Living Green by Using Clotheslines

Some areas ban the clothesline. You remember, that thing outside on which your mom or grandma dried clothes? The one that doesn't need carbon offsets because there's no machinery involved. Two metal posts, with four or five ropes connecting them, ropes on which laundry is pinned and dried? Alternative styles include the umbrella style which features a single post with four arms attached at the top which are connected with ropes going around; another option is to have the ropes attach to the house and a metal pole at the other end. Some in this style are made to be retractable. People used to also hang ropes in their basement to dry things during the winter. After all, the furnace is down there so it's warm. My mom hasn't had a clothesline in years and is talking about installing a new one. To save on her utility bill.

Clotheslines are viewed as low-class eyesores by some, yet are a viable way to cut down on energy bills. I heard somewhere that electricity is going up 40% in price by winter. Never mind that gas and food continue to increase in price, but still homeowners associations ban them. In some places clotheslines are restricted to the backyard, but in others, they're banned altogether; honestly, I've never seen a clothesline other than in the backyard, so that seems to be an odd restriction.

It seems reasonable to give people the option, now that budgets are being squeezed the way they are.

Bottled Water

The people who market bottled water are evil geniuses. People are paying excessive amounts of money for a product they get at their own home for much less money. While I notice variations in water regularly, I usually drink filtered water at home and prefer that my water taste like nothing. As I work on this post, I have a glass of water by my side.

My glass of water, while filtered, originated in the city water system and was filtered and chilled through the refrigerator. The water in this city is perfectly safe, but I don't like the taste of what comes directly from the tap. Today I received a water-quality update from the city, and didn't read it. I'm completely unconcerned with what it has to say; if there was any type of water quality issue, it would be all over the news and we'd be told not to drink the water. Because that hasn't happened, I'm confident the water is just fine.

I try to bring a glass or refillable bottle with me when I go places, to avoid mass-produced bottled water, which is bad for the environment. While I'm not convinced that anything I do has much of an overall effect, I still try to pay attention to environmental issues. Right now cases of 24 bottles of store-brand water are on sale two for $7. A couple years ago, the same cases went on sale two for $9.

It's impossible to eliminate use of convenience products altogether, but I try to minimize; I happened to have an errand across town recently, near one of my favorite restaurants and got an order to go. I asked for water and was given the option of bottle or glass. I took the glass, which seemed a bit better than the bottle; it too had been shipped in from somewhere, but because it's a local restaurant, the glass may have been manufactured locally.

Water is bottled in several locations near here, so locally branded water might not be as bad as imports. Yet it's so difficult to cut out the convenience altogether; this year, save the trip to the family reunion, I haven't bought cases of bottled water at all. I have sometimes purchased individual bottles if I wasn't in a position to bring water with me, for example, to the airport or when working off-site when I had no control of the circumstances. Otherwise, if away from home, I try to remember my refillable bottle. There are still a lot of water fountains out there. If I'm running errands near home, I tend to bring a glass of water with me.

On Being Green

Interesting New York Times article on a family trying to eliminate nearly all their possessions and live on the land.

I couldn't do it.