Composting is easy and has great benefits for you and your community. First of all, by composting, I have almost no trash each week. I've switched down to a tiny trash bin which saves me upwards of a $120/yr, reduces the amount of waste pick up and transfer and lightens the load on our landfill.
I've been composting at home for a couple of years now but it wasn't til last year that I got a proper two cone setup to make it easier and more productive.
I used to use a stainless steel bin in the kitchen pictured at right, but it turned out to be easier just dropping my food waste into a plastic bag which I keep in the freezer. The freezer bag solution is waste free, has no smell and less mess.
Seattle has a great composting program. They will sell you inexpensive green bins and offer a composting guide for download. When one cone is 2/3 full, you switch to the other while the first one gradually turns into soil I can use in my organic garden. I use the larger bin pictured for yard waste.
I've had no problems at all with outdoor smell or pests. That may be because I'm a vegetarian. If you have meat scraps in your compost, you may need to secure your compost bins from rodents and raccoons.
I forgot to mention that composting is fun! It's great to finish cooking a great meal and then recycle all my scraps right into the compost bins, and eventually back into the garden.
I've been a Better World Club customer for over a year now - and luckily haven't had to use their services, but I encourage you to check them out. They are a environmentally aware auto club. In their own words:
Better World Club Provides Nationwide Roadside Assistance. We are the Nation's Only environmentally friendly auto club. Membership Includes eco-travel Services, Discounts on hybrid car rental, insurance Services, Free Maps, Auto Maintenance discounts and bicycle roadside assistance. We donate 1% of annual revenues toward environmental cleanup and advocacy. Some auto clubs lobby against the environment, while others don't lobby at all. BWC advocates for the environment. Join the club that reflects your values.
I've been impressed with the affordable Epson Artisan 810 which offers an automatic duplexer for double-sided printing, all for less than $190. Combine this with its capability of printing 2-top or 4-top pages per page and it'll help you save a tree.
We're not in the business of recommending you take on debt, but in our increasingly cashless society it can be important to find a credit card with friendly consumer policies.
I just moved $11,000 cash from Citigroup to BECU.org and I set up my account and transferred initial funds online in just a few minutes.
Note: BECU, formerly known as Boeing Employees Credit Union, is now open to all Washington State students, residents, Boeing employees and relatives and descendants of any of these. See member eligibility for more information.
Want a no risk way to participate in the Move Your Money campaign and earn 6% interest on a fully FDIC insured account with no fees?
Sign up online, move $1,000 from your big bank account to BECU and earn an unheard of 6.17% interest on the first $500 in checking and first $500 in savings. There are no fees for this account.
A social investment manager whom I trust explicitly highly recommends BECU. This may be the best way for Seatle and all Washington residents to participate in Move Your Money.
Full disclosure: I am an investor in Equal Exchange, a cooperative fair trade innovator in the coffee, tea and chocolate industry. Since I wrote Investing for Change in 2005, I've invested more than $45,000 in Equal Exchange. And, each year, the company's provided a steady 5% return on my investment.
While most savings accounts are only offering 1% interest, the 3 year Equal Exchange CD currently offers 3% interest and helps support the company's ongoing efforts. While savings accounts are fully insured by FDIC up to $250,000, the Equal Exchange CD has more risk associated with it.
Investing in the Wainwright CD is a way for you to directly finance Equal Exchange and Fair Trade. As Equal Exchange grows we buy more coffee. $2,000 allows us to purchase coffee from a typical family farm supporting 6–8 people. Your dollars make a real difference to real people.
Although the Equal Exchange CD assumes some risk, it is fairly secure. You might think of CDs as being “safe as houses,” and usually they are. In fact a typical CD might help finance a subdivision in Miami or a hotel in Las Vegas. The Equal Exchange CD, however, helps to secure a loan to us to finance Fair Trade coffee, so your money is more like “safe as coffee.” If Equal Exchange cannot repay its loan you may lose some of your CD. However we have a twenty-year track record of running a sound business with sound financials and haven’t lost anyone’s money yet. - excerpted from Equal Exchange blog
If you currently have a portion of your assets invested in a community fund with a 1% return, Equal Exchange's 3 Year CD might offer another community investment option with a higher return.
It's sometimes hard to keep a positive outlook and a constructive push for change - especially when we're stressed. It's obviously a good idea to take a regular break from the everyday.
Banya 5 is an urban spa and health facility offering a unique blend of old world wellness rituals in a friendly, contemporary environment. A series of relaxing dry and wet heat experiences coupled with exhilarating pool plunges produce a vivid circulatory experience with numerous mental and physical benefits. The experience is both personal and communal. It can be serene and detoxifying or invigorating, intense and rejuvenating. As a modern interpretation of old ideas, we are re-defining public bathing.
After a few hours wandering from jacuzzi, to steam room, to sauna to cold plunge ... my body unwinds, stress lifts and I am refreshed ready to approach the world with a healthier attitude.
I said when I began this blog that some of what I would write about would be simple - but something this simple can make a big difference.
When your insurance company does business by multiple aliases, you know its scamming people.
This past year, I spent $3,708 ($4,708 including the $1,000 deductible) on an insurance plan from Lifewise (a.k.a. Premera Blue Cross of Washington) that is expensive and increasingly difficult to navigate.
Beginning, January 1st, I'm moving to a catastrophic plan for $2,040 annually with a $1,850 deductible. It's much less out of pocket - even with deductible ($3,890 vs. $4,708), almost the same coverage - and I won't have to deal with the insurance company as closely.
If you're not fortunate enough to have employer-based health insurance (directly or via a spouse), you know that the so-called regulated insurance market for individuals is pretty awful.
Until Congress gets serious about health insurance reform (which it does not yet appear to be), Americans are going to continue to suffer, defenseless against this corrupt industry and its outrageous profits carved from the bodies of sick and dying people.
For now, I suggest spending as little as possible with these companies while providing yourselves with the minimum coverage and a catastrophic safety net.
Here are just a few of the ways Washington State health insurers cheat their customers:
At my prior insurer, Regence Blue Shield, about 1/3 of my submissions for reimbursals were just never responded too a.k.a. circular filed/thrown away. I believe that Regence's policy is to throw away a certain percentage of submissions to increase profits, knowing that many people will just give up.
Defining Deductible down. In car and home insurance, the term deductible is pretty straightforward. You pay a certain amount out of pocket, the insurance company pays anything above that amount. Premere and Regence are allowed to apply only reimbursable costs and only covered costs to your deductible.
Paying lower or no benefits for providers certified as health professionals but labeled Out of Network by the insurance company. My new chiropractor charges $45/visit, less than my old "preferred" network chiropractor. But, he's not covered and the chiropractic benefits that were advertised to me are not extended to him.
Unrealistic maximum payments for provider visits, below the cost of a typical charge
Rejecting reimbursement requests. Expiring prescriptions and requiring costly, time-consuming, frequent visits to doctors before visiting specialists e.g. physical therapists. I'm waiting on two separate requests right now because of codes that the insurance company won't match up - even though all the providers are certified health professionals with legal invoices and chart notes.
Higher and higher co-pays, now up to $25-$30 per visit
Misleading marketing e.g. outpatient rehab (which sounds like substance/recovery services) is a term used to limit benefits for physical therapy
Difficult to use websites. Premera recently downgraded its site making it much more difficult to use.
Long hold times for customer service
Vision and dental care are commonly excluded from health plans
Dental plans have buy-in periods in which you can receive no benefits as well as ridiculously low coverage limits that don't pay for most catastrophic dental services.
In the future, Americans should have the right to protection from unwanted marketing. Advertisers should be required to get opt-in from consumers before sending catalogs and offers. Consumers should not have to opt-out to protect themselves and the environment.
Until then, here are some easy ways to reduce unwanted junk mail:
Recently, I signed up with 41pounds.org to help reduce junk mail delivered to my home. The service costs $41 for five years:
Stop junk mail — the impact of 41pounds.org
41pounds.org stops your junk mail and catalogs — protecting the environment. Junk mail wastes an incredible amount of natural resources and contributes to global warming. Our nonprofit service covers your entire household for five years, saving...
Time — No credit card offers to shred or unwanted catalogs.
Trees — Keep 100+ million trees in forests, cooling the planet.
Water — Protect 28 billion gallons of clean water.
Climate — Junk mail produces more C02 than 9 million cars.
Planet — We donate to your favorite charity when you sign up./p>
I thought I'd pass along some of the information they provide to help you stop junk mail whether or not you want to subscribe to their service:
1) Register at dmachoice.org and turn off catalogs, magazine offers and other mail offers.
2) Visit optoutprescreen.com and request either five year or a permanent end to credit offers. Permanent opt-out requires a mailed signature.
3) Turn off your wasteful phone book and yellow page deliveries. Call these providers and tell them to stop:
a) Verizon 800.888.8448 option 2
b) Dex 877.243.8339
c) Yellow book 800.373.3280
d) AT&T/Yellow pages formerly SBC/Bell South 800.792.2665 for AR, KS, OK, MO and TX only (all others 800.848.8000 option 1 twice)
4) Send signed postcards with all permutations of your name and address asking them to remove them from your mailing list and database. You can provide your email address for them to follow up with you - but include the phrase "Please do not rent, sell or trade my name or address."
Starting a garden as an adult seemed intimidating. The more I gathered from friends, the more it seemed like rocket science. My worst fears were confirmed upon reading the opening sentence of The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide (a guide for beginners): "Well, it isn't rocket science - organic gardening is a lot more complex." How did they know what I was thinking?
I hadn't had a garden since I was a child. I remember planting a sunflower and having it grow bigger than my head. Similar success followed with my first Zucchini (will spare you the anatomical comparison). The California sun definitely had a lot to do with it but gardening seemed easy back then.
Why Garden?
I've been a vegetarian for nearly fifteen years. I stopped eating seafood about ten years ago. But, I never learned how to cook very well.
I enrolled in a wonderful series of courses at PCC called The Main Course, taught by Omid Roustaei and programmed by The Boulder School of Natural Cookery (Omid's cooking classes are one of the Northwest's best kept secrets - mention his name to a fellow student and an animated conversation is sure to follow). Through The Main Course, I learned the basics of cooking with oils, grains, vegetables, salts and herbs and spices.
Now, I knew how to shop for vegetables and turn them in to delicious meals. Gradually, I found myself wanting to start an herb garden and then grow more of my own ingredients at home.
My 2009 Garden Experiment
I decided to start small, building a single raised bed from concrete blocks and planting some lettuce starts from Swanson's nursery. I also planted some herbs and tomatoes in a couple of containers.
But soon, I decided to build two raised beds and place them on the front lawn where the sun shined brightest. I used How to build raised beds (Sunset Magazine) to help me construct them. Building the beds was easy but a good stretch of my weak construction skills. I used soybean oil to finish the wood. I bought organic soils from nearby nurseries and hardware stores. By the end of summer, I had built a third raised bed, started two compost bins (more on this later), planted a row of seven blueberry bushes, two fig trees (with my girlfriend's help and encouragement) and an indoor greenhouse of seed starts!
On the suggestion of friends and neighbors, I installed a timed, drip irrigation system. Installing it was also not very hard. Once it was set up, I no longer needed to be actively involved in daily watering.
Bird netting kept out the crows and my irrational fears of pilfering neighbors. In reality, the garden turned out to be a great way to meet dozens of neighbors who stopped to chat and comment on the garden. It also turned out to be quite satisfying to share the harvest with them!
The Harvest
The bountiful harvest I've had this summer has been quite amazing. You can see a bit from the slideshow above. This year's hot summer in Seattle definitely helped.
Here's a summary of what we harvested:
Vegetables: blonde cucumbers, golden cherry, green zebra, roma and two kinds of heirloom tomatoes, carrots, peas, green beans, shiso, kale, mustard greens, golden and purple beets, two different kinds of eggplant, a number of kinds of salad greens, onions, delicata squash, acorn squash, buttercup squash, cayenne and sweet orange peppers, chocolate and green bell peppers, chard and endless zucchini.
Fruits: Melons, alpine strawberries (yum!), standard strawberries and blueberries. Fig trees in the ground for next year!
Herbs:several kinds of basil, coriander, mint, several kinds of Sage, rosemary, lavendar
Cooking What You Grow
It was quite an experience gathering food in the early evening, then cooking meals made up primarily of items from the garden. Usually, salt, oil, garlic and tofu or field roast might be all that was added from the store.
In general, the home grown foods tasted better than what I could find at the store. Highlights were the salad greens, blonde cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, sweet peas, green beans, alpine strawberries, beets and delicata squash.
You Can Do This!
I'm hooked and plan to garden year round. This weekend I harvested beets and prepared some of my beds for winter with coffee chafe picked up from my local coffee roaster (totally not telling). Gardening is fun and incredibly satisfying. You can start small and do more if you the urge gets you.
Growing your own food can be one part of building sustainable cities:
"Most produce in the US is picked 4 to 7 days before being placed on supermarket shelves, and is shipped for an average of 1500 miles before being sold. We can only afford to do this now because of the artificially low energy prices that we currently enjoy, and by externalizing the environmental costs of such a wasteful food system. We do this also to the detriment of small farmers by subsidizing large scale, agribusiness-oriented agriculture with government handouts and artificially cheap energy." via Local Harvest
Still Not Sure?
If starting a garden still seems intimidating to you, try taking a course from a local nursey. In Seattle, we're lucky to have Seattle Tilth (the rocket scientists).
Sign up for a CSA (community supported agriculture) box or hire Seattle MicroFarm to set up and manage your home garden.
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