower produces 48 kilograms of greenhouse gas in a season.

Oh, and they’re noisy and smelly!

Meanwhile, think of all the emissions generated to bring you: grass seed, weed killer, bug killer, and all the tools and machinery you use. While we’re at it, let’s think about how wasteful it is for every single household to have a dedicated lawn mowing machine. A number of lawnmower maintenance sites suggest that the average lawnmower is used for about 60 hours per year. That means it just sits around in your garage for 99.4% of the year.

Lawns are also water hogs. Landscape irrigation (lawn watering) is estimated to account for nearly 1/3 of residential water use, or 27 billion litres every day (EPA). 

Finally, all those lawn chemicals contribute to waterway pollution and fertilizer run-off, which creates algae blooms that kill wildlife.

So, there’s very little to love about lawns. 

All of that said, it’s easy to see why we still have them. They’re ‘normal’ to us, because we grew up with them. Kids and dogs like playing on them. And in areas where certain insects — like ticks, for instance — are problematic and bring disease, there are good reasons for keeping ‘nature’ at arms length. Plus, we like imposing order on our surroundings. 

How to make our lawns ‘greener’

Fortunately, there are a lot of easy fixes, many of which involve *less* work than what you’re doing.

If you’re constrained by local bylaws or a homeowners association, and can’t (easily) change the composition of your lawn, you can still immediately decarbonize by switching to electric mowers and tools. The latest generation of tools have enough power and torque to handle most lawns and there are even decent electric riding lawnmower options now. You could also shop around for a ‘green’ lawn service that uses electric machines. If you have a small lawn, you could also just use a reel mower. On that note, you can call around to your local lawn service companies and ask if they use electric equipment (even if you already know they don’t). If they feel they’re losing potential customers by using fossil fuels, they might start decarbonizing their fleets.You can reduce or eliminate your fertilizer needs by adding nitrogen fixing plants to your lawn. Clover, for example, used to be standard in lawns until weed management chemicals killed them off. Speaking of which, consider accepting imperfection, and give the weed killers a miss. If you must control weeds, switch to corn gluten application in the spring to stop weeds from sprouting in the first place. Get your lawn tested and investigate what local mycorrhizal fungi you should add to your lawn. These fungi have a symbiotic relationship with certain plant roots, and help plants absorb phosphorous, potassium, calcium, copper, and iron. They also help with water uptake.You can reduce or eliminate your water bill by setting up rain barrels to catch rain water and save it for dry days. You can also reduce evaporation by watering very early in the morning or late at night when it’s cooler. More water gets to the plants this way.Other water saving options include setting up ‘rain gardens’ and ‘grey water systems.’ A rain garden uses roof run-off and rain water to nourish water loving plants like lilies and reeds. Always use what’s native to your region. A grey water system reuses water from things like showers and sinks. Be sure you’re using environmentally-friendly soaps and not dumping anything bad down the drain.You can also just let your grass go brown in peak summer heat. Grasses have a natural dormancy cycle they use to conserve nutrients, and they can generally stay that way for as much as a month. If you have looser local regulations, consider over seeding with a regionally-appropriate “low mow” or “no mow” seed mixture. These produce short grasses and flowers that need only a few lawnmower passes per year, or sometimes none at all.You can reduce the total area of lawn you need to mow by planting native shrubs and trees.You can also convert sections of your lawn to native flower gardens. Or go all out and convert everything! It doesn’t have to be a wild meadow – it’s possible to have an orderly wildflower garden if that suits you more. Finally, you might be able to get past local regulations by converting everything to food production. While this isn’t ideal from an ecology point of view, it does save on greenhouse emissions, and you get produce out of it, which will help you save on your grocery bill.For the love of all that is holy, do not ‘fix’ the problem of lawns by paving it over or installing fake grass. Concrete production produces CO2, and paving everything contributes to flooding because rainwater can’t just soak away into the ground but must travel over cement. Fake grass is essentially plastic, which is terrible for the environment in all kinds of ways. 

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Yes, You Can

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

Jane Goodall

In an earlier section, we talked about how about 100 companies are responsible for most of the emissions being released right now. We also noted that we as consumers don’t really buy from them directly. So how do we fight back at the individual level? How can we curb emissions and cut other kinds of pollution?

By drying up the market for the products that these companies backstop. Voting with your wallet.

Again, I’m not talking about temporary boycotts. Nor am I talking about standing around in the grocery store debating the morality of choosing Brand A over Brand B while the kids are bugging you for chocolate bars or plushies. 

What I’m suggesting is a longer term solution and a systematic approach, whereby you take a look at one purchasing habit at a time, fix it, and then move on to the next habit. 

Let’s use an example. Consider this: Every toothbrush you’ve ever used in your life is almost certainly still around. 

Numbers vary, depending on the conditions and type of plastic, but most figures suggest that it takes hundreds of years for plastic to decompose. (And mostly it seems to go into smaller and smaller bits of plastic.)

Kind of a scary thought, yes? It gets worse if you start doing some math. 

Let’s say the average person changes out his toothbrush once a year. Now consider a small city with 1,000,000 people in it. That means one city generates a million used toothbrushes every… single… year.  

Thus, we’re creating mountains of used toothbrushes that will still be around in ~450 years.

And of course, since you’re reading this, I probably don’t need to tell you that most plastics come from fossil fuels, and that fossil fuels are responsible for CO2 emissions, air pollution, and that oil spills are incredibly devastating. 

So, is there a perfect, zero-impact replacement for plastic toothbrushes?

No. Not yet anyway. But there are products that are arguably better. 

And indeed, that’s the case with nearly everything we’ll look at in the coming sections. 

Nothing proposed will be perfect, and there’s probably no such thing as zero-impact. Given the size of the human population, the law of big numbers will mean that everything we do will have outsized effects on our planet.

But we no longer have the luxury of waiting for heaven-sent solutions. We have to start moving everything we do to at least less bad right now while en route to those solutions that are sustainable or regenerative.  

We’ll start with some of the biggest impact items in your household. One will be obvious, and you’ve probably been thinking about it already. The other might surprise you. 

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