Scenic Drive clean up tomorrow

10th Annual Mountain Clean Up with Keep El Paso Beautiful and the Newman Park Neighborhood Association are cleaning up Scenic Drive starting at 7 a.m. tomorrow. Traffic is closed until noon like every Sunday. All are welcome to participate.

Only vinegar for me from now on!

After I wrote today's column about green cleaning products available commercially, I had a change of heart. I decided to go one step simpler and clean my house with water and white vinegar. Well, wouldn't you know it. It works great. No streaks. High shine on the floors. Fine on windows and mirrors. No smell. And a gallon costs something like $3.

I'll still wash my clothes with detergent but, other than that, it's vinegar all the way for me! (I'm going to try to do the dishes with it too. I'll report later.)

COLUMN: The dirt on green cleaners

Louie Gilot / Special to the Times

El Paso Times

Posted: 02/24/2010 06:55:49 PM MST

EL PASO -- Recently, I ran out of laundry detergent and dishwashing liquid and decided it was time to take the plunge and shell out a couple more bucks for environmentally friendly products.
When I opened the bottles, the first thing that hit me was ...nothing. We've come to expect a generous whiff of pine or lemon, or "After the Rain," whatever that is. But of course, there's nothing that says our cleaners have to be fragrant. My parents' generation didn't have this luxury; the house used to smell like ammonia. So the absence of cleaner scent is a blessing, really.

Do they get the job done? My new detergent is from one of the smaller but better-known green brands, and my new dishwashing liquid is part of a new line by the leading manufacturer of bleach. They handled just like my old cleaners and cleaned just as well. But if you think the ingredient lists in these products will be easier to read than those of their non-green equivalents, you are in for a surprise.

Stephen Colbert on the snow

The snow today makes me brace myself again for remarks along the lines of, "So, where's global warming now?" If it's snowing, then it must be that global warming is not real.

Stephen Colbert addressed that argument last week during the DC snowstorm.

"Folks, this is simple observational research. Whatever just happened is the only thing happening, as any peekaboo-ologist knows."

Are there locavores in El Paso?

I'd like to research how to eat more locally-grown food here but I don't know where to start. Are there any locavores in El Paso?

I haven't seen any signs at the supermarket that say, "Grown Locally," or "Grown in Southern New Mexico." So, how do I know? Where do I go? Help!

(The photo is of prickly pears, FYI.)

My new cloth napkins

Enough with the negativity. Here's a proactive thing I did recently to stop wiping my mouth with dead trees (aka paper napkins and paper towels). I bought these cloth napkins for $3.49 for a pack of 4. They are not sexy like green Olympics but they work.

My husband hates them. Tough luck.

Green Olympics? Really?

Medals made of recycled electronics, carbon offsets and more at the Vancouver Olympics. That's nice, but didn't they have to truck in snow because there wasn't enough (climate change?). Trucking in snow is not green and neither is putting together such a massive event every two years that expands so much energy, new construction, grandiose displays, huge numbers of people, etc...

Do you all remember how the Chinese "greened" their Olympics? They forbade car driving before and during the event, to attain an acceptable air quality. After that, it's business as usual.

Let's stop kidding ourselves with green Olympics and let's look for real solutions to our sustainability problem. Or maybe it's that I just don't like figure skating.

On NPR: Asarco must clean up El Paso, but not Juarez

A Toxic Century: Mining Giant Asarco Must Clean Up Mess, by John Burnett, on NPR, February 4.

Highlights (and El Pasoans always complain that Juarez is polluting us?):

Cook and other longtime El Pasoans remember when the wind would shift to the south, the smelter would crank up production, and the smokestack would gush dirty yellow smoke directly into Juarez.
"They could basically pollute as much as they wanted, because it was going into another country that had no ability to stop us," Cook says.

"It is very clear that a majority of what came out of that flue and was deposited over 100 years landed in Mexico," says Texas state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, one of those who led the fight to close down Asarco. 

Full text after the break.

Down with Valentine's Day!

I was considering doing a Valentine's Day column, about how to go green on V-Day, but I decided against it. What would that column have said? Buy these chocolates, not these ones. Buy the organic cotton sexy underwear. Send a card on recycled paper. At the end, it's buy, buy, buy. Buy to show your love. For the first year, I truly feel that Valentine's Day is all about making us buy stuff.

I know. You're going to say, Duh!

But I always felt that Valentine's Day was for making grand gestures to signify romantic devotion. Too bad, these grand gestures always involve us buying stuff that we don't really need or want. It's even gotten to the point that people give Valentine's gifts to friends, acquaintances, co-workers, our moms. It's insane. What does it mean?

Isn't there a better way to show that we love our partners without buying meaningless stuff? What else can we do? I welcome suggestions.

Book: No Impact Man

I am reading "No Impact Man," by Colin Beavan, a New York man who, for one year, tried not to have any environmental impact. He took his family along for the wild ride and, through a blog and a New York Times profile, they became famous.

It's very funny and insightful. He did it in phases, starting by reducing his trash production to zero by blowing his nose in handkerchiefs, instead of "dead trees," and not buying anything that came in disposable packaging.

He very skillfully puts into words how disturbing it is that so much of what we manufacture is designed to used for less than 5 minutes, like the paper plate under your pizza slice, or the plastic bag at the supermarket. All this stuff is supposedly designed to make our lives more convenient, to save time to get to the good stuff. Like eating a slice of pizza on the run to get back to work faster is "the good stuff?" That really makes no sense. Nobody can possibly say that plastic supermarket bags are making our lives better, or making us happier.

So, why are we doing it?

COLUMN: La Greenga answers question about recycling CFLs

I today's El Paso Times:
(A special thanks to the El Paso Solar Energy Association, Solar Smart Living and El Paso Environmental Services for their help in answering these questions.)

Q: "Please comment as to how consumers should dispose of CFL bulbs. Without proper disposal, should we be concerned about how much mercury we are releasing into the environment?" -- Anonymous.

A: There is a small amount of mercury in CFL bulbs (about 4 milligrams), of which an even smaller amount (14 percent) will evaporate if the bulb breaks. The rest is bound to the glass. The U.S. Department of Energy and the EPA are not worried, saying that even if all the CFL bulbs sold in 2007 were sent to a landfill, it would only raise man-made mercury emissions by 0.16 percent. Still, they recommend handling a broken CFL bulb carefully (pick up the pieces with pieces of cardboard, not a vacuum or a broom). The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality says it's not illegal to simply throw the bulbs, broken or whole, in the trash, but recommends first sealing them in a plastic bag.

COLUMN: La Greenga answers question about solar water heaters

In today's El Paso Times:

Q: "I would appreciate ... some reliable information regarding how residential solar water-heating systems can qualify for a 30 percent federal tax credit, while qualified tank-less hot-water heaters can earn up to a $1,500 federal credit." -- Alberto.

A: Solar water heaters are on the list of solar- and wind-powered appliances, and other super-efficient machinery, that qualify for a substantial federal tax credit. In the case of solar water heaters, it is 30 percent of the cost. The credit applies to primary and secondary residences (no rentals), existing and new construction. It does not apply to solar pool heaters. A 30 percent tax credit, up to $1,500, applies to tank-less gas water heaters in existing, primary residences. Electric water heaters do not qualify, tank-less or not.

Calculate your carbon footprint

The online calculator at www.ecofoot.org is really fun; very suited for pre-teens or teens. You get to create an avatar and walk around consuming CO2 in a video-game type of animation. At the end it is revealed how many planets it would take to sustain your lifestyle if everyone on earth were living your way. My score was just under 4 planets. Yikes.

The measurements are not super precise, however. So take it as entertainment, not science.

Well said, Michael Scott!

"Too much change is not good. Ask the climate!"

Michael Scott, The Office.

Holy Meerkat! The zoo is going green.

I tagged along with the El Paso Solar Energy Association two nights ago and we got a tour of the new African exhibit (the lions premiere March 13) and a behind-the-scenes preview of their new building: the future house of the meerkats (an animal so interesting it got its own reality show!) and also a mock research station modeled after remote research outposts in Africa.

The exciting part is that the building, called the Kalahari Research Station, will showcase all sorts of renewable energy features. It will have solar panels on the roof, a windmill out front and the EPSEA guys volunteered to build all sorts of fun solar-powered gadgets (solar backpack, solar fountain, etc…).

In addition, Rick LoBello, the zoo’s education director, has a vision to use the building to showcase the type of renewable energy uses that are being introduced in Africa, where photovoltaic panels would be impractical. One of these programs is making briquettes (see photo) for stoves out of compressed trash, including vegetable scraps. LoBello will build a briquette press from plans he received from the Legacy Foundation in Oregon. The second is solar cookers. But I won’t go there, since it’s still a sore subject for me (revisit my solar cooker fiasco here).

Photos of the visit after the break.

Zero Energy Home update

So, the ground breaking announced in the previous post was actually pushed back to next week because of the rain.

Zero Energy Home groundbreaking in Montana Vista

Groundbreaking in about half an hour for the future Project Bravo Zero Energy Home, a model home for affordable and sustainable housing, at 14901 Whitetail Deer Drive. It's funded through a $149,212 HUD grant, and $2.3 million in American Recovery Act funding. 

The development team consists of Wright & Dalbin, El Paso Community College, Mr. Steve Cook, Senercon (Southwest Energy Construction), and Project BRAVO Inc.  The model home will also serve as the training grounds for EPCC’s Workforce Development Introduction to Construction Technology class.

Energy efficient features planned for this model home/office may include such features as solar cells or wind turbines for electricity, or solar collectors linked to seasonal thermal stores for space heating.

I wonder if I can get artists renderings on that project.

Rich Wright, for Wright & Dalbin Architects, Inc., writes that idea is that the house "will use no more energy than it produces on site, generating electricity with photovoltaic solar cells, and heating water through a combination of photovoltaic and passive solar techniques.

LaGreenga is greening her workplace

I made recycling boxes for my office. I'm curious to see how much paper we actually dispose of and if it's worth it to pay for recycling pickup (which the city doesn't provide for businesses).