Bike time!

I've been meaning to post about this all summer but every time I sat down, I had another random idea and posted that instead. So today:

Get a bike, get on it and go somewhere!

As a kid, my parents drove me to school every morning, and later, I drove myself. There were no school buses going to my school so we drove the 20km to school, while other friends walked (from a much closer distance). It sounded crazy to me that anyone would ride their bike to school. (Though I knew it'd be possible if I lived closer too.) If someone had asked me what a good distance to bike to school would've been, I wouldn't have been able to say, because I had no concept of the distances vs. speed vs. effort ratios of riding a bike. I had also gotten into the bad habit of driving absolutely everywhere...



Fast-forward a few years and a move to Finland later, subtract the car and money to buy a car but add a shiny yellow bike, and here I am.
This summer I decided to challenge myself. My work place is 7km away (by car) and about 7.5km along a bike path. It sounded like a crazy distance to me at first but I tried it out anyway. It turned out it wasn't the distance that was challenging on this route, but the incline. One morning, after crawling out of bed and procrastinating as much as I could before leaving the house, I biked to work. Even better, I biked back too. It felt really rewarding walking into the office (admittedly a little sweaty, but you can bring a change of clothes too) having already done half an hour of exercise that day. I only took the bus once or twice more after that (on days I thought would be rainy after already biking during the rainy ones - again: change of clothes are key!) but I much preferred my bike. I also have to say, that I have a one speed Jopo (somewhat of a favourite in Finland, pictured above) and I need a fair bit of effort to make my way up hills. As a result, I have people zooming past me every morning as I make my way slowly towards my destination. But I've had a lot of time to think during those trips, and it's quite nice to slow down and take the world in.

In any case, if I can do it, you can do it too!
I have to admit that Finnish bike paths are far more prominent than Toronto ones but short trips to the grocery store are a great way to start, and are especially easy with a basket.

Quick tip: Reusable bottles.

Quick Tip: Carry a reusable water bottle around instead of using disposable cups or plastic bottles (especially PET ones).

You have many options and, much like the cloth bag, I highly recommend you get a bottle you really love and want to carry around.

There are 4 different options (or if you want to think of them as such, schools of thought):

1. Reusable plastic bottles: many people believe that regardless of the type of plastic, some of it may still leach into your water and consequently, your body. There are different types of plastic and this option is better than one-time use bottles but as far as production and disposal goes, they're still produced from fossil fuels and can only be downcycled.

2. Aluminum: is light and quite cheap. I have an aluminum bottle but I'm not in love with it. I do, however, still carry it around everywhere. It's lighter than glass, which is convenient but I'm not sure how long it'll last me. The problem with aluminium is that mold tends to grow in the bottles eventually (though this can be cleaned), so to prevent this, I empty mine and leave it to dry every night.

Not the most beautiful bottle (Asaklitt) but for 5 euros from Clas Ohlson, it's treated me well this summer.

3. Stainless steel: has all the perks (light weight) of an aluminium bottle with the added advantage of higher quality (for which you pay the higher price). If you're looking for an entirely plastic-free stainless steel water bottle, Kleen Kanteen has launched one. (Featured on myplasticfreelife.com) Or check out the product on their website here.

4. Glass: There are some really nice glass bottles you can get, for example, this glass one with a bamboo sleeve from the Canadian site Life without plastic. The bottles are a bit heavier but also very versatile. One of the best suggestions I've read for reusable drinking options is made of glass: a mason jar. Since glass is really easy to clean, you can use it for more than just water (coffee, tea, hot chocolate, juice, soup...anything!) I've actually been having some issues finding mason jars in Finland but since it's packing season now at the end of summer, you may have luck checking out what the bigger grocery stores have in stock.

Quick facts about water bottles here. (I don't completely agree with the 'solution' part of that link but the problem and impact sections are without bias.)

If you want more information on this stuff, do a Google search to see which choice is best for you and what products are offered in your area (or if you're within shipping distance of some of these online stores.)

If you have more thoughts on the subject, feel free to comment and start a discussion.

N.B. After posting this, I found this from a trusted website:
"Plastic may leach chemicals into the water and aluminum bottles are lined with an epoxy resin, some of which has also found to leach into water depending on the brand. Why take a chance? Read [Beth Terry's] posts about bottled water for more information:" http://myplasticfreelife.com/category/issues/issues-bottled-water/

New habits: Start shopping at your local farmers' market.

I couldn't sleep in today, so I decided to wake up and start my day early. The farmers' market a few blocks away is open until 2pm on Saturdays (and every weekday morning) but I like having time to browse so I hopped on my bike and headed there. I've been shopping there for about a month and I only just realized that, although I'm cooking different things, I use more or less the same ingredients every time. I started by walking up and down the isles and looking at all the produce and prices, making mental notes as I go.

What to bring:
+ Bike and bike basket (it speeds up the whole process)
+ Cloth bags to hold everything while walking around
+ Containers (like the Tupperware I already own) or other bags for messier items which need packaging ie. berries
+ an egg carton, if you're planning on buying eggs.

What to look for:
- check the prices.
- check how the items are packaged. wrapped in plastic? put in boxes?
- where do the products come from? I noticed this summer that people were selling cherries from Portugal, for example. Or lettuce and cucumbers wrapped in plastic from the same source as the grocery store (Here I failed to see the point of buying from those stalls.) Talk to the sellers about their products and origins.
- After doing a good warm-up walk around, you'll notice many of the same products on the tables. The products you see most often are those which are in season. In season products are a more sustainable choice than those which require extra resources to produce. I'm still learning "what grows when" but the visual aspects of it at the market makes it easy to understand :)



So now that you know what to look for and what to bring, you just need to find your local market and go there! I love coming home and admiring all the freshness, and I get a thrill out of knowing the stuff is local and not covered in plastic!

Realization: Dishwashing practice makes perfect...

It just so happened that the plastic awareness challenge coincided with me running out of dish washing machine tablets/powder for the first time. Since I've been using up the products I already had before being aware of the harm they were doing, my plan is to switch to eco-friendly products (meaning what I deem to be eco-friendly, not just because it says so on the box) gradually, as I run out.

Yesterday I headed over to the local "green" store, called Ruohonjuuri, in search of something to clean the full dishwasher that was waiting for me at home. I expected, however naively, to find the perfect product there... that wasn't the case. But I did instantly want to blog about the experience because I think it reflects many choices we have to make in our everyday lives when it comes to making greener choices.

This is what I found...
(By the way, I don't know everything about toxins in these types of products but my rule was: if they don't hurt the wildlife, that's usually a good sign AND I kept an eye out for packaging because that's a big concern for me. Also, I didn't have ALL the info you see below but I got it off the company websites for you :) !)


Product #1 - Ecover

Quantity: 25 tablets
Price: 9.20€
Country of origin: Belgium
Website: www.ecover.com
Pros:
+ Cardboard box, made of 95% recycled materials
+ plant based ingredients, not based on petrochemical ingredients
+ no chemical residue left on your dishes
+ GMO enzyme free
+ no artificial fragrance
+ no phosphates nor chlorine bleach
+ optimum level of biodegradability - far exceeds legislative requirements
+ safe for all river and marine life
+ no animal testing
+ safe for septic tanks
Cons:
- Each tablet is individually wrapped in plastic (it's recyclable but you can't recycle plastic in Finland... actually I should look into this...)
- Price

Product #2 - Attitude

Quantity: 26 and 40 tablets
Price: around 12,30€ and 16,38€ (Though only $8 and $11 in Canada!)
Country of origin: Canada (to be more specific, Quebec)
Website: www.labonneattitude.com
Pros:
+ individual sachets dissolve
+ Certified EcoLogo, an Environment Canada program
+ CO2 neutral: no contribution to climate change
+ Vegetable-based / Natural / Biodegradable
+ Free of phosphate and chlorine
+ Free of color dyes and artificial fragrances
+ Pure essential oils
+ Non-carcinogenic (selected ingredients not listed on the IARC Categories 1, 2A or 2B)
+ Vegan product
Cons:
- The 26 pack comes in a thick plastic bag (to protect from moisture)
- The 40 pack came in a hard plastic box
- Price

Product #3 - Alma Win

Quantity: 25 tablets
Price: around 11€ (I don't remember!)
Country of origin: Germany
Website: http://almawin-usa.com/cms/
Pros:
+ Comes in a cardboard box
+ FREE from phosphate, chlorine and GMO
+ Excellent water softening properties
+ Sodium citrate prevents lime deposits on dishes
+ Biodegradable, natural occurring poly aspartic acid aids even dispersion
+ Environmentally-compatible mild oxygen based bleaching agents improve degradation
+ Fragranced with certified organic essential lemon oil
+ Naturally and effectively remove persistent food particles, starch and protein with proteases, not enzymes
+ Suitable for vegans
+ Not tested on animals
Cons:
- Individually plastic wrapped tablets
- More expensive than Ecover (which is packaged the same)

My decision:
I may have to shop around, so I picked Ecover (the cheaper and less-plastic-y of the bunch). In case it doesn't clean my dishes and work my way up (price-wise), I figured it was smarter to start with the cheaper option.

Afterthoughts:
Ironically, I went to a bigger grocery store after and found the same Ecover box for only €6.50. I know stores like Prisma definitely benefit from economies of scale and most of their products are not sustainable but 2.70€/box is a pretty hefty price increase. I went back to Ruohonjuuri today and apologized to the super nice sales person. They still have products you can't find elsewhere though and I plan to support them that way.
Again more irony, I realized I could've tried making the dishwashing powder myself, but I'll have to give that a try later (and post about some dishwashing- vs. dishwasher-related debates). Baby steps.

Do you have any products you'd like to recommend? Have you tried making your own dishwashing powder? Feel free to post about your experiences!

Quick tip: How to make sure everything you can recycle is recycled.

Our apartment is 46m². For those of you who think in feet, that's 495.13 feet². (Apparently... that sounds like a big number to me.) But the point is, the apartment is small. In this space, we have a kitchen garbage, a kitchen bio-waste, an 'office-looking' garbage can in the living room, a garbage in the bathroom and some recycling for paper, cans and bottles, which we keep in the hall closet.

It takes about 3 seconds to get to any of these from where ever you'd be standing, yet I still notice that we throw bits of paper in the living room garbage, and tissues in the bathroom garbage. I know from experience, this only gets worse when you live in a house and are too lazy to go all the way downstairs to properly dispose of paper, tissues, etc.

The solution?
Have recycling and composting options readily available throughout the house.



In the bathroom:
- you can add a folded newspaper to use for composting, or a biodegradable bag (newspapers are better but we only rarely get them)
- Write a little note in the garbage bin (not the bio one) that bio waste doesn't go in there. I did this mostly to remind myself but also for guests!
In the living room:
- we use our garbage for plastic packaging or other non-recyclable waste, cut-up credit cards, etc.

Although it's an easy change, I find it so worthwhile to see every tiny piece of paper or tissue being diverted from the landfill. Especially since it's much easier to make recycled paper than it is to make it from pulp.

Last note: Here's a video and the same step-by-step instructions in a PDF from the City of Ottawa on how to fold a newspaper to use for composting! I was also really impressed with this video for a different shape. I haven't tried them yet (have to get newspaper from somewhere) but I wanna hear about your experiences if you do!

Quick tip: Switch off the lights.

I'll be the first to admit, I never understood the point of occasions such as Earth hour. For those of you who are not familiar with Earth Hour (now I'm second guessing myself and wondering if that's what it was really called): earth hour was an hour once a year when everyone around the world turned off their lights for a full 60 minutes. This usually coincided with Earth Day on April 23d, which is meant to remind us about environment issues.

As you may have guessed, today's quick tip is about conserving energy in the form of lighting. (I'll keep it simple and keep heating out of this until the fall and winter months are upon us.)
Quick tip: Only turn on the lights you need, and only keep them on for however long you need them.




Remember how much fun you would have as a kid during power outages? (I was scared of the dark for a long time but power outages were always fun!) How about spending time at a cottage without electricity and lighting candles once the sun went down?
Here's a short list of things that are fun to do by candlelight or in the dark:
- Playing board games or cards
- Eating dinner
- Having friends over for wine!
- Sleeping
- Romance
- Listening to music

Last words: I recently found out that beeswax candles are the best option. This is because they contain "no paraffin, benzene, acrolyn, lead, stearic acid, or any other chemicals. As a result no toxic petrochemical by-products are released during the burning of beeswax candles." Source. For this reason, I'm burning whatever candles I have now and will make the switch once I burn through my current toxic candles.

This week's challenge: Plastic awareness.

I was going to post about something else tonight but in the last few hours, I’ve gotten excessively antsy about plastic. You may have noticed that my blog lacks the usual abundant and frightening amount of statistics that comes with most environmentally-related information.
The usual tactic: scare and then encourage (change).
My approach is rather: awareness (which you do yourself) and then change. I’m not going to fill this post up with scary statistics about plastic and waste, I’ll limit myself to one fact okay, two facts, and a challenge. So here goes…

Plastic facts:
1. Plastic cannot be recycled, it can only be downcycled. [Want to know more about downcylcing? Click here.] So all the plastic that is produced will eventually end up in landfills.
2. Just like the tobacco and alcohol industry, the plastic industry has lawyers and individuals who lobby the government in order to ensure themselves a profitable future. [This to say that we can’t rely on the government to pass laws. We need to start changing our habits and asking governments to change these laws.]

This mid-week’s challenge:
Observe, or if you’re motivated enough keep a list, of all the plastic in your life. Look around your home, the grocery store (warning: that’s the scariest part), at work, at school, at restaurants and where ever else.

My own on-going exploration with awareness brought me to realize that the products I use in my bathroom need improvement…


I look forward to your comments, realizations and even pictures!