Eco-Unfriendly Mailing Labels - "FREE"

I'm getting really loaded down with mailing labels, seemingly each batch uglier than the last.  This week they were pretty - but from an environmental organization.  What are they doing sending out non-recyclable crap?
Here's what I told the Chesapeake Bay Foundation:

"I appreciate that non-profits need to raise money via junk mail.  What I don’t like is to receive non-recyclable, unsolicited address labels from an environmental organization.  Cut it out, guys!"

Clothing GiveAway

We collect so many gently-used clothes that we've renamed this event the Women's Clothing GiveAway - you would not believe how many clothes are left at the end, so we're talking it up a lot this year in hopes we can find more homes for the donated clothes.  Spread the word!

Switching Electricity Suppliers in Pennsylvania: Go Green!

This post is by my friend Meenal Raval, and deals with the local challenge of picking a provider now that electricity is deregulated in PA.


It's Jan 1 and I finally decided to study electricity rates having heard for months about the PECO rate caps coming off. We've purchased PECOWind for years, choosing to pay an additional 2.54c per kWh for 100% wind, which ended up costing us about $86 per year. The plus to paying this
much more is that we got to take over 5000 lbs (or 2.3 tonnes) off our household's carbon footprint, which we'd still like to do in 2011.

On 12/27, Andrew Maykuth's article in the Inquirer titled Choosing Renewable Energy can now Save Money as well as Power, caught my attention. Highlights were:

• Of the 19 electricity providers, only 7 offer a Renewable Energy Option
• Of these 7, only 2 offer fixed 1-year pricing. One of them is The Energy Cooperative, a Philadelphia co-op since 1979

You can go to PAPowerswitch, a website by the PA Public Utility Commission, type in your zip code, and see all of the electricity suppliers for your region.

With the rate caps off, we need to compare not only the much-touted Generation & Transmission Charges but also the charges for Renewable Energy options.

• PECO's price to compare, from dirty energy sources: coal and nuclear....9.92 cents per kWh
• above plus 2.54 cents per kWh for PECOWind....12.46 cents per kWh
• Viridian's "pure wind"....10.79 cents per kWh
• The Energy Cooperative ("100% green; 87% hydro; 10% wind; 3% solar")....9.78 cents per kWh
• BlueStar Energy Solutions "pure wind"....9.35 cents per kWh

Blue Star still comes out with the best rate for clean energy; it and the Energy Coop are still cheaper than PECO's "dirty" rate, so on a money-bottom line basis there is every reason for EVERY PECO user to switch to one of those two!

Reasons for choosing The Energy Cooperative = locally based; member owned.

Reasons for choosing Blue Star = even cheaper than The Energy Cooperative; no annual membership; fully wind (if you feel wind is cleaner than hydro, and more of an "additive" renewable resource). Note: "additive" means, that as more people buy into a particular renewable source, the Market will create MORE of that resource (more windmills erected, more solar panels installed, more hydro dams built, etc.) If it is non-additive, that means the supplier is simply yanking an already existing resource from somewhere else on the grid and appropriating it; no net shifting away from dirty sources is done.

I was asked... Is there a fee? Yes, The Energy Cooperative charges $15 to become a member.

And how guaranteed are the rates? Their rates are fixed for 1 year. After which, or actually, anytime during the year, one can always return to PECO's arms at no additional cost.

And what service area is covered? The electricity deregulation is for all of Pennsylvania, not just Philadelphia, so, yes, even Cheltenham township in Montgomery County.

Sorry if this is all confusing. This is the first time that renewable energy is actually cheaper than dirty energy. Bottom line, I think EITHER Energy Coop or Blue Star is a fine choice, and if you've made one of them don't work too hard to second-guess yourself.

I've just switched to the Energy Co-op's EcoChoice100, lowering my bill
by about 20%, still supporting 100% renewables. DO get one or two
neighbors/friends to switch over as well!

Cooking: Ecological, Economical, and Better for You...

Cooking has never been one of my passions; it’s more a commitment which follows from liking to eat. This past year I find myself enjoying cooking more, and spending more time at it.  There are a number of contributing, idiosyncratic factors like my new sunny kitchen and its wall-mounted radio, so NPR can keep me company when I’m slicing, stirring, or mixing.  And my new IPad allowing me to easily download and listen to interesting podcasts and living near enough to Weavers Way Food Coop to shop daily. The fact that my children grew up means I both have more time and two fewer picky palates to please, also making the cooking process less stressful.

But there are some way simpler, replicable things which have contributed to making my cooking more efficient, and therefore more gratifying.  I did a budget check and realized how much we were paying to eat in restaurants, often because I just didn’t have the energy to decide what to make for dinner at the end of a long day.  Once I realized it would pay back, it justified my putting more time into meal planning.  I created a simple data base of weeknight menu combinations which we both enjoy eating, including any unusual ingredients and advance prep that facilitates getting the meal to the table.  By doing the thinking in advance and entering it in my google-doc, I can just refer to it, make a menu decision earlier in the day, and plan accordingly.  If it will be chili, I know I need to get the rice started in advance, that sort of thing.  Since I actually finding the menu decision more onerous than the cooking, this has made a huge difference!

A small investment in better cooking utensils has vastly improved the cooking experience.  Better knives, larger frying pans, a sturdy long-handled spatula and new goodies like a roll-up cutting mat have been so much nicer to use.  Purchasing a duplicate set of measuring spoons and measuring cups is an embarrassingly simple upgrade.  If some are in the dishwasher, I don’t need to rummage around to find them.  If I want to prepare two dishes in a row, I don’t need to stop and wash them. Duh!  Why didn’t I think of this 35 years ago?  The cost of this enhancement is paid for by one stay-at-home meal.

The internet has also livened up the cooking process.  Recipes, techniques, cooking blogs, even unusual products – these are all available with one click. If you’re someone with a large cookbook collection, you might want to join EatYourCookbooks, a site which features tens of thousands of indexed cookbooks.  Register the cookbooks you own and use, and when you search by recipe title or ingredient, it will find the recipe and ingredient list.  Where’s that great recipe for pecan lemon pound cake?  This site will locate it. It doesn’t bring up the recipe itself, but will tell you which cookbook it’s in.  The first five cookbooks are free; after that there is an annual fee. 

Eating at home is cheaper and healthier.  Another motivator, on the environmental front: at-home food preparation has a much smaller eco-footprint.  Unless you would walk to the restaurant, you save the round-trip drive.  Restaurants themselves are extremely high consumers of water, electricity, fuel, chemical cleaners, and disposables.  While the diner might focus on wasted food (portions which are ridiculously large, uneaten bread which can’t be reserved, Styrofoam clamshells to take home, double-wrapped in plastic bags) most of the waste is out of the diners’ sight.  There are some greener restaurants which compost, but most generate huge volumes of trash and food waste, none of which is reused or recycled.  Restaurants are not, by law, allowed to serve leftovers!