Hello class… Class! Hello? Could you sit down, pleas—Hey! No throwing! Do you want a detention? No? Well then…? Ah. Thank you.
Now then. My name's Arleigh and I'm going to be your substitute for the next few days while Mateo's slogging through his academic responsibilities. I must admit to being slightly intimidated by this task due to the rapidly expanding readership as well as the size of the shoes that have requested filling, but I'm always up for a challenge! I've got a few ideas up my sleeve. And the best part? I won't threaten to take my clothes off. Promise.
Unlike home-owning Mateo, I live in an apartment, and feel rather powerless on a number of issues. My appliances aren't energy-saving. My thermostat is as old as the building and only shuts off when I remember to flip the switch. The temperature of the hot water verges on painful. The energy waste in the public areas astounds me. Don't even get me started on sweltering stairwells.
Don't get me wrong: I'm doing my bit. I have replaced my old and energy-sucking light bulbs with energy-efficient ones. I unplug phantom-sucking appliances when they're not in use. I compost and recycle regularly.
This is where you – faithful footprint readers – come in. I need your ideas. What have you done to greenify your apartment buildings? Send along stories of how you swayed your superintendents and convinced your landlords. Where did you begin? Which battles have you won? Has there been anything your rental company has been particularly resistant to?
Hope to hear from you all soon!
2 comments:
I recycle all paper that comes into my place. I also recycle all plastics that can be recycled. Food scraps are composted via the municipal service. I have CFLs in every lamp with 1 exception and that requires that the fixture be replaced, which is in progress. I use lighting and heat selectively. I minimize the use of chemical products. Since I have an absentee landlord, I have replaced the lights in the common areas with CFLs, including the external ones that are on motion-sensors. I also place solar lights in the backyard garden.
Here's a good one... start calling CFL lovers mercury poisoners and fish killers. CFLs and florescent bulbs are super toxic. If you really want to be "wicked green" and be really really really awesome then pay the big bucks for LED bulbs. If you have the guts to support this technology it will get cheaper fast. IKEA has several lamps that work great and chicks and Emo boyfriends think they're hot. There are warm white LEDs that "feel" exactly like incandescent. Yes, an 11 watt LED "bulb" that puts out the same amount of light as a 120 watt incandescent costs between $50 and $75 dollars, but they are beyond sexy and if you buy one people will think you are as good looking as the models in a dolce and gabbana ad. As soon as folks are bored with your naked LED bulb - buy some fiber optic lines and pipe the light all over the apartment... wow. If you get creative and experiment and, oh, say, start to think of your apartment as if it were a boat surrounded by other little boats and then look at what kind of technology is available for boats; then, you might buy a 5 watt flexible solar panel, a small gel cell battery and build a 12 volt lighting system. If you don't get direct sunlight make friends with someone who faces south and hang the panel in the sun. I doubt that anyone reading this blog is an average "consumer," so go out and educate yourselves and be the first person ever to take their apartment off the grid. And please next time say that you will take your clothes off and replace that horrible picture of Mateo with a large breasted cartoon character... if you want to save the world you can't fight fair.
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