I would like to think that as far as hippies are concerned, that I’m a more updated, less grungy version of the stereotype. I also believe that it’s in my blood, since my dad went to Woodstock, so that should give me some hippie street-cred. And while the intention to be more earthy, chemical-free, humane and planet-friendly is a great thing to strive for, sometimes it might take a tiny bit more effort to fit it into your life.
1) Beginner level: Take care of the mess you make.
Hippie solution: Try to buy products that have less packaging, don’t litter, and do recycle.
How hard is recycling, just throw plastic bottles and cans in the blue bin every week and voila? Not exactly. While recycling plants have a process in place to sort your recyclables from the non-recyclables that end up in their possession, there are things you can educate yourself on to make sure that you’re being mindful of what is and isn’t recyclable near you. A lot of this depends on your local recycling program – if you have one. As we found out while living in eastern New Mexico for a year, not every city recycles because it’s not immediately the most profitable thing. I think this is less the case as the push for recycling is coming from more than just the militant save the earth crowd, so it’s more readily available at home, public places and offices wherever you are.
After spending a few minutes on the recycling page for Phoenix, I found out that they only recycle #1 and #2 plastic (they don’t take most plastic butter tubs, plastic utensils or straws, packing peanuts or plastic bags without a recycling symbol). They don’t take “wet-strength chipboard” which most frozen food boxes are made out of (if it has corrugated cardboard in it though, it’s okay)… styrofoam is okay, light bulbs aren’t, and it’s helpful to take the 2 seconds to take the lids off containers. Most containers don’t have lids made out of the same material, so bottles use a different plastic variety (some which might not be recyclable quality), and then you’ve got glass jars with metal lids (and they use a big magnet to sort metal.) There’s a lot to learn about how to keep their expenses/your costs down – partially by helping prevent injury of people who work at the recycling plant – just from a quick read on your city’s recycling info page. Some places have commingled recycling (like Phoenix and Raleigh) and others you have to sort before you they’ll accept it. Raleigh friends, click here.
2) Intermediate: Make less mess.
Hippie solutions: Repurpose boxes and containers, use real dishes and silverware instead of disposables, buy gently-used when new isn’t essential, email pdfs instead of printing and mailing invoices, and use reusable bags.
Maybe you have the best of intentions and feel a twinge of guilt at the grocery checkout when you’ve again forgotten your bag at home, and the green police remind you to buy their canvas bag and not use paper or plastic. The problem isn’t that people aren’t aware, it’s that using a canvas bag takes some forethought. We keep a few of them in the car so when we suddenly remember we need to stop by the store on the way home, the bags are there already. When we use one for groceries and bring it in the house, when we’re done we hang it up on the back of the door to the garage, so we can’t miss it on our way back out to the car. The key is getting the bags back into your car so they’re available so it’s easy to bring your own bag.
The second thing about “reusable bags” is reusing the bags you get. I think the only place we don’t bring canvas bags into is Target, because they have the most sturdy bags to reuse. If you have cats, you know the importance of having a poop-scoop bag that doesn’t have holes in it, as most grocery store bags will. Target bags get reused for cat poop duty and for lining garbage cans in our house.
3) Advanced: Be kind to yourself and your family by avoiding harsh chemicals and toxins.
Hippie solutions: Cleaners without ammonia, food with pronounceable ingredients, health and beauty products with herb/vegetable-based ingredients.
Here’s something that you may have heard about: anti-perspirant contains aluminum chlorohydrate, and there have been some studies and trials that show a connection between using anti-perspirants with aluminum-derivatives with earlier onset of breast cancer. Non-conclusive studies, but enough of a thought (and perhaps some paranoia) to maybe find a better solution, right? Seems like just a deodorant, without the cell-clogging properties and potentially harmful ingredients in anti-perspirant should do the trick. Reality: unless you find the right brand for you, you’ve discovered where the “hippie” smell comes from.
I’ve tried deodorants without anti-perspirant in the past and have had nothing but funky results. I went to Spouts and asked an employee what she would recommend, and she handed me a “sport” version from a brand I hadn’t tried before. Eureka! It’s a little baffling that it takes “sport”-level deodorant to sit in a 70 degree room for 8 hours, but sure, whatever works. So, it can be done, and many times as icky as it sounds these more independent or earthy stores will take back health products that don’t work – in this case, they get credit with the manufacturer and it doesn’t hurt their bottom line. But you shouldn’t have to give up smelling good to be determinedly healthy, and a little on the cautious side. If you’re thinking about trying to swap out your makeup for something made without tons of chemicals and not tested on animals, these store return policies will be helpful while you find a replacement you’re happy with.
So let your inner hippie shine through in a new way this week, whether it’s putting your Home Depot purchases in a bag from home, trying out glass cleaner without ammonia or switching your eyeliner (or in the spirit of American Idol, guyliner) to an organic, non-chemical based version… and let me know how it goes!
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It’s been just over a year since my husband and I gave up the luxury of each having our own car. I loved my little Toyota Corolla, and his VW Passat was nice for going on roadtrips. But we figured since we lived in a city with a pretty good bus system, the light rail which would be opening in December ‘08, we have a handful of bikes between the 2 of us, and walking isn’t out of the question, it made sense to simplify down to one car. We lucked out and found a used ‘06 Honda Civic Hybrid that had just appeared on the lot hours earlier, shocking to even the sales guy. This was just a few months before gas prices got totally ridiculous and hybrids were impossible to come by. Over the past year, there’s only really been 2 situations where it was frustrating to not have a car, and neither were life-threatening but more about impatience and the inconvenience of the situation. Those are things that can be worked through with a little zen yoga breathing, right? Trade in 2 cars and buy a hybrid, get the life lessons for free?
Fabulous thing about our Hybrid: since we were one of the (last of the) first 10,000 people to sign up for this special license plate program for hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles in AZ, we get to use the HOV lane even if there’s just one person in the car. Andy sometimes will pick up coworkers on his way in, but most of the time he’s solo, and cutting major time off his drive by taking the HOV lane and flying past morning traffic. I don’t know if other states are doing something like this, but saving time on your commute and special privileges in general can be a good motivator for some people to trade in their gas guzzlers for something more efficient!
So, part two of our smart transportation simplification came recently, near the end of March. Later this year my office will be moving a few miles away, too far to walk and unfortunately the light rail is nowhere nearby, and the buses aren’t direct or time-efficient enough. So while I’m excited to be getting an updated fully digital work studio in a shiny new place, getting to work becomes a daily dilemma. Solution: the most awesome bike I’ve ever seen. It’s the Ultramotor A2B, a fully electric bike that does 20 miles at 20mph on one 4 hour charge (it breaks down to about 5-10 cents per charge), and you don’t have to even pedal. But how could you not? It’s a beautiful bike that happens to be making it tolerable to bike in 100+ degree weather. 100% of the time that I am out riding it, I get asked about it. I love this bike and we happened to be the first people to buy one at The Urban Commuter in Tempe. It’s a bit pricy, but for us, it’s truly a replacement for a 2nd car… we just sucked it up for a year until finding this bike and decided it was the right fit for us! We had been researching our options and went to the shop only a week after they got it, and went back on my birthday to take it home. The timing worked out so nicely, I think it was just meant to be.
I’ve got a pretty strong independant streak. I like being able to get myself from A to B and not be tied to someone else’s schedule, if I don’t have to be. There’s a lot of things I enjoy doing on my own, just to have time to myself and unravel my brain a little after a long day. There were times when we just had the one car that I felt trapped at the house, because it was too hot for me to bike to Sprouts or Trader Joe’s and bring back groceries that wouldn’t melt or get funky in the Arizona sun, and I felt unproductive. With this bike, I’m not intimidated by temperature, and won’t be on death’s door after leaving the studio and picking up a few things for dinner in mid-August.
There’s a buzzword I haven’t meantioned yet. Wait, I did in the subject, does that really count? OK, so “green” is being attached to everything and is on half the blogs out there, but it can’t be avoided when talking about the hybrid car and electric bike in our garage. Being totally green with the bike was one of the important factors in choosing it over a scooter (anything with decent speed uses – minimal – gas.) But green isn’t a trendy choice for us. C’mon people, weren’t most of us raised with the 3 R’s – reduce, reuse, recycle? It has truly been a way of life, and given the opportunity to extend my beliefs into more of my actions, it just feels right to do it. It seems like if there’s public transportation that mostly goes where you need to go, and when it doesn’t, if you can wait til after business hours and now there’s the option of using the car, maybe having 2 cars is a luxury. So I can say that I don’t need a car to sit in a parking lot a few miles from my house when I could find a better (yes, greener) way to get there, and have the follow through to do something different… to make a positive choice in an eco-friendly way.
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A little over a week ago, I overhauled my home studio. It was time to make some changes to get a solid, dependable sound out of my equipment, and to make best use out of the space I have. That space is our walk-in master closet. Thankfully, I’m not a shoe-a-holic or hoarder, and there’s actually enough space in there to setup my soundproofing panels, a chair (for audiobook projects), a small folding table and of course, my mic stand. After some tweaking, I’m incredibly happy with the sound coming out of there. I moved from Adobe Audition on a Delta44 audio card with a breakout box in a PC to Pro-Tools 8 on my macbook pro via my new Mbox 2 mini.
After saying all that, I’m not a gearhead. The big difference comes down to quality of the soundcard, and the Mbox 2 mini has far superior sound to the card I put in a PC. Gear out of the way, despite being in a closet I was still getting a bit of reverb and a not-quite deadened sound to the room. A tension rod with one of Andy’s old portrait backdrops hung with clip hooks did the trick, and it also is easily moved out of the way when we need the closet to just be a closet.
I’ve updated my “36 in 365″ goals list post for my studio, I’d say it’s optimized for sound and the layout works nicely. I’ll post pictures soon.