Energy!

So even though I'm not going to Catholic church right now, I actually thought of something I could do for Lent this year. I've decided to try to be more environmentally friendly.

I like to have light (except when I'm sleeping, then I need all darkness), and since I don't pay for my utilities, I typically have all the lights in the apartment on when I'm home. When I moved off campus and paid for my own electricity, I got real good at turning off lights, turning my computer off when I wasn't using it, unplugging things when I wasn't using them, etc. I did use the A/C a lot, but I hardly used the heater. But as soon as I moved back on campus, the lights came back on. So now I am making a concious effort to only have lights on in the room I am in (except for the light next to the shower, that stays on all the time except when I'm sleeping to keep the mold at bay. We have a crappy ventilation system in my building, so that is one of the ways we reduce the mold in the shower.) I've got some stuff unplugged, but my plugs are in strange spots so they are hard to reach.

In the office I am a big scrap paper user. But the sad thing about our campus is that we don't have recycling in the halls. There is paper recycling everywhere else, but Physical Plant won't let us get the blue bins because they don't have overnight custodians here to take it out. Why the daytime custodians can't do it I don't know. The amount of time they spend standing around gossiping is ridiculous, and tells me they have plenty of time to dump some paper bins. But our NRHH chapter is working on starting paper recycling in the halls, too. So I'm trying to conserve my paper usage.

St. Joe does not have a really great recycling program. You can find paper recycling dumpsters pretty easily. But to recycle plastic, glass, or metal, you have to go down to the sticks by the river and dump it at the waste authority. Yikes. So for the past five years I've been throwing all my plastic and stuff away. I've always felt kind of bad about that, but what can you do?

But then I had a thought. St. Joe might not be progressive enough to recycle, but Fort Madison is. The way their system works is that you go to the grocery store and buy these yellow bags. You can fill up as many bags as you want. Then you leave your bags with your trash, and the recycler people come and pick it up. It's pretty neat. So I think I am going to buy some of those bags when I'm home this week and bring them back. I can fill the bags and bring them home the next time I go home. Obviously I'll have to clean and dry the stuff before I bag it, or it will be really gross. But I can do that. I don't produce that much recycleable stuff, so it shouldn't take up too much room in my car.

The biggest hurdle I'll have is water. Water conservation is really important, because eventually we'll run out of it. And I keep thinking about all the people in third world countries who don't have clean water. Everytime I dump Tyler's water bowl out, I think of how those people would love to have this water to wash in or even drink. But I like my nice, 10 minute showers. They help my muscles loosen up in the morning. I like to rinse off my dishes before I put them in the dish tub. So this is tough. What I have started trying to do is instead of dumping the stale pet water down the drain, I dump it into my plants. It's a start anyway.

I have a bunch of reuseable bags to take into stores with me. I keep them in my car. And I always forget them when I get out of the car. so I'm trying real hard to remember them every time I go shopping. I'm getting better about it at least...

So that's my Lent resolution!