Stories@deadgadgets.com wants your dead gadget stories!

Remember this picture of my plastic waste from Week 35? Remember my rant about the HP monitor that couldn't be fixed and how HP makes products that have to be replaced rather than repaired? I ranted here. I ranted on the Californians Against Waste site. I ranted in emails to HP. And then I found out about The Electronics Take Back Coalition (http://www.computertakeback.com).

The Electronics Take Back Coalition is a national coalition of environmental and consumer groups who promote green design and responsible recycling in the consumer electronics industry. They have several strategies, including:

• Promoting legislation to require manufacturers to take back and recycle our old electronics


• Using direct public pressure on manufacturers to offer responsible recycling programs to their customers, and to adopt green design principles.


• Working with institutional purchasers to amplify the demand for green products.


• Promoting recyclers who adhere to responsible electronics recycling practices and exposing the impacts of low-road recycling, including the exporting of e-waste to poor countries around the world.


• They are currently campaigning to get TV companies (www.takebackmytv.com) to offer free TV recycling, as many TVs will become obsolete when HD becomes the standard.

All this is great. It's a good step. But I didn't want to recycle my monitor. I wanted to be able to fix it and keep using it. So I wrote to the Coalition to ask if they are addressing the issue of planned obsolescence of electronics and the inability to repair them rather than recycling, and I got a reponse back from Barbara Kyle, the National Coordinator:

We have focused on the recycling end of the e-waste problem. But we want to do more on promoting reuse, and green design concepts that allow us to hang on to our electronic products longer, and to upgrade them to keep up with advances in technology. So far, the industry has focused on energy as the primary criteria for “green design.” While we don’t disagree that energy use by the product is important, the energy used to create new products is even more significant, and could be reduced if our products simply lasted longer.

We want dead gadget stories!

We would love to receive stories just like the one you documented on your blog, showing clearly how products simply can’t be fixed or upgraded, because of clear choices made by the product designers.

Please send your stories to Stories@deadgadgets.com and include the following information:

1. Make and model


2. Year they bought it. Is it under warranty?


3. Why it’s dead. (Doesn’t turn on, won’t reboot, can’t upgrade it to run certain software, etc)


4. Steps taken to try to fix it, or cost to fix it. (Here’s where your story was incredibly compelling. You didn’t just say your monitor died – you found someone who tried to fix it, identified the part needed, made the call, and then was rebuffed. So asking your readers to fill in this part would be great. Making the call to get an estimate on what it would cost to fix it (vs replace it) is good. But actually getting the company to say they WON'T sell you a replacement part gets to the heart of the issue. So that’s an extra step, but if you could ask them to document this, it will help us tell this story. Feel free to include whom they spoke with at the companies, so there can be no question of misunderstanding.)


5. Picture of the dead gadget. (Be sure we can see the manufacturer name or logo!) For our dead gadget gallery (soon to come).

This request includes broken TELEVISIONS, not just computer-type devices.

Barbara also added that if there are any serious reuse and upgrade geeks out here, she'd love to talk to them in more detail about how they could do a more thorough “study” of this issue, trends they see with different companies, etc.

So if you've suffered similar frustrations to what I have, please, please, please take a minute to send your story to Stories@deadgadgets.com and help persuade companies to take responsbility for the products they release into the world.

OH! And if you're a blogger, please post this request on your blog! Let's make it viral!
 

 

Week 36 Results: .6 oz of plastic waste. The day has finally come!

Oh joy! I've been waiting for the week when my plastic waste would finally fit easily in my own two hands, and this was that week. Don't get me wrong. We still have plastic in this house that we're using up, and the tally will go up again. But it's nice to savor small victories.

Items used this week but purchased before the plastic project began:

• Approximately 7 feet of packing tape. I pulled this tape off an old box I cut up to use to make a barrier to keep kitties from chewing electrical cords. In fact, I'm so tickled with Michael's and my ingenuity, I'm gonna post photos of the setup below.

New plastic waste:

• 2 Refresh Endura single-use eye drop containers

Now, here's my plastic-free kitty project for the week. I needed a way to keep the kittens from getting to the tangled mass of electrical cords behind our TV/stereo stand. I wish I had a before picture to show you. It was a real mess back there and the kitties loved it.

Lots of people were recommending I get one of those plastic cord covers, but a plastic cord cover is made from, you know, plastic. I tried making a jalapeno pepper spray and coating the cords with it to keep them from chewing, but it didn't really work. The only good solution would be a physical barrier. The problem was that the TV stand was open on all 4 sides, and the cats would basically dive through. Here's what the front looks like now.


I know the cardboard doesn't look so great, but really only the cats can see it. I had to lie on the floor to take the picture. From an adult human vantage-point, it's not very noticeable. So anyway, the cats can't get through to the back very easily. But they still could climb over if there were enough enticement, like lots of loose tangled cords. So this is what I did in the back:




The shoe box was Michael's idea. There are holes in the bottom through which the cords come up from under the stand. The Smart Strip Power Strip, which I wrote about in a previous post, wouldn't completely fit in the box. But that's okay because having it stick out makes accessing the switch easier. The cardboard is attached using brown paper tape, which we already had. Any other cords that were loose or dangly I tried to find a way to tape down... tape to the wall, to back of the TV, to whatever. There's still one loose cord leading to a speaker, but it's in the back and so far they haven't noticed it.

This might not be the most beautiful solution in the world, but it required no new materials to construct and so far is working just fine. I haven't caught either of them back there since I set it up on Monday, which is the point.
 

 

Week 35 Results: 50.1 oz of plastic waste. HP Sucks!

I like to think of myself as pretty Zen, mellow, going with the flow. Eh hmm... my ego likes to think that about me. So I write posts about loving what is and being mindful of little things like cheese wrappers and taking time out for silence. But sometimes, a gal just wants to vent. And this is one of those times. HP sucks, ya'll! HP can bite my ass!

The beautiful 19" LCD monitor you see in the photo is not just a nice backdrop for this week's plastic waste. It is this week's plastic waste. And metal. And who knows what else. And no amount of learning to fix stuff or even learning to fix stuff will make it better. Here's the tally:

Items used this week but purchased before the plastic project began:

• 1 plastic seal from a bottle of cayenne pepper. Purchased a long time ago and never opened until this week. It does seem to still be good.


• 1 Liquid Silk lube bottle (#3 PVC plastic!) and pump. I already discussed this product in my post last week about using olive oil as personal lubricant. Normally, when I have a product in a plastic bottle, I finish up the rest of it before adding the container to the tally. This time though, after learning about the ingredients in Liquid Silk, I decided to discard the rest of the bottle using the method required by the State of California for disposing of PPCPs (pharmaceuticals and personal care products.) I mixed it up with a bunch of cat litter, poured it into an old milk carton, and put it in the trash. Flushing is NOT recommended for products that contain harmful chemicals. Unfortunately, the landfill is the best option we have for stuff like this.


• 1 HP vs19d LCD monitor. So here's the rant. Last Saturday, I turned on my computer as usual, pressed the button on my monitor, and nothing happened. The computer came on. The monitor did not. I made sure all the cables were connected. I plugged it into different outlets. Nothing. Not even a blink. I called HP. The monitor, which is only 1-1/2 years old, is out of warranty. The 3-year warranty I purchased with the system only covers the computer, not the monitor. But they'd be happy to sell me a new one.
  
  No way. I'm the girl who fixes things instead of replacing them. So I got out my Yellow Pages (One reason to keep a Yellow Pages around... you never know when your computer will go down and you'll need to find a computer technician without looking them up via your computer!) and found a local guy, Leon Pang at Domino Computer (he's awesome, by the way) who said he might be able to fix the monitor. I headed straight over to his place and dropped it off.
  
  Monday, he called me with bad news. He had opened up the monitor, tested the circuits, figured out where the problem was and what part was needed (a particular board), called HP, only to be told that HP will not sell replacement boards for these monitors. They will only sell a whole new monitor. This board is not something you can find on eBay or elsewhere. It's specific to that monitor and if HP won't sell it, you're screwed.
  
  So I bought a lightly-used monitor from a guy on Craigslist to replace that one. The "new" one is a Dell. I'm hoping to have better luck with it. In the meantime, I'm stuck with this piece of HP crap in my plastic purgatory (and I say crap because the computer I bought from HP [Pavilion d4600y, if you want to know] has been one headache after another too, although because of the warranty I've been able to get it fixed each time.)
  
  I know there are places to take our old electronics to be recycled. GreenSight is a program that Costco uses that says it "conforms to a 'Zero Landfill/No Export' Policy by working with only ISO 14001 certified partners who recycle and refine these materials for remanufacturing into new products." That's fine. It's better than sending toxic e-waste over seas. But wouldn't it be better if equipment were manufactured so that it could be repaired when broken? Why does my LCD screen and plastic housing have to be melted down and recycled when all that's needed is a small board inside?
  
  Anyway, I'm stuck with the broken monitor because of my policy this year of holding onto all my plastic waste instead of sending it off god knows where to be recycled. And believe it or not, I actually estimated the weight of the plastic parts by taking a screw driver to the thing myself and separating out the metal from the plastic because that's the sort of thing that someone like me does on a Sunday afternoon after cooking huevos rancheros completely from scratch. More on that later.
  
  So, did I just let this issue go? Of course not. I've already written to the CEO of HP as well as told my story on the web site of Californians Against Waste, an organization that is working on legislation to handle toxic e-waste. Here's the text of my message to HP via the CEO's contact form:
  
  Dear Mark Hurd:
  
  Nowadays, most companies are trying to "green" their operations. I'm sure HP is looking into ways to be more environmentally friendly. With that in mind, I'd like to share a disappointing experience I had this week with an HP product:
  
  A year and a half ago I bought an HP desktop computer and 19" LCD monitor (vs19d) directly from HP. Since then, I've had many problems with the computer and even had to replace a burned-out power supply. But since I had purchased a 3-year warranty, the problems were resolved by your support staff.
  
  Then, last week, my monitor stopped working. It wouldn't power up. I called HP and was told the monitor was not covered by the 3-year warranty and that I'd just have to buy a new one. I asked if they could fix it, and they said it would cost more than the price of a new monitor to fix and they would not do it.
  
  So I took the monitor to a local computer technician, who opened it up, tested the circuits, figured out where the problem was, called HP to order a replacement board, and was told that they will not sell these parts. They will only sell a whole new monitor. This technician is from China and told me that in China he would have had access to a replacement part but that they were not available in the U.S.
  
  It is this kind of business policy that is creating so much toxic e-waste for the planet. Even if the monitor can be recycled, why should the energy and transportation be expended to recycle an old monitor and manufacture a new one when all the old monitor needs is a new board and there are computer-savvy technicians who are capable of installing such a part?
  
  I believe that for computer companies to go green, it's important to create modular products with parts that can easily be replaced rather than requiring the entire machine to be trashed. And I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter.
  
  I have reported this story to Californians Against Waste (http://www.cawrecycles.org), an organization that is working on ways to eliminate the problem of e-waste, and I plan on writing about it on my own personal web site, http://www.fakeplasticfish.com.
  
  I would love to be able to report that HP is taking steps to correct this problem. Thanks so much for your time.
  
  Beth Terry
  
  As always, I'll let you know if I hear anything back from HP. Whew. Now I can put this puppy to rest.

And now on to this week's new plastic waste:

• 1 Refresh Endura single-use eye drop container.


• 1 plastic cap from a glass bottle of Kahlúa. Whatever possessed me to buy a bottle of liquor with a plastic cap? It surely wasn't a necessity. But a few months ago I wasn't being as careful as I am this year. I have no other excuse.

Now I'm interested to hear your frustrating (or successful) electronics stories.
 

 

Learning To Fix Stuff, Part 2

On January 2, I reported about my broken plastic hairdryer and how I was hoping to fix it during my visit to my electronics technician (not "electrician," there's a difference I'm told) dad in Hawaii. Well, I'm happy to report that it's fixed. He was able to figure out what part was bad and knew just where to go to get a replacement. Then, he also knew how to attach the replacement part once we found it. He's my hero.

After using a screwdriver to take it apart (which I'd already done in the end of December), you need an ohmmeter or multimeter to test the circuitry. As I was attempting to write this post last night, I realized I didn't know how to explain how my dad used his multimeter to test the wires. So I asked him to send me an explanation, and this is what he wrote:

Switch the multimeter to measure ohms. (Ω)

Two leads (a 'hot' and a 'common') attach to the plug, the common directly entering the dryer and attaching to one side of the heat coil, the hot connecting to the other side of heat coil thru the switch.

Test the continuity of each lead from the AC plug into the guts of the dryer, measuring the resistance (which should be close to zero) of each. A heat coil has zero resistance to DC but has some resistance to AC, which is why it gets hot, like a light bulb.

When the switch is operated to put the heat coil in series with the two leads from the plug, a resistance of near zero should be obtained on the meter. Finding, instead, a very high resistance (many ohms, over a million) means there is an open somewhere between the two lines. Resistance readings are then measured of each component which is in series with the 2 leads from the plug. This is how it was determined that the thermal fuse had operated (operation of a fuse means it has opened up, stopping current flow).

Basically, his tests revealed that the thermal fuse was blown. A thermal fuse (or thermal cutout) is used to prevent the dryer from catching on fire. If the temperature inside reaches a certain level, the fuse will break and the circuit will be broken so electricity can no longer flow. How does a dryer get that hot inside? If the user has allowed the air vents to completely clog up so that outside air can't get in and cool it off. So, what I learned is that I need to maintain my appliances (like cleaning out air vents) so that they don't break in the first place!

By looking really closely, we were able to decipher the specs printed on the outside of the old fuse: 10A, 250V, 113°C. My dad said a new thermal fuse needed to have at least those ratings, but could be rated for a slightly higher temperature as well, if we couldn't find an exact replacement. Fortunately, having worked as an electronics technician for the phone company in Honolulu back in the 60's, he knew exactly where to go to get a new one. Precision Radio Ltd. at 1160 S. King Street has been operating since 1942 (20 years before my dad's time on the island) and they had just the replacement fuse we needed.

Dad used a soldering iron to make a strong connection between the leads on the thermal fuse and the connectors on the appliance. Michael and I don't own our own soldering iron, but I checked the offerings of the Oakland tool library, and they do, so if I had to do this again at home, I'd be able to without investing in a new soldering iron. The only plastic I ended up with was the small bag in which the thermal fuse was packaged.

And it worked! The hardest part for me was remembering how to put everything back together again. I'd taken the dryer apart in the end of December and didn't write any notes about what went where. So it was a puzzle for me, but finally, I got it together and can use it again. (That's me doing the head upside-down hair drying thing I've been doing since Junior High.) Now I can return my friend Mark's dryer that he lent me until mine was fixed.

It feels so nice to be able to fix what I have instead of buying a new one. It feels like a responsible, adult thing to do. And the throw-away mentality that's so prevalent these days seems kinda immature to me. Maybe we just need everyone to grow up a bit!

Anyway, the same day we were fixing the hair dryer, my dad got an email from his friend, Derek Hullinger, who was just able to fix his PDA. Now, there's a challenge! I asked if I could reprint the email here, because I thought it was so cool how determined he was to fix it himself and not trash it for a new one. Here's what he wrote:

Yesterday, I finally got Weston's PDA fixed and returned to him! This was a big and exciting thing for me, so I'm going to tell you all about it. I had bought it for him on eBay on behalf of my parents for Christmas, and I felt really bad when it turned out the back light didn't work. The person who shipped it to me claimed it had worked for her before she shipped it, which it probably did. It's nearly the same as mine, except that it has a built-in mp3 player.

Weston and I both learned from online research that the back light problem is a common malady for this model, and it was caused by a cable inside being too long and clamping between two metal plates, causing it to break. I found a website (in Japanese) that showed how to repair it, but it required extreme care because there are four parallel wires in a very small cable that each had to be soldered.

Well, we quickly discovered that we couldn't even get the thing open because it required a special screwdriver with three wings. I found an online company in Hong Kong that sold the screwdriver for 95 cents (including shipping--what a deal!), and we waited two weeks for it to arrive. Then I opened it up and enlisted the aid of a fellow I work with to see if the cable was the cause of the trouble and to fix it. It was indeed broken, but he had trouble with the tiny work and enlisted my boss to help.

So my boss soldered it on Friday and I I went in yesterday to put it back together, only to discover that it still didn't work! So I opened it up and found that the joint had broken again (my boss had not quite soldered it right--he hadn't been instructed properly), so I decided it was up to me. I'm not too confident in my own mechanical abilities--I've had some real trouble with simple car maintenance things before. But I went at it, and I managed to fix the cable myself. It took a few tries before the solder joints were quite right (I didn't get a good connection on one of the wires the first time, and I accidentally shorted two of the wires the second time).

On the last try, I hooked everything up and turned the thing on, and it didn't even go on! I thought, "oh no! I've broken it!" But I didn't have any idea how I'd broken it, and the solder joint was kind of a mess and hard to tell whether one of them was not connected right, so I went ahead and put it the back on anyway, feeling dejected.

Then, when it was all back together, it worked, back light and all! I guess something needed to be in contact that hadn't connected until it was all back together! Anyway, I was delighted, but I kept turning it on to make sure it was still working. As of this morning, it's still working great, so I guess everything's fine! Whew!

These are the kinds of stories we need to hear more of!
 

 

Learning To Fix Stuff, Part 1

Back in August, when Fake Plastic Fish was less than two months old, and I'd only recently become aware of my plastic consumption, my sandal broke. In fact, the elastic strap had become so worn, I had a feeling it might break that very day as I left the house and packed an extra pair of flip flops just in case. Sure enough, it snapped as I was walking down the street. The old me would have automatically tossed them out and bought a new pair. But these were some of my most comfortable shoes, and I didn't want to waste them, plastic or not, so I found a shoe repair shop down the street and had them fixed in fifteen minutes.

This might seem like a very simple, common sense thing to those of you who have been trying to live frugally, simply, and greenly for longer than I, but at the time, I felt so proud I wanted to call my friends and tell them the news: Guess what! We don't have to throw stuff out! There are people who can fix it!

Since then, I've had a few more opportunities to fix things instead of throwing them away. For example, for months, my computer mouse was operating eratically, refusing to move the pointer where I wanted it to. The old me would have junked it and bought a new one, but this was the new me. Determined to make it work again instead of getting a new hunk of plastic, I found an article on eHow.com called How To Clean And Fix A Mouse and was all set to take the mouse apart when I remembered hearing somewhere that if the surface the mouse rolls on is too slippery, the mouse might not operate properly. I was using a bare desk without a mouse pad. So I tried slipping a piece of paper under the mouse, and sure enough, that did the trick.

Recently, the wire on my favorite cheese slicer snapped. I've had this things for many years, and it's served me well. Surely I could find a replacement wire for it. This, however, turned out to be a more difficult task than I expected. I visited multiple hardware stores with my cheese slicer attempting to find the right kind of wire. They all seemed to have something called "galvanized steel," which apparently is not rust-proof or strong enough. I'm glad I actually asked for advice instead of just buying the first wire that looked similar to the one that broke.

Finally, one hardware store salesperson recommended I check a kitchenware type of store instead. So I called Sur Le Table, which seems to have locations in many states, and sure enough, they carried stainless steel replacement wires for cheese slicers. Unfortunately, as you can see below, they come in a plastic zip-lock bag.



So there's the dilemma: a small plastic bag vs. a sturdy stainless steel kitchen tool. The kitchen tool won. I do wonder if I had checked further if I could have found stainless steel wire not packaged in plastic. But I'm pretty pleased that I was able to easily "restring" my slicer on New Year's Eve just in time for the nice cheese our friends brought to our little party.

Now here's my current fix-it problem. A blow dryer. Some of you might be thinking that a blow dryer is not the greenest thing to have and use in the first place. And you would be right. No arguments there. But the fact is that I do use a blow dryer on my hair for a minute or two each morning, and this one just suddenly stopped working. When I turn it on, nothing happens. Nothing. (And yes, it stopped working BEFORE I took it apart to examine it!) And yes, I have tried pressing the reset button. And yes, I have also cleaned out the air vents.

So my friend Mark was nice enough to lend me his hair dryer until I get this one fixed in Hawaii in a few weeks. Why in Hawaii? Because that's where my electrician dad is with his pro multimeter, which we will use to figure out what's wrong with it. The trip was already planned. I visit them in Hawaii every January for my mom's and my birthdays. (No, flying to Hawaii is not very green either, alas.) Fixing the hair dryer is a bonus father/daughter bonding experiment. I found these instructions online, which hopefully will help: HowStuffWorks.com's How To Fix A Hair Dryer. If we do figure it out, I'll post the step-by-step process with photos.

The big question is why we don't know how to fix things already. Why does it require all this research? And how many times have you taken an appliance to a repair place, only to be told that it's not worth it to fix and that you should junk it and buy a new one? Everything has value and is worth fixing or repurposing in some way. But it's not always easy to figure out how, these days. Have you all watched The Story of Stuff? It think there's a clue in that video about why this is so.
 

 

Smart Strips are REALLY smart!

So, at the end of my gloomy post yesterday (yes, I was a little depressed) I said I'd write about some things we've done here at Chez Terry/Stoler to save energy. Most of it is either stuff you've probably heard a million times (use CFLs instead of incandescent bulbs, use a programmable thermostat, use cold water to wash clothes, open the drapes during the day and close them at night, turn off lights when leaving a room, turn off the computer at night and while out of the house.) Other measures are things I've already written about here: not owning a car and buying carbon offsets for the few times we travel by plane or Flexcar, buying very few new things in general and opting for products with the least packaging, buying as locally as possible to avoid transportation energy costs. Other things, like buying energy-saving appliances or renovating our house are not options for us because we rent.

Another energy-saving measure that I really like is an item that's, ironically, made of plastic. Its the Smart Strip power strip from Bits Ltd.

The strip works for combinations of electronics that work together, like a computer system, or an entertainment system. You choose one electronic component as the Control and plug it into the blue Control outlet. Then, you plug other components that are useless if the control is off into the white Automatically Switched outlets. And finally, electronics that always need to be ready are plugged into the red Constant Hot outlets.

Here's how I've done it in my living room. My combo receiver/DVD/CD player is the Control because without it on, I have no sound for the system, so nothing else needs to be on if that one is off. Then, my TV, VCR, turntable, and iPod dock are plugged into the Auto-Switch outlets. When I turn off the power button on the remote of my receiver/DVD/CD player, the power is cut to that and all the other components in the Auto-Switch outlets. And when I say cut, I mean like unplugging them all from the wall. When I press the power button on, the receiver/DVD/CD player turns on and power flows to the other components making them available to be used, but not actually turning them on.

Yes, we do have a lot of electronic equipment, I'm realizing as I write this list. And yes, it's aaaaallllll plastic. But it's plastic we bought before we became aware of plastic, and now that we have the Smart Strip, it's plastic that's rarely on. I pretty much watch movies and play the stereo on weekends, being way too busy during the rest of the week learning about plastic!

Anyway, after plugging in those components, I plug my lamp, my cable amplifier (because the cable is split and also comes into my computer), and my headphone charger into the Constant Hot outlets because I want them to be able to operate even if the rest of the system is off. The Smart Strip is easier than a regular power strip because you don't have to remember to flip the switch. When you turn off the control device, everything else that needs to be off turns off too.

I also use a second Smart Strip for my computer system. This time, my monitor is plugged into the blue Control outlet. Why not the computer? Because if I leave the room for a few minutes, I want to be able to turn off the monitor and all the peripherals without having to turn off the computer completely. (It'll go into Power Save mode on its own after a few minutes.) So I operate the computer separately. Anyway, the printer, speakers, and any other peripherals are plugged into the Auto-Switch outlets. My desk lamp is plugged into Constant Hot. When I leave the room, I turn off my monitor, and all the other peripherals shut down as well. When I leave the house or go to bed, I shut down the computer and turn off the monitor, and everything turns off.

Okay, so about the plastic. Yes, the Smart Strip is made from it. But one thing you can do to somewhat lessen the impact is to buy refurbished Smart Strips. Bits Ltd does repair and recycle any that they receive back. I had to wait a few weeks for mine because they didn't have any in stock when I first called. The refurbished units cost less, but they seem to work just as well as new ones. I have been using mine for a couple of months now with no problems.

When ordering, I included a note to the company to please ship with no plastic or Styrofoam, and the strips arrived without any packaging at all except for the cardboard boxes they came in. I don't know if there would have been packaging if I hadn't asked.

So that's my tip for this week that will culminate in the National Day of Climate Action on Saturday. And now I need your help.

What company makes CFLs that are not packaged in plastic? I know we can't avoid the plastic in the body of the CFL itself. But I'd like not to have to deal with a crazy plastic nearly impossible to open blister pack again. Suggestions?
 

 

Learning to share (and borrow)

This weekend, I had a conversation with my dad about what to do with certain possessions if he rented out their condo in Hawaii. "I'd have to store a lot of books," he said. And it got me realizing that one of the best ways to reduce our consumption, plastic and otherwise, is through borrowing and sharing items that we don't need access to on a regular basis.

I understand his attachment to books. They are part of his identity. And for English major me, some books do have sentimental value. But the majority of the books that I read do not. For a while, I was buying used books and then Freecycling them. But then Michael got his library science degree, and suddenly the idea of borrowing rather than owning became an option I hadn't considered since elementary school. So now, when I want to read something, I try to borrow it from the library or from a friend before thinking about whether I want to purchase it.

But libraries are not just for books these days, or even just videos and CDs. Many cities have tool lending libraries, either as part of the public library system like here in Oakland, or as part of the Public Works Department. Wikipedia has a list of tool lending libraries in the world. I'm not sure how comprehensive it is. Maybe your town has one that's not listed. The beauty of Wikipedia is that anyone can update it.

I've seen posts online that claim that the average power drill gets used anywhere between 3 to 20 minutes during its entire lifetime. Why does every family need to have their own power drill (or table saw or belt sander) when many people could share the same piece of equipment easily and with much less cost to the environment?

If you don't have a tool lending library, think about borrowing tools or appliances from friends. A few weeks ago, I ran out of ground cinnamon but found some cinnamon sticks in the back of the cupboard that had never been used. If only I had a spice grinder or even a coffee grinder. I placed an ad on Freecycle and looked for a used one at Goodwill. Then, it occurred to me that even if I found one, I'd probably only use it a couple of times. So I asked my friend, Nancy, and sure enough, she had one to lend. I got my ground cinnamon and one less plastic item to clutter my kitchen.

I think borrowing from friends sometimes is good for us. It can be humbling for those who like to feel that they are self-sufficient. And a little humility is not a bad thing in a world full of entitled individuals consuming far more than they need. Of course, being willing to share is also important, as is taking care of what you borrow and getting it back to its owner in a timely fashion!

But back to libraries. Another hunk of plastic you can avoid buying is a personal computer. Now, Michael and I do have our own computers which we use every day. But Michael's mom uses the computer at the local library, and another friend of mine only uses the computer at her job. For those people who aren't as cyber-addicted as me, borrowing computer time might be a great resource-, as well as money-, saving option.

And finally, the biggest hunk of plastic that Michael and I share rather than own is a car. For those of us who live in urban areas with excellent public transportation, owning a car can be an expensive pain in the butt. And renting cars is a hassle, what with waiting in line and filling out paperwork each time. Instead, we belong to Flexcar, one of the three car-sharing companies in the Bay Area (along with Zipcar and City Car Share.) We borrow the car once or twice per month for shopping or driving somewhere inaccessible by BART or bus. It's way less expensive than owning a car and we save a ton of plastic in the process. Check out this cNet article about the increasing use of plastics in cars.

What other things do you borrow or lend that I haven't thought of? Reducing the amount of stuff I collect is a big part of this project and any suggestions for ways to borrow rather than own are welcome!
 

 

Electronics: Thoughts about RCA, iPhones, & the pursuit of happiness

Thanks to the folks over at Sustainable Is Good for pointing out that RCA plans to save 450 tons of plastic in the next two years by making smaller, environmentally-friendly paper gift box containers to replace the older clamshell packages in an initiative called “Smart Packing,” which they say has already saved over 81 tons of extra plastic.

I applaud this move on RCA's part, and if I ever need to buy another electronic gadget, I'll check out RCA-brand first, as well as any other brands that may be switching to similar packaging.

But we can't forget that the electronics themselves are made of plastic and other non-renewable materials, and we need to ask ourselves before purchasing new electronics if we really need them and if they will really make us happy.

On Friday, June 29, I was walking along Shattuck Ave in downtown Berkeley when I came upon a huge line of people wrapping around the block. It was the kind of line you see at a box office when some mega-star is coming to town or at a bookstore when the latest Harry Potter installment is released. I asked one of the guys in line (yes, it was mostly guys) what they were waiting for, and one of them replied kinda snarkily, "Jesus." Like what kind of an idiot was I not to know that the iPhone was being released that day and that if you didn't stand in line for hours at the AT&T store to be the first to get one, you might as well crawl back under your rock and die.

I should have asked each and every person in that line if they already had a working cell phone. I should have aked them all if they already had an iPod. I should have taken a poll. I should have made a ruckus. Instead, I continued on my way, ranting to my sister on my cell phone about how ridiculous this whole phenomenon was. "What's going to happen to all those old cell phones?!?!? Where are they going to end up?!? In landfills, that's where. What's WRONG with these people???"

What's wrong with them is the same thing that's wrong with me and most Americans. We think that newer and better technology is going to make us happy. And, while I admit that I thoroughly enjoy watching the new 37" flat screen TV we bought last year, I wonder if I'm actually that much happier overall than I was before we bought it. And is that little bit of pleasure worth all the resources, energy, possibly human suffering that went into providing it to me?

I've discovered that since I started this project, I'm buying far fewer things than I used to. And it's not only because so many products come packaged in or are made out of plastic, although that's a big reason. It's that with a cause to work on, with ideas to wrap my brain around, and a problem that needs my creativity, I simply don't have as much desire to stock up on material possessions. I'm not saying the desire is gone; but it's simply not as strong.