Mulch? How green is the brown stuff?

Well, in the county I moved out of, you could get free mulch.  Yeah, free mulch.  You pick it up at a solid waste transfer station or the dump.  I was in the area the other day on other business and need some mulch, so I took my pickup truck and stopped by...  the cool thing, they have an automatic filler...  you just pull your vehicle underneath and hit the on button... it fills it up for you.  (hey, it means a little less air conditioning is needed when you get back in your truck, right?  LOL)

But seriously, how does this help being greener, you ask?

It recycles yard waste delivered to the waste facility.
It reduces the amount of waste actually placed in a landfill.
It reduces the amount of plastic in a landfill too (you don't have to buy it by the bag at the local hardware or landscape joint)

It reduces the fuel required to move said yard waste to the dump from the place it's been left by consumers.  (Even better if, like me you were already in the area on another chore, then you're saving your gas too!)
It reduces the water required for your ornamental garden beds.
It reduces the amount of chemicals required to keep weeds at bay in those same garden beds.

How does it help you other than just begin green and reducing your guilt at being a general wastrel?  Well, it's flippin free!  Your taxes are already paying for it!  Helllooo-ooo  McFly?  Didn't you get that FREE part earlier?


Now, to work on my current county of residence and see if they can start a similar program....

Where do I put all this crap?

In the compost bin, where else?

My wife and I keep a plastic Folger's coffee container by the sink (I don't drink Folgers, she snagged it from work when it was empty...  repurposing it, as it were).  Anything that's kitchen waste that can be composted we try to remember to put in there.  Coffee grounds, vegetable stalks, Chinese take-out rice that dried out in the fridge,  whatever.

It's not a terribly difficult thing to do.  Most of the time it doesn't save you any money or make you any money, but it's a responsible thing to do.  If you have the room (like you aren't living in an apartment) you really should think about doing this.

It's a little bit of work, but not much...  I have the square box-like structure pictured above, but I really want one of those round tumbling ones that you crank around every now and then.  The one above is in sections and you can move it around a section at a time to turn it or move it to a new location....  You can see we did a little weeding this morning.  I used the opportunity to turn some of the stuff in it around before throwing in the new potential compost.

Bottom line, it doesn't really cost you anything, but a few minutes each week.  But, if enough of us do it, it can save tons of garbage from having to be moved around by trucks, save tons of room at the landfills and it really does help the flower or vegetable beds!

Sustainable Building

In a former life and employment period I did remodeling.   I loved it, but always hated the amount of trash created, the quality of the wood I was getting, the caustic products and the idea of more electricity, more water, more waste.  It never slowed me down, cause I had to make a living, but I was always interested in green building practices.

How does this relate to the normal dude?  Well, we all gotta live somewhere right?

Currently we're in the process of buying a home.  One of thew things we want to do is finish part of the basement.  We need to move my office and create a soundproof media and music room (I play guitar and my wife would like some relief).  We were talking about what products to use...  My wife asked about wood for framing.  I said no.  We're gonna use steel.  The current steel used for steel framing is a gigantic percentage of recycled steel.  That means no new strip mines, less shipping from Japan, and, in the end, it's recyclable again!  The cost of materials isn't that much more and the labor cost is less.  As Harry homeowner, you don't even need a big fancy saw, you can use tin snips!

This looks like some good reading -http://www.toolbase.org/Design-Construction-Guides/Exterior-Walls/steel-stud-guide  It's got a lot of info and details.

One thing I've been interested in for years is composite decking.  A lot of composite decking is post-consumer recycled plastic... but then I heard about this wood called Ipe (pronounce eePay).  It's super hard, insect resistant, rot resistant.  I thought, man, there's no way it's new growth, but I was wrong.  It's supposedly very sustainable!  It grows in South American swamps (the only big roadblock here is the shipping from South America!).  Because it grows in these swamps it is impervious to water.  One other big drawback is it's hell on tool blades.  You are promised to go through a lot of blades with the stuff... but it is beautiful!  I'm gonna do more research on it for you guys.

From http://www.ipe-deck.com - Check them out if you can!

What I'm trying to think about here is that little choices I make might make a big difference down the road... or down river or in my kids or grandkids lives.  So, if you have some project coming up, tell me about what decisions you might make.  I'm interested to hear some of the logic.

Green for the normal dude

The Mission: find some green methods, practices and products to help the normal guy save some money, save a bit of he environment, leaner some stuff and maybe convinces a few people that it's important, and not very hard, to make a difference.

I want to discuss lowering our carbon footprint, lowering utility bills and feeling and doing better for our world.

I'm a regular guy who loves the Internet, air conditioning, motorcycles and rock n roll. I'm not a hippie or some green terrorist. I will be learning as I go and working hard to help anyone willing to listen!

So, hopefully I can start making a difference.... And hopefully anybody who reads this finds something useful enough to spread the word!

Now, lemme go figure out where to start!