No Impact Man

One Life, One Cup

As you may know, Japan has lower per capita carbon emissions than any Western European country. For that reason, I asked my friend, Sean Saskamoto, who recently moved to Japan and who blogs at I'd Rather Be In Japan, to check in with us every so often. I thought we might be able to learn a little something about "happier planet, happlier people" lifestyles from Sean's experience there.

Here is Sean's latest dispatch:

Kawagishi-sensei is a Zen Buddhist monk, and he’s a teacher at the high school where I work. He teaches calligraphy, which is a traditional art in Japan. Like high schools in America, there are many clubs that students here can join.

In the calligraphy club, students practice the art of painting Japanese Kanji, the Chinese characters that make up part of the written language. Painting calligraphy is an old tradition in Japan, and the characters look lovely, even to my untrained eye.

Kawagishi-sensei has been teaching calligraphy for over 30 years. My Japanese isn’t good enough to speak much with him, but a couple of times a week we try to chat. I noticed that every day he drinks his tea in a special teacup on his desk. It’s a beautiful ceramic cup.  The rich, textured colors shine in the light, and I assumed it must be new because it’s so polished.

When I asked him about it, he told me that he’d bought it with his first paycheck as a teacher, thirty-five years ago. It was made in a famous Japanese style called Aritayaki. This cup of his has seen him through three and a half decades of his life. Every day he uses it, and it’s still a gorgeous cup.

What struck me was how much this cup must mean to him by now. It also seemed very kind to the environment to use just one cup in all that time. I know that if you took all the cups I’ve used over the past thirty years, they would probably need their own landfill. How many paper cups, Styrofoam coffees, coke bottles, water bottles...how much glass and plastic have I used and thrown away in the course of my days over the years? Too many to be sure.

Apart from the simplicity of using one cup is the fact that it’s made of clay. It was dug from the earth, molded by hand, glazed and fired in a kiln. It made me think that consumption itself isn’t necessarily bad. There are ways to own things that can be fun, and even meaningful, and also friendly to the environment. What if everything I owned was acquired to celebrate an occasion, and lasted a lifetime?

Do a dance for yogurt that isn't in plastic tubs

As we approach the launch of the No Impact Man book and the film, I thought it would be fun to repost some of what I wrote way back in 2007 at the beginning of the No Impact Man year, back when I was just a newly dubbed No Impact Man. This post first appeared on the blog in March, 2007.

Oh, and before we get to the post, wanted to remind you that I'm doing Climate Ride in September, a ride from NYC to Washington, DC and am looking for members of team No Impact Man! Want to join? Want to sponsor my ride? Click here.

What do you get when you combine no throwaway packaging with local food only? Not too many tasty treats, I can tell you.

So the other night, I trundled along to a party thrown by the environmental magazine Plenty and bumped into David Kistner, founder of the Green Apple Cleaners, which uses CO2 instead of the highly-toxic perc to dry clean clothes. David introduced me to his wife Effie, and she happened to tell me that her mother, who immigrated from Greece, makes yogurt nearly every day. Why I jumped with joy to hear this news is that, on this damn regime, I haven't been able to get yogurt or just about any other snack food because it always comes in some sort of throwaway plastic packaging which would break the no trash rule. 

So Effie emailed me her Mom's recipe, I made it last night, and it's the best. Mix with honey. Yum. Just to have--at last!--some sort of food that I don't have to cook. I mean, I making my own bread every day, for crying out loud. So having yogurt in the fridge is crazy good. Anyway, in case you're interested, here is Effie's Mom's incredibly easy recipe for homemade yogurt:

1) Boil whole milk (for some reason it doesn't come out right with less than whole milk) in a large pot until it boils and foams at the top.  Shut if off before it spills over.

2) Let the milk cool off until you can keep your pinky finger in the milk for 10 seconds without burning it (a temperature reading would have been great for this step but I don't think they had these back in Greece 70 years ago), so this will be the most difficult step.

3) In a small bowl (that holds about 2 cups) add one tablespoon of live yogurt and beat it until smooth.  Slowly add to this starter one cup of the milk from the pot stirring slowly until combined.

4) Transfer this mixture (in #3 above) to the pot of boiled milk slowly pouring it in the pot while mixing the pot of milk the whole time to combine thoroughly (with a spatula or long spoon).

5) Pour into glass or plastic containers and seal them.

6) Arrange the containers together and cover with 2 to 3 towels keeping them in a warm place of the house (and no, you don't need some sort of a yogurt maker gadget to keep them warm). Let them sit overnight.

7) In the morning place them in the refrigerator and they will get cold.  Yogurt is done.

8) Do a dance!

 

Another way to fill the craving to shop

Shopping is an American social pastime, but the problem is that shopping from "want," instead of from "need," causes the use of planetary resources we can't afford to burn. We talked about this a little here.

Yesterday, I mentioned how much fun my daughter Isabella had running out to a farm field to harvest vegetables. Harvesting? Shopping? Harvesting? Shopping?

Wait! Aren't they kind of the same thing?

Here are the excellent thoughts on the subject of a regular reader and commenter, who calls herself Linda from Deerfield:

I keep thinking about Isabella being thrilled by "going out into the field to harvest a squash". Am I imagining things, or does this not point to a gloriously healthy direct substitute for shopping?

I read about a potato farmer who ran out of harvest time and profitability, so he invited the public to dig their own and take them home -- much to his surprise, literally thousands came. I once took my friend and little one to a rural orchard, mistakenly assuming that few people had discovered the delight of an afternoon plucking apples and sipping cider -- I was stunned by the huge line of families in cars waiting to pay their fee and gain entry.

There is evidently a great hunger within us to harvest our own food, but still we stand by and let the orchards and farms fall to developers.

Forget the stuff. Let's just get happy.

A quote from a TED talk given by Dan Gilbert, the Harvard professor and author of Stumbling on Happiness:

Natural happiness is what we get when we get what we wanted. Synthetic happiness is what we make when we don't get what we wanted.

In our society, we have a strong belief that synthetic happiness is of an inferior kind. Why do we have that belief? Well, it's very simple. What kind of economic engine would keep churning if we believed that not getting what we want could make us just as happy as getting it.

A shopping mall full of Zen monks is not going to be particularly profitable because they don't want stuff enough.

But I want to suggest to you that synthetic happiness is every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you get when you stumble upon what you are aiming for...

We have the capacity to manufacture the very thing we are chasing.

Happiness.

So the question becomes, do we really want to spend so much of our precious time chasing after the things and stuff that, in their manufacture and distribution, harm the habitat we depend upon for our health, happiness and security?

Thirty-one tips for reducing your impact while saving money

I was reading through comments here on the blog last night and I found this great list of tips by reader Millie Barnes, who writes a blog about health and gardening called Optimum Nutrition. Her tips were just too comprehensive to let them languish in the comments. So here they are (I don't even mind including the plug for her products). Thanks Millie!

My Level of Living Green
by Millie Barnies

1) Air dry all laundry--had to put a lock on the dryer cord to convince my daughters I was serious--they have learned to plan ahead! I wash all laundry in cold water, always wash full loads, and use a drying rack inside if it is raining. It’s good for the earth and great for your skin, a free humidifier in the house. Which also makes it feel a few degrees warmer in winter, and cooler in summer. I use soapnuts for laundry. http://www.zamuta.com/

2) Buy all organic.

3) Buy all organic non-toxic beauty care products and make-up. I make my own skin care cleanser and moisturizers. I make my own soap. My beauty products can be purchased at http://ezchef.net/spacuisine/

4) Use baking soda and vinegar for cleaning the bathroom. I use Ms. Meyer Clean Day for dishes, Citri-Clean for counters and general purpose cleaning. I use a loofah for scrubbing dishes (I am growing my own right now so I won’t have to buy them anymore!) My sister is making scrubbies by crocheting them, we will offer these for sale soon!

5) Take cloth bags to store for groceries and all other purchases. Take muslin bags I made to grocery store for produce.

6) Recycle, re-use, make my own and have stopped buying anything I don’t really need.

7) Don’t use paper towels, never have. Used cloth diapers for all 5 kids.

8) Don’t buy stuff in plastic, I try to buy all glass. Store all food in glass. Re-use glass jars. I mostly buy real food (meat, produce) try to not buy anything that needs a label, so no packaging.

9) Have been using recycled toilet paper for years but am considering switching to cloth at home. (don’t freak, we all used that same choice when we used cloth diapers and wash clothes on our baby’s tushes!)

10) Make my own gluten free granola, make my own mayonnaise, salad dressings, spice blends.

11) I use a compost toilet, no toilet paper (think cloth baby wash clothes).

13) Bokashi (a way to deal with indoor kitchen scraps with NO odor and yields compost WAY faster). I have been using the Bokashi method of dealing with kitchen waste for about 3 weeks now…I love it!

14) Use very low flow shower heads. Ace Hardware has a 1.5 GPM with a shut-off valve.

15) Use all CF light bulbs…and use them as little as possible. I have one evening a week that I use no lights..on Shabbat! Dinner by candlelight!

16) Use grey water from shower (I keep a 3 gallon bucket in shower and use it throughout the day to flush the toilet, take what’s left to the flower beds.

17) Use water from rinsing dishes to water flower beds.

18) Use a broom on all my wooden floors instead of using vacuum cleaner.

19) Run as few errands as possible, car pool and combine trips.

20) Use micro-cloths to clean with, even on glass you do not need cleaning products!

21) NEVER buy bottled water. I bought a Kleen Kanteen for each person in the family, we refill and take with us. I’ve had mine over a year.

22) Go paperless or CD-less as much as possible. I provide my clients with emails of my book, but still put cookbook software on CD.

23) Unplug all appliances not being used. Yes, that cell phone charger and TV are using power when you aren’t using them! I use power strips to keep them plugged in, turn them off at night, or when I’m gone all day.

24) Use only a hurricane lamp when we sit outside at night. It gives enough light to read by…but is perfect turned low …for just hanging out. Very romantic, too!

25) Use candlelight at dinner, not just on Shabbat!

26) I have an outdoor solar heated shower that I built.

27) I put in a raised bed garden, square foot garden I have green leaf lettuce in a grow box, cherry and big sweet tomatoes, basil, thyme. I have sweet potatoes growing, beets (mmmm, beet greens), onions, Swiss chard, purple flowering kale, nastutiums, broccoli, cucumbers, peppers, red potatoes, a banana tree. Inside I am growing cucumbers and strawberries hydroponically.

28) I use a non-disposable razor, an old-fashioned stainless steel, very high quality razor that uses double edged blades. It was 24.00 from ClassicShaving.com. The blades are 10 for 5.99, and they are double edged! They give the closest, smoothest shave you can imagine! No disposable blade can compare.

29) Wash dishes with 2 dish pans in the sink, one for hot soapy water, one with warm rinse water. Do glasses first, pause a moment to let the soapy water drip off, then move to rinse water. Stop when rinse water is almost full and rinse quickly. Repeat with silver, plates, then pots and utensils. All with 2 dishpans full of water. Then I pour the soapy water, with all that organic matter, onto my plants in the garden. It helps repel pests and loosens the soil. And good for the biceps when you carry it outdoors.

30)
I water my garden with buckets from the rain barrels that are under the eaves of my garage. 10 feet from my garden. The front flower garden gets watered entirely from the dish water.

30) I work out at home, no expensive gym memberships that I never used anyway. I save all the expense of membership, and gas and time driving. I have a set of weights, two exercise balls, a yoga mat and a chin-up bar.

Open Discusson: Saving money while saving the planet

It's time for a recession special blog post--how can we help our wallets while saving the planet while making ourselves happier and healthier?

During the No Impact project, we saved--and continue to save--a lot of money on everything from transportation to food. The combination of riding our bikes everywhere and only eating fresh local produce meant we spent less (because we ate less take out and paid for no transport), lost weight and felt better.

What measures do you take that both save you money and reduce your impact on the planet?

As for all you readers who get the blog by email, you will actually have to come to the web page itself to participate and to read what other readers are saying.

To do it, click here. You'll see these words on the web page. At the bottom of the post, you'll see the word "comments." Click on that and you will be able to see what everyone is saying and you will also be able to leave comments or questions of your own.

Let's talk. Let's have fun. Let's figure out how to save the world.

LVGRN: The knife at my throat

Last week on this blog, a man--namely me--dared to suggest to suggest that a reusable "feminine hygiene" product--namely, the menstrual cup--might keep billions of tampons out of the landfills. It only seems fair, therefore, to suggest a product for men that would keep millions of plastic razors out of the landfill.

According to Grist, 2 billion disposable razors end up in U.S. dumps every year. Furthermore, the disposable razor blade, invented by King Camp Gillette, helped usher in our disposable culture back in the early 1900s. That’s why I adopted the straightedge razor during the No Impact year.

I use hand soap to make a lather—no disposable shaving foam cans—and use my hands to apply it since most shaving brushes are made from beaver fur. If you want to know how to shave with the long blade, go here. It took a while, but the emergency room nurses no longer know me on a first name basis and I get as close a shave as I used to.

Not only that, but there is an added value to the straightedge. Think about it: mine was given to me by my father as a Christmas present. I shaved with it throughout the No Impact year and beyond. I shaved with it before our wedding anniversary. I shaved with it before my little girl's birthday.

Over time, the razor has become like an old friend. It accumulates memories and has a familiar fit in my hand. It has become an intimate possession like my grandfather's cuff links. This is part of what is good about getting away from the throwaway culture. We come to value what we own.

Not only that, but how much better is it for both the pocket and the planet to buy a razor that lasts your whole life than hundreds of plastic razors or razor heads that don't?

Sustainable living on a community level

Streetfilms posted an interesting video today about Los Angeles Eco-Village, where people have come together to enjoy the benefits of sustainable and community living.

"An ecovillage is a human scale neighborhood where people know their neighbors and care about them. People can live close to where they work and play and have access to other essential services without use of automobiles. Together, neighbors try to minimize waste and pollution of all kinds. Residents and friends work together to create a healthy community socially, physically and economically.

Urban ecovillages work with surrounding neighborhoods and the city at large to bring a whole systems perspective to urban planning and community development activities. The L.A. Eco-Village Demonstration is part of an international network of sustainable neighborhood groups which seek to model healthier ways of living based on environmental sustainability and social and economic justice."

Read more about sustainable communities at the Global Ecovillage Network or at Intentional Communities, and of course, watch the video below (thanks to WorldChanging for the tip off!):

How to cut out home heating oil--Japanese style

This is a guest post by my friend Sean Sakamoto, who blogs at www.idratherbe.tv/injapan.

"It's so weird that you heat your whole house," my wife said one winter. She's Japanese, and when we first got married, here in the United States, we got a lot of mileage out of the "I can't believe you people actually do this" conversations.

Recently, we moved to Japan and the tables have turned. It's my turn now and, among other things, perhaps my biggest culture shock was, at first: "I can't believe you people don't heat your houses." That's right: there is no heat in our new Japanese home, and in this culture, that is not remotely unusual.

Despite growing up in Michigan, I have always been a total wimp about the cold. That's why, when we decided to move, my biggest worry was surviving the winter. The language barrier, the food, the culture shock, all seemed manageable, but not the cold. I have always hated being cold, especially indoors.

It's been four months, now, and we're in the dead of winter. We live in a rural village. Our apartment is concrete with no insulation. My breath clouds the air; it condenses on the windows and turns into a sheet of ice. I wear a wool cap to bed, to breakfast, and everywhere else. I've always thought that it's just not supposed to be cold inside, but as far as the Japanese are concerned, I thought wrong.

Like the fish for breakfast, I've adapted to the situation much faster than I expected. As is usual for me with most things I used to dread, I've even come to see some great benefits my new situation. There is an upside to having a freezing cold home. The best part about it is a something called a kotatsu.

The kotatsu is a low table with a small electric heater underneath. There's at least one in every home (that's my wife and little boy sitting at one in the photo). The top of the table lifts off, and a quilt goes over the legs. Then you put the top back on. Everyone sits around the table with the quilt over their laps, and the heat keeps your lower body warm. It's cozy, like sitting by the fire.

Because the rest of the house is freezing, the kotatsu gets a lot of action. It's the first place I go in the morning, and the last place I leave at night. We eat at the kotatsu. We enjoy nabe,  long family meals with a pot of boiling water on a portable burner. We dip meat, veggies, and noodles into the pot and then scoop them onto bowls of rice. The boiling water heats the room, and the hot meat and veggies taste great.

When we're not eating, we play board games around the kotatsu, or just sit quietly and listen to music.

Another strategy for surviving the cold is the hot bath we share at the end of the day. We have a tiny, but deep bathtub. We fill it up with freezing cold water, and then fire up the propane heater next to it to warm up the bath water.

All of use the same bath water, but it's much better than it sounds, because before we get in, we scoop the water over our heads, soap up and rinse off. Then we take our turns squeezing into the tub. That heats us up enough to make the transition into bed, carrying a hot water bottle to keep our feet warm all night. We don't drain the tub, we pump it into the washing machine the next day do to the daily wash, which we hang up in the hallway. Even in the winter, our clothes dry in a couple of days.

We're not alone. Part of what makes this situation bearable is that everyone does it. We're not making some sacrifice that everyone else forgoes. I have no one nearby to envy. At the high school where I teach English, all the students and teachers have a kotatsu at home, they each bring a hot water bottle to bed, and they all wake up to the same freezing cold air. We're all in it together, and I'm the only person who even knows anything different.

There's another reason I appreciate this new experience, too. It is what the Japanese call "Gaman." It means "endure," or "tolerate" but there's more to it than that. It ascribes value to enduring something difficult. To Gaman is a principle, its a virtue. It's a cross between hanging in there and fighting the good fight.

There are times when gaman is a pain. Sometimes enduring hardship as a virtue when the situation could just as easily be made more comfortable seems nuts. But as a cultural value, doing your best and enduring hardship is refreshing. I won't speak for other Americans, but my experience has often leaned too far the other way when it comes to putting up with difficulty without complaint.

I like finding the easy way, I seek comfort, I reach for whatever might soothe the least bit of discomfort I feel. This wouldn't be so bad if it actually worked. But too often I've emerged woozy from another day of escapism and wondered if there wasn't another way. The connection between comfort, consumption, and happiness seems to be more tenuous than I once thought. Here I am in Japan, my fear of a heatless winter come true, and I'm happier than I've been in years.

The unintended result is that I'm consuming less resources, though that was never really a goal of mine, spending much more time with my family, and feeling a strange satisfaction in knowing that I'm taking the more difficult path and doing just fine. It's got me wondering about the value of gaman and how it fits with living a more sustainable lifestyle, and how maybe it's not that foreign a concept.

Wasn't there a time in America when hard work was valued just for the fact that it was hard? Weren't we more stoic in years past? I'm really asking because I have no idea, just a feeling. I always mocked the scorn of the old timers when they told me how they walked miles in ten feet of snow uphill both ways to school and back. The Grandpa Simpson's of the world whose quaint sacrifices seemed hopelessly outmoded.

Still, there was a pride in their voices that I didn't really understand. Now, maybe, I do. I like huddling around the kotatsu, the simple pleasure of a hot bath at the end of a cold day, and the hot water bottle at my feet. I like putting up with the winter chill.

And the great news is, I don't have to worry about leaving the milk out.

[No Impact Man comments: Meanwhile the greenhouse gas emissions per Japanese citizen is only 40% of the average American's]

 

Another way not to use a throwaway coffee cup

As you may know, I generally carry an ultra-cool reusable cup--otherwise known as a glass jar--for use when I get coffee. For the longest time, if I forgot my jar, rather than use a paper or plastic cup, I would just forgo the coffee (even though I don't keep to the No Impact rules so stringently anymore, I can't bring myself to use throwaway cups).

Anyway, yesterday I discovered a whole new ploy. I reached into the trash of a coffee place, pulled out a barely used cup that someone else had thrown away, washed it, and asked the barista to put my coffee in it. Tada! I could have coffee even if I forgot my jar, and I did not cause a cup to be thrown away!

PS I admit that I still prefer my jar, because sure enough, someone said to me, "What are you doing using a paper cup?"

PPS Enjoy the slideshow of thrown-away coffee cups courtesy of Celina's Coffee Cup Project on Flickr.