Carbon

Education is key; along with an individual burden, responsibility, and accountability to add YOUR part. Yes you, dear reader.

And by you, I also mean me. Life is tough, there are so many things clamoring for your *ahem* - my - attention every day. But the reality is, climate change is real. Even if it's not in my daily tyranny of the urgent [5], there are small changes and habits that can be done now. I have started small, built a few habits, and will continue to grow in sustainability. Let's make this manageable, and somewhat fun, okay?

And if you're goal oriented, I highly recommend SMART goals (specific, measureable, achievable, relevant, time bound). For me, I want to reduce my carbon footprint by 2% by 2022. For framework, EPA has a nifty carbon footprint calculator [3].

I am 25, newly graduated and newly married, in an apartment in a dense city. After a series of events in early college, I switched over from nursing to farming and haven't looked back. Supposedly, the two of us use about 24,000 lbs of carbon in a year from home energy use, waste, and travel. I can cut that down 23,000 lbs of carbon a year by the way I do laundry, and by beginning to recycle. Viola! I am already at the 2% goal I have made if I stick to my plan of action! (The apartment complex we live in doesn't have recycling readily accessible, so it's more of an endeavor than curbside pickup.) Although, building two new habits in a year seems pretty manageable to me!

Here is a dilemma: my husband and I registered for re-usable paper towels on our wedding registry, fondly known as "unpaper" towels. I like that we're not cutting down as many trees and as rapidly filling landfills, but how much carbon is it to wash a load of laundry? And is it really that different from just using and trashing paper towels?

So now, we are throwing away less paper towels, but we are doing more laundry. The laundry machine that came with the apartment is old, old, old, but it did come with a feature I have never had before. "Tap cold". I almost always use tap cold now, so that energy isn't being wasted heating water. To be honest, the only time I use "hot" is once a month on towels or re-usable cleaning supplies, or when someone is sick. Soap is an amazing substance in and of itself. Supposedly, this can cut our carbon footprint down by 864 pounds of carbon a year [1][4].

I still have yet to figure out how to eliminate the dryer from my weekly routine. Working full time means I do most laundry, grocery shopping cooking, etc. on weekends. I just don't have the time or space yet to eliminate the dryer. I need those clean clothes cranked out for another week of muddy farming by Sunday night. For the time being, we will continue to use the 1,162 pounds of carbon on dryer use for the two of us (estimates provided by the EPA household footprint calculator based off of my personal entries). Perhaps we will tackle that another year...

Next challenge for 2021 is recycling. Honestly, I visit my parents once a week so I may just purchase another receptacle for recycling and haul it over to their place for curbside pickup. And then everything will be readily incorporated into my routine and allow for the 2% reduction at minimal effort on my end.

The real labor in reducing your carbon footprint is research, creativity in problem solving, and developing new habits. I have found that research is the most time consuming part of reducing our carbon footprint.

Also, I am still not fully convinced that my unpaper towels are less carbon than paper products. It is less waste, but laundry uses a lot of carbon!

So dear reader,

Challenge: Find your current carbon footprint, set a goal, and research real ways to reduce it this year. Also, plant a tree [2].

Extra challenge: Does using re-usable unpaper towels reduce my carbon emissions compared to using paper towels?

References

[1] 2019 Sustainability Report. The American Cleaning Institute (ACI). (2019). https://www.cleaninginstitute.org/Sustainability2019.

[2] DeMartini, A. (2021, April 12). The roots of slowing climate change are in trees. CFAES. https://cfaes.osu.edu/news/articles/the-roots-slowing-climate-change-are-in-trees.

[3] Environmental Protection Agency. (2015, June 1). Carbon Footprint Calculator | Climate Change | US EPA. EPA. https://www3.epa.gov/carbon-footprint-calculator/.

[4] Mandel, K., & Plumer, B. (2019, October 2). One Thing You Can Do: Smarter Laundry. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/climate/nyt-climate-newsletter-laundry.html.

[4] Pierrehumbert, R. T. (2006). Climate Change: A Catastrophe in Slow Motion. Chicago Journal of International Law, 6(2).