Happy Earth Day!

You know, first thing, every day should be Earth Day. Second, California apparently has learned that you don't miss the water until the well runs dry- literally. So in honor of Earth Day 2015, I present, again, Penn and Teller's Showtime Show, BULLSHIT. To see how ridiculous people get with the bottled water. William Shatner is bringing up the dreaded pipeline to bring water to California<. I really don't think this bright... water from my state to support green lawns in the dessert, golf courses etc. Sorry Bill, love you as Captain Kirk, but no deal! ALERT THIS VIDEO HAS NAUGHTY WORDS IN IT- VIEW AT YOUR OWN RISK. But it is so worth it.

FIVE SIMPLE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE WATER

FIVE SIMPLE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE WATER
Depressed because you don’t have a gray water system? Want to save hundreds maybe even thousands of gallons of water per month (thus lowering your water bill?) Just by following some simple steps you can save!

1- Replace your faucet aerators and shower heads with low flow ones- Just doing this alone can save hundreds of gallons of water per month For example I just changed to lower flow shower heads (my old ones were 3 Gallons Per Minute my new ones are 2.0 GPM) MY average shower lasts 5 minutes, for every 5 minutes I save 5 gallons of water per shower Multiply that by 7 showers a week, that’s 35 gallons, and multiply that by the month (four weeks)and it is 140 gallons per month.And on the theory that the average family of 4 and they all shower, that would be 560 gallons per month. No Cheating- just because you use a lower flow shower head is no excuse to take longer showers!
2- SAVE THE WARM UP WATER- I keep a bucket in the bathroom and warm up my shower water by turning on the tub faucet and let it run into the bucket. Save about 2 gallons each shower- I then use the saved water to water plants in the garden, or wash the dog or even to flush the toilet

3- Don’t flush as much- If you can stand it, use the old if "it’s yellow let it mellow rule"- Don’t flush for Number one. Depending on your toilet you can save between 1.6 and 5 gallons each time you don’t flush. (And yes I am counting dual flush toilets) That adds up to many gallons saved per month.EXTREME WATER SAVERS- Will use a composting toilet and do odd things like save their urine for fertilizer.
4- Turn the water off – brushing your teeth… it is a necessary evil unless you have falsies. Don’t run the water while brushing.
5- Save the water- while shaving. Fill a small bowl with hot water to rinse your razor out in.Or just plug the sink. Just don't run the water while shaving! The advantage to the bowl is you will be able to save the water for other uses like plant watering. Me? I just put it in the shower bucket to water plants, flush the toilet, etc etc.

THE STORY OF BOTTLED WATER

Well as Ronald Reagen Told Jimmy Carter, Well There you go again, Here goes Annie Leonard again, this time instead of the story of stuff, she is telling the story of bottled water. And it is an enjoyable 8 1/2 minute movie. I played it at work and one of the guys (who originates from Cleveland) said he never knew all that about bottled water. I also directed him to the "Glass Filler"(One of those restaurant type spigots for filling water glasses) spigot in the rest room, were we have access to filtered water, thanks to a found surplus filter system... Even at work reuse is my mantra, my motto. Anyway here is Annie Leonard and the story of Bottled Water (BTW Annie has many more great movies on stuff on her website)

Rave: Breaking the bottled water habit!

It's a good thing I read other blogs when they make comments on mine. Other wise I would never find neat campaigns like this Breaking the Bottled water habit. I know you have heard other websites lament about plastic usage and why it is bad. But I am thinking of it as Patriotic to use your own re-usable water bottle. Helps to get us of Foreign oil dependency. I found this through the Four Bushel Farm blog. I think it is important. Did you know that every plastic water bottle uses 1/4 cup of oil in it's production? Or that Tap water is safer than it's bottled counterpart? And if you filter the tap water is the same as the bottled counterpart? So sign up and get out your reusable water bottle and start saving big bucks. (If you drink one bottle of water a day that's over $365 per year!) It is the patriotic thing to do! Here are the info from the New American dream website:

Everything we consume has a climate impact, but manufacturing and trucking water
bottles to homes with clean tap water seems particularly wasteful. The Beverage
Marketing Corporation reports that Americans consumed 31.2 billion liters of
water in 2006 – nearly 9 liters per month for every man, woman, and child.

Manufacturing all those bottles requires 900,000 tons of plastic, the
equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil, and emit more than 2.5
million tons of carbon dioxide. Trucking around all those heavy bottles emits
even more greenhouse gases. Beyond the climate impact there’s the massive waste
– 86% of water bottles aren't recycled -- and water bottling is also,
ironically, a very water-intensive endeavor. The Pacific Institute tells us that
it takes three liters of water to produce one liter of bottled water!

Dirty Little Secrets

Yeah I got them - my dirty little secrets. I have found through those damn challenges that I can go up to a month with out washing my bath towels. Of course at the end of the month, they are likely to stand up on their own and attack me. But I figure it saves at least two loads of laundry a month. There is no secret to keeping them fresh- just make sure you hang them up to dry (that's what those towel racks are for). I figure jeeze, I am just using them to dry my already clean body. Now Romeo's towel is a different story. But unlike the pug, you don't get a ton of hair after giving him a bath so I might just hang his towel up and let it dry for his next bath as well. Sure saves on laundry and replacing towels- of course I haven't bought a new towel in years as folks give them to me for Christmas, birthdays what have you. And I always take my mom's old towels when she is ready to get rid of them. Of course she gets mad about my not washing towels every time I use one as when because when I was a teenager I wouldn't re-use a towel- ever. Funny how things change when we grow up and out of our parents houses (And we have to do our own laundry).

So what dirty little "green" secrets does everyone else have that would be considered slightly eccentric?

Quit Peeing in the Shower

Glad I got your attention. This is not a post on bathroom confusion. This is a post on saving water and a giveaway. Yes. Free Shit!
I know some of you are in Crunchy Domestic Goddesses’ 5 minute shower challenge. Why not take it a step farther with a low flow shower head? My water district is a member of the saving water partnership. I know- so what?!? Well, they gave me some free stuff.
A- CFL- Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb, A shower timer, a low flow showerhead and a couple of low flow sink faucet aerators. So what’s that got to do with the time space continuum? Nothing. ’Cept of course, being the generous guy that I am, I am going to pass on the shower head and aerators since I already have those things and the water timer, since I have short showers down pat. I am, however, keeping the CFL Bulb. Wow? You say?" What do I have to do to win one those great things?" Just put in a comment to this here blog post, and there you go!You are entered. Winners will be picked by random drawing. And winners will receive- either a Low Flow Shower head, or a shower timer, or 1 of three aerators. SO there will be 5 winners. Winners announced and giveaway ends on Saturday, August 16, 2008, at 3PM. Good Luck to all who enter!