We have always sought to be environmentally conscious people but since we have started traveling we have noticed things that propelled us to live more sustainably. This post is about what were are doing now to reach that goal and why. (How can you not want to preserve this beautiful planet!)
Disclaimer: This is our first co-written post with most of the writting being Patrick’s, but work from both of us to complete it 🙂 Hopefully it makes sense with two writters
Why?
Everywhere we have been so far we have noticed differences in local recycling programs, our effect on the surrounding environment/wildlife, and the abundance of abnormal weather. We have explored more research and documentaries about how we as humans are changing the planet and set-out to do what we can to help.
One thing that has been really on the forefront of our thought recently is the disease and decline in bees. Where we are living in California produces an insane amount of food and in Modesto their primary product is almonds. In order for this industry to survive, along with many other foods, they rely heavily on bees. We loved seeing the abundance of bees shipped in for pollination this spring, but were saddened to think about their rapid decline. They were one of the many reasons that propelled us to make some changes and if you would like to know more about them check out: Rotten S1E1 Lawyers, Guns and Honey on Netflix. (The pictures below are from an almond orchard in modesto earlier this spring).
Weekday Vegetarians
After watching a particularly depression inducing episode of Our Planet on Netflix, Erin and I decided to go vegetarian during all week days. Being vegetarian reduces the carbon output of your food and is more sustainable.
The first week, this was pretty “meh” since we had been in San Francisco all weekend and had no time to meal prep. Doing these weekend trips is absolutely what we live for, but boy does it set you behind when you are as busy as we are. This past week, I made a HUGE pot of vegan gumbo and Erin made split pea dal. I ordered vitamin b12 on amazon to supplement, and we have been doing a lot better.
After about 3 whole minutes of internet research I figured out what the worst meats to eat are in terms of CO2 footprint. You can check it out HERE.
I (Patrick) decided arbitrarily that 5 (CO2 Kilos Equivalents) is a nice number to stay under. Eggs and milk are the only animal products I’ve been regularly having this past week. Erin has made it perfectly clear that cheese is still going to be consumed, but is making a sacrifice by drastically cutting back.Â
So for the past 2 weeks we haven’t bought any meat at the grocery store. My bowels are still running well. Very well…. I believe that’s the inaugural poop joke of the blog =). Thanks fiber!Â
Click on the pictures for the links to a few of the vegetarian recipes we have tried.
Recycling
Each place we have lived so far in our travel journey has had VERY different recycling systems. Even different cities in the same state were different. So far Tacoma has been our favorite, which you will see why below. We try to learn and follow the guidelines in each area and we encourage you to do the same where you live!
Kennewick, WA: In Tri Cities Erin and I bagged all recyclables in one bag, and all trash in another. We lived in a large apartment complex that collected trash in dumpsters. A company came in and sorted their garbage, manually taking out all recyclables that were worth anything. I assume they made profit on getting the state exchange for large bags of recycling, sorted quickly (and in bulk). This was super easy to do, but also left us wondering…. “How much of what I put in that bag actually ends up getting recycled”? It was nice because we didn’t have to do much work, but who knows if it was effective.
Tacoma, WA: In Tacoma, we had it all. It was more work on our part, but we had plentiful options. So much so that the recycling bins were 3x the size of the trash cans and got emptied more frequently. They provided 3 bins with a biweekly pick-up schedule. One for yard scraps and compostable food items, one for plastic, plastic, cardboard, etc. And one for regular landfill garbage. The curbside garbage container was half the size of the other two. I know there’s probably some psychology at play there. We really liked this system and hope to see more like it.
Modesto, CA: We are still figuring out the recycling program in Modesto. As far as we can tell there is a decent deposit and cash return for collecting recyclables because you see people looking for bottles and cans consistently. The one bummer is that because you get a cash return you have to take the items to be recycled, they don’t pick them up at your house. We have kept all of our recycling separate, but still need to make our first journey to a recycling center.
Daily Routine
We have also been trying out ways to decrease total waste production, since that seems to be the whole problem here really. We are still human living in modern times. I (Patrick) need a travel coffee cup. There it is. I said it. I NEED it. A few things we use consistently are reuseable grocery bags, mesh produce bags, and tupperware/reuseable containers.
Thanks to Lauren (my sister), I (Patrick) have a great travel coffee cup that I use nearly every day. I’ve toyed around with the idea of trying to figure out which method of bringing drinks along with you has the highest CO2 footprint. That way I could find out which is the “best” way to have containers for foods in terms of carbon footprint. Turns out that just using a regular ceramic mug and washing it is best. I guess that was kind of obvious in retrospect if that truly is the case.
Perhaps the entire convenience culture has been hijacked by advertisers and “Branders”. Perhaps not. So knowing that we essentially know very little about this we are trying to get the maximum life out of any plastic bottle we get.
One of my friends in grad school- Dave- always had a very nice bottle of FIJI water. His tactic was to buy a bottle of water with the best bottle, paying no mind to whatever water happened to be in the container. Then he would use the FIJI bottle by refilling it till it broke. If anyone knows more about this area I’d love to hear your solutions.Â
Tough Spots
We drive for our livelihood as home health therapists. Our total miles per week are about 350-450 consistently. We could probably make it back home in 10 days at this pace. We definitely use a LOT of gas, since both of our cars are all wheel. I (Patrick) rarely have weeks where I break 30mpg since probably at least 50% of this is city driving instead of highway.
We just don’t have access to a plethora of options here, though. Both of our cars are well maintained and we plan on using them until they break or something very much better comes along. The Tesla model 3 is close, but not something that would make me buy one ASAP. Even then, the infrastructure supporting electric vehicles is still in its infancy to say the least. If we drive back to PA we are charging an electric car with power produced at a coal plant. Yes I know the efficiency of large power plants still makes this better than gas in practical terms. But it feels bad. California supplies 32% of its energy with renewable resources. All things considered (5th largest economy in the world, massive population) that’s not too shabby for how quickly they have done it. They have plans to increase this number all the way to 100%. https://www.npr.org/2018/09/10/646373423/california-sets-goal-of-100-percent-renewable-electric-power-by-2045
We are also healthcare workers. We dont use as many gloves these days as we do in more acute settings, but we still use em. There is a lot of plastic waste associated with anything medical, since most things we deal with are single use in intention. Better safe than sorry still applies there, at least for now. Since we are both reasonably educated in the understanding of how infection is spread and how to assess a potential medical problem we consider gloves to be used on a case by case basis. And they are a good way to prevent us from touching icky things.Â
Finding a Balance
There is unfortunately some waste in our every day lives and yes, we still eat meat on the weekends. We hope by consciously addressing our impact we can make consistent changes to make a difference. A lot of things are hard to sustain but it all comes down to making a routine. We each keep reuseable produce/grocery bags in both of our cars and have been sticking to our weekday vegetarian change. We also try to say no to extra trash/packaging whenever possible… but we all know some trash is inevitable. Regardless, every change makes a difference. We would love to hear about any knowledge or suggestions you may have about sustainable living! Thanks for reading 🙂
Throwback to our exploration of the beautiful pacific northwest!