go green! results

Well, here they are...the Krug House Results!!!
(note: we're still working the math on some of this, but this is close!)

Here are the totals:

Water
Initial Audit – 11,030 Gallons/month
Challenge – 7109 Gallons/month

Food Consumption
Initial Audit
20% Local
0% Organic
100% Non-organic

Challenge Results (ok, this is for week 2 of the challenge only):
27% Local
30% Organic
70% Non-organic


Waste and Recycling (***be sure to read below!!!)
Initial Audit:
460 lbs/month Waste
192 lbs/month Recycling

Challenge:
67 lbs/month Waste
114 lbs/month Recycling

Energy Use
Initial Audit – 3430 kWh
Challenge – 2887kWh

Purchasing Habits
Initial Audit 12% of purchases environmentally friendly
Challenge 13.6% of purchases environmentally friendly




Household Water Use

Initial Audit 11,030 gal/month
Challenge 7109 gal/month

Biggest changes –

1170 g/m Toilet IA
936 g/m Toilet Challenge

I don’t think we can take any credit for this one. TMI, I know, but multiple family members were having tummy troubles during the week of the initial audit. We did have the flu here during the challenge, but that was only for one day. Admission: WE MADE NO EFFORT TO REDUCE FLUSHING

3000 g/m Shower + tub - IA
1602 g/m Shower + tub - challenge

738 g/m Faucet – hands and teeth - IA
306 g/m Faucet – hands and teeth - challenge

1822 g/m Faucet – dishes and cleaning - IA
810 g/m Faucet – dishes and cleaning - challenge

2145g/m Washing machine - IA
1650 g/m Washing machine - challenge

We are celebrating these numbers! These are habits we worked on as a family.

Notes to self: We think we can bring this number down further by:
1. further shortening showers
2. one fewer laundry load per week
3. maybe even less water for cleaning/dishes


Household Food Consumption

Initial Audit
20% Local
0% Organic
100% Non-organic

Challenge Results (well, week 2 anyways!):
30% Organic
70% Non-organic
27% Local

Biggest changes:

Week one of the Challenge brought few food changes to this house. After a disappointing weekday trip to the West Allis Farmers’ Market, we just gave up for a while and stuck with our regular routine.

By week the second week, however, we let go of a few extra dollars and bought organic strawberries, carrots, lettuce, celery, and cauliflower from Pick-n-Save. The carrots were not that much more (if I was willing to peel and cut – I’ve grown too used to those pre-cut baby carrots!), and the strawberries were also a decent price. The lettuce was significantly more than what we normally get, but VERY good. We also visited the Menomonee Falls and Brookfield Farmers’ Markets and brought home rhubarb, mushrooms, radishes, and eggs. The gentlemen with the eggs said his chickens were in an organic environment, but he was not certified because that would drive his costs up. We didn’t count these in our totals, but it was in interesting conversation.

Purchasing of meat, milk, cheese, and juice has stayed the same, though we’ve been stretching our meat farther and have stopped buying OJ in paper cartons. We have also found that we are eating very little pre-packaged food, which was change we’d been hoping for even before this challenge! There’s been lots of grilling, homemade pizza dough, and plenty of rhubarb crisp. I hope we can keep this up, because it is certainly enjoyable. Honestly, we haven’t found these changes to be too difficult, but we have had to be better about meal planning. WE WASTE SO MUCH LESS!

Notes to self: We think we can improve our eating habits while balancing the costs of purchasing more organic foods by:

1. Continuing our new organic purchases
2. Eating less meat each week
3. Enjoying our summer CSA adventure


Waste and Recycling

Initial Audit:
460 lbs/month Waste
192 lbs/month Recycling

Before I go any further, I’d like to list the initial audit totals MINUS yard waste. I’ll explain in a minute.
310lbs/month Waste
42 lbs/month Recycling

Now, the totals from the Challenge:
67 lbs/month Waste
114 lbs/month Recycling

These numbers just didn’t seem right to me. This is why I’ve taken the yard waste out of the equation. First of all, the yard waste that was thrown in the trash was garlic mustard weed. This is the only time each year that we throw away yard waste. We also usually burn brush, but have started to chip brush and wood this year. Looking at the numbers without the yard materials makes the comparison more manageable to me.

Still, total waste + recycling for the initial audit was 352 pounds/month. Total waste + recycling for the challenge was only 179 pounds/month. That’s a difference of 173 pounds. Where did the rest go?

Our biggest change was in food waste. We were not so careless these past two weeks. I frequently allow potatoes or veggies to go bad because we are throwing meals together at the last minute and not planning ahead. This week we did have some meat we had to shame, but for the most part our only food waste was kitchen scraps. This is a huge change. Our initial audit had us down for 120 pounds/month of food waste. The challenge numbers had us down to 6.4 pounds/month food wasted and 21.4 pounds/month food recycled. That’s over 92 pounds difference in food wasted per month, and most of it gets buried in the backyard. (I think we’ll need a composter by wintertime!)

Paper recycling and just plain old lowering of consumption has also made a big difference in our numbers.


Household Energy Use

Initial Audit – 3430 kWh
Challenge – 2887kWh (we think this is right now)

I’m still working on the math behind this one, but our changes so far include:
1. Changed twelve 60-watt bulbs to CFL bulbs
2. Changed four 100-watt bulbs to CFL bulbs
3. Freecycling our “kids” computer (we found that they really used the family computer more anyways, and the other one would just be running)
4. Sent humidifier, record player, and one lamp to Goodwill
5. Putting the TV, DVD, receiver, Playstation, and CD player all on a strip that is unplugged unless we’re using it (less than 2 hours/day -- often never)
6. Router has been unplugged and put in storage
7. Unplugging toaster, washer, dryer, baby receiver, battery charger, treadmill, paper shredder, pencil sharpener, basement lamps, VCR, basement TV and boom box unless we’re using these
8. Turning off the computer overnight
9. We turn off the lights (novel idea, I know)


Notes to self: We would still like to:
1. Get all the computer gear on one strip that we pull out when not in use
2. Get better about unplugging more items / getting more items on strips


Buy Recycled Challenge

Initial audit – 12% products purchased were environmentally friendly
Challenge – 13.6% products purchased were environmentally friendly

Over the course of the challenge we purchased 22 non-food related items. Of these, only three had contained current recycled content or previous recycled content.

To be honest, though, I’d have to admit that I padded the numbers with some TP bought not because we needed more, but because we were in the middle of the challenge (and all these others “necessities” seemed not to fit the bill).

We did choose to try to do without a few things, though. For instance, it is high allergy season right now. It is not abnormal for me to go through a box of Kleenex every few days during the month of May. Instead of buying more tissue, I switched to old-fashioned handkerchiefs this weekend. And you know what?! They’re easier on my nose! We did pick up one more box of tissue for kids and guests.

I’m also trying to use rags instead of paper towels. We have one more roll left in the basement, and I’m trying not to buy any more. I found that old t-shirts worked just fine on windows (well, a few streaks are better than baby slobber anyway). We’re also out of plastic baggies and are conducting a little family experiment to see what we’ll do without them.

We have eliminated using plastic bags at any checkout! ...still working on those produce bags, though. We’re avoiding buying bottled water….yea! That’s been a goal for years.

Irony of the week:
1. The boxes that the CFLs came in were not made of recycled materials.
2. Someone dropped a big bag of plastic bags on our driveway on Sunday. What’s up with that?!

In sum, I guess we’re saying that it has definitely been a challenge to buy recycled. You really have to look hard to find the environmentally friendly products. (i.e. searching online to find where things are sold). We think we’ve made better progress at consuming less, and we are hoping to add to our repertoire of environmentally products that we use regularly.

green in the face today...

Well, it's day #2 of tracking and stomach flu has hit our house... so much for water usage! But I will note our small victories for the day:
1. Alan remembered to use paper bags on his emergency trip to Pick-n-Save in the middle of his work day. Thank you, dear, for bananas, applesauce, and pedialyte. Today we aren't worrying about going organic!
2. We're air-drying our extra sick-day laundry in the backyard.
3. Nathanael wants to eat extra bananas b/c the peels can go in the compost bucket.
I guess this is our sunshine in the clouds...

carly anne

all the cousins welcoming Carly Anne!

the audit - part one

I’ll start with our 460 pounds of trash per month. Are you kidding?? Immediately I start to rationalize…well, we don’t always pick and throw out garlic mustard weed. There won’t always be a broken toy. We don’t throw out batteries each week. Hmmm, this sounds an awful lot like working through our family budget. We don’t always go out to eat. The car doesn’t need repairs every month. But just like the budget, I bet there’s always something to jack up those numbers!

We had a jolly time picking through, sorting, and weighing a week’s worth of Krug garbage. I’d not done this since I accidentally left my retainer on a restaurant table in the eighth grade! Rancid. And the biggest heartbreaker for me? That would be the four pounds of food we toss PER DAY! Yes. Again, I can rationalize: I don’t always forget about a full bag of potatoes. We don’t always shame an entire meal because of a royal recipe disaster. But the numbers don’t lie, and truthfully, I knew going into this that we were a food wasting family. Shame, there goes another head of lettuce. That’s money in the trash. And then there’s the ugly feeling that hangs out with over-consumption. I’m so blessed, and yet I waste so much!

Yard waste rang in with the largest number, averaging nearly 5 pounds per day. Honestly, though, would we keep that up all year? I think not. We chip or burn our yard waste. That being said, I hardly think that burning the yard waste would be considered recycling.

Finally, I wasn’t pleased with looking in the mirror and finding laziness. I like to pat myself on the back for filling our little, blue recycling bin each week, but in going through our trash we had an eye-opening moment. All the laundry bottles, soda bottles, and cans used in the basement just ended up forgotten in the basement trash. We were too lazy to run the stuff upstairs, so we tossed it in the trash, and promptly (and happily) forgot all about it.

You don’t get to forget when you pick through your trash.



*note: thanks to Alyssa, our photographer at this event!
*and for those who checked before, yes, it is 460 lbs a month!! originally I'd looked at the wrong page of my audit sheet..what a disappointment!

celebrating big news

Alyssa lost her fourth tooth yesterday afternoon!

and then if that wasn't exciting enough...

Cousin Carly Anne Lorenz was born at 10:35 last night,

one day after her big sister, cousin Maddie, turned two!!!

going green - getting started

Going green!! Whew, where to start?

How about with that nagging feeling up there…

Yes, you know what I mean, don’t you. It’s that I-know-I-should-but-I-don’t feeling you get when you throw your junk mail in the trash. It’s wishing that you knew how to make things just a little better but feeling too intimidated, too busy, and too lazy (I like to call it “tired”) to get going. It’s that inner perfectionist subconsciously screaming “since I’m not going to get this all right, I’m not going to get it at all!” Yep, that feeling has been hanging around, and that’s not healthy.

Do you know, we actually have a box decorated with a cute little recycling sign upstairs in the office. My six-year-old daughter came home from school a few months ago and decided we needed a recycling spot for paper “just like at school.” She made a little sign, slapped it on a box, and voila, we’ve been throwing our paper in there ever since. I just never bothered to let her know that I empty that box into the trash can the night before pick-up! My rationalization for the fib: well, I’m just not sure how to recycle paper, so I’ll at least help her get into a habit of recycling. Nice, huh?

So perhaps it was this nagging feeling “up there” that initially prompted me to write in to the Go Green challenge. Could this be a way that I would hold myself accountable to changing habits? I’ve always been bothered by our personal and societal addiction to consumption. I’ve always felt that conservation at home might help give our budget a boost. I’ve always been sickened by the wasted food that goes in our trash because I didn’t get it used up before it started to grow.

How exactly this will all play out, I do not know. I am sure, however, of this:
1. My kids are excited, and will therefore learn plenty.
2. My husband is on board, so this will be a positive experience.
3. We are finding out an awful lot about ourselves this week.

Stay tuned! We have around 90% of our initial audit complete. Whoa! Lots to share!

go green family challenge blog

For those of you who wish to follow along as Alan, I, and the Kruglets "Go Green!" with the Metroparent Go Green Family Challenge, you might bookmark the following blog:

http://www.milwaukeemoms.com/blogs/sponsored/go_green_challenge.html

Our first meeting is this week....we'll keep you posted! :)