No, this is not a Martha Stewart moment.

Given that it’s the time of year to make mazzo balls, egg nog, or large quantities of ham and poultry, it’s time to take Conservation into the kitchen and teach it to cook. I’ve already written about saving water, so I’m already shutting off the faucet while I lather up my hands. There’s more to do at dinner time, though!

• Think Globally, Shop Locally. Nearly every town has some kind of local market- not a supermarket that’s close to you, a local market. Meaning the produce and meat you find was actually grown somewhere just outside of town, or in someone’s garden. Chances are good it’ll be fresher, maybe even organic, and a trucker didn’t have to burn gallons of diesel from some farm 1,000 miles away.
• Okay, shop locally on occasion. The local market often isn’t too convenient for most people’s daily grocery shopping, but for a big Christmas dinner? A special event? Every little bit helps, and you’d be surprised how much tastier produce is when it was in the ground yesterday.
• Buy Organic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, ya hippie, I know. It’s pricier, but that’s only because special care and extra steps were taken to prevent chemicals from getting into the ground- and your food. Organic farmers practice sustainable living, and when I can afford a little higher grocery bill, I try and support them.
• Who needs tupperware? I mean, seriously, it may feel a bit ghetto using sour cream tubs to store leftovers, but who’s going to care? Its not like I’m serving meals to wedding guests, I’m just sticking unused food back in the fridge. Instead of buying plastic containers, we use everything from butter tubs to salsa jars, and already our cupboards runneth over. It amazes me that anyone buys empty plastic containers anymore.
• Less packaging = less trash. I kind of already covered this when writing about Christmas shopping, but the same principle applies to food. Granted, buying bulk vegetables is just dumb unless you’re making a huge meal, but things like rice and pasta last forever in the pantry. Why buy a 1lb bag of rice if a 5lb bag is available? Also, any time I can skip the plastic produce bag, I do- Lemons are tough enough to survive the shopping cart ride on their own.
• Tea and Sympathy. Despite what certain recent albums might suggest, I drink a lot of tea. Rather than throw away teabag after teabag, I have a few tea toys like steel steeping balls, a French press, and I’m in the market for a good teapot. By buying loose tea like Twinings, I’m throwing away less paper and getting a great little storage tin out of the bargain too.

As an update from recent posts, I have indeed installed a shutoff valve on my shower head. It feels a little weird at first, turning the water off to lather up and scrub. It’s kind of like summer camp or when we did the Habitat thing down in Tijuana. After a week, though, I began to wonder why I’d been wasting so much water my whole life. It’s astounding how little you actually need to stay warm and clean, and how a simple $6 piece of hardware can save a load of money on the water bill.

[tags]Matthew Ebel, piano rock, environment, conservation, tea, organic, recycling[/tags]

One of the most important things we can do to keep this planet in one piece is simply to stop wasting stuff. Check out this cartoon about printer ink by the talented Jim Borgman. They package these things to make them harder to shoplift (and at $20 for a single black ink cartridge, Epson really ought to worry about shoplifting). Do you really need all that cardboard? The brochures inside trying to sell photo paper (who the heck prints photos anymore anyway)? The plastic bag, the mile-long receipt…

As a consumer, whenever I can find a low-packaging alternative, I jump on it.

• Just say no. If I’m only buying a few things I can carry or fit in my pockets, I say no to a plastic bag (the girl at my local Walgreens honestly tried to put a single tube of Chapstick in a bag for me).
• Shop at home. I buy online, where I can get printer ink with minimal packaging at half the price, an emailed receipt, and even free shipping. Plus I’m not burning gasoline to get to the store.
• Everyone loves refills. I buy my hand soap in a 1 gallon plastic jug, not 8 ounces at a time in 16 plastic pump bottles.

And this Christmas I don’t want become part of the packaging problem. ‘Tis the season to consume, spend, and bolster that good old economy, right? I plan to make the process an efficient one from start to end.

• Buy low-trash gifts. Personally, the only thing I want this year are Lowe’s Gift Cards since I’m moving and building a studio soon. Items like clothing, cars, jewelry, food, concert/movie tickets, and books usually don’t come with much junk to throw out.
• Don’t wrap gifts in even more trash. Wrapping paper, bows, and ribbon are a colossal waste of resources that even a simple gift bag can fix. Gift bags and boxes are common, pretty, and reusable for years. Some gifts, like small jewelry, can be hidden in the mistletoe completely unwrapped (and how romantic is it to reach up in the middle of the kiss and pull out those diamond earrings?).

And one last tip: If you want a real Christmas tree this year, go to a “cut your own tree” farm. The trees that aren’t chosen this season will continue producing oxygen and reducing greenhouse gases until next year, unlike all those that were already cut for the parking lot tree vendor.

Hat tip to Daniel Johnson Jr. for emailing me that Borgman cartoon, excellent find!

[tags]Matthew Ebel, piano rock, environment, Jim Borgman, Epson, inkjet, ink, conservation, packaging, trash, Lowe’s, Walgreens, Christmas[/tags]