Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Change 1, Week 1

Change 1, Week 1: Decrease the amount of soda we purchase.

Matt and I are soda fiends. FIENDS. We don’t drink it as often as some, but we drink more than enough (around 32 oz per day, sometimes more). Eventually, we’ll decrease the amount we consume, but for now we’ll concentrate on the amount we purchase.

Why do we want to decrease the amount of soda we purchase?
There are two reasons.
  1. The environment. We’re currently creating an obscene amount of unnecessary waste in the form of plastic/paper/Styrofoam cups, plastic lids, straws, bottles, and cans. We’re indirectly consuming fuel and various packaging to get the soda to the store/restaurant in the first place.
  2. Money. Let’s look at the math. If a 32 oz “serving” of soda costs 1$ and both of us drink at least 1 serving per day, that’s 730$ spent in a year!
How are we going to decrease the amount of soda we purchase?
By making our own! There are many ways to make your own soda. Emily from Under $1000 Per Month uses water kefir.  Others brew with a combination of dry yeast, water, and sugar. We decided to go with the SodaStream.

What is the SodaStream?
The SodaStream is a compact man-powered machine that is connected to a CO2 tank. Most of the components are plastic. However, they are BPA free, reusable, and recyclable. The small CO2 tank can produce about 60L of soda while the medium tank can produce around 110L.

When a tank is empty, we have the option of ordering a new tank through SodaStream and letting UPS pick it up (kind of a waste), or we can go to a local distributor of the tanks and exchange it. Regardless of the method we use, the tanks will be returned to SodaStream for inspection and refilling—they’ll continue to be used unless they have been damaged or contaminated in some way.

The water can be consumed as straight seltzer, flavored seltzer, or soda. SodaStream has a line of syrups available as well as seltzer fruit essences.

What do you think?
Matt and I bought one last week and began using it on Sunday. We went with the Fountain Jet Soda Value Kit for 149.99$ which comes with: the unit, 4-1L soda bottles, 2-60L CO2 tanks, 5 sodamix syrups (which make 12L soda each), and a 12 piece sample pack of 1L sodamix syrups. (We found a coupon code for free shipping.)

Over the past few days of testing the SodaStream, we’ve decided this was a good buy. It was a hit the first time we used it, and everyone loved it at our party last night. The good thing about the party is we only made 3L of soda and nothing went to waste! Normally we would buy 4 or 5 different flavored sodas (in 2L bottles) and all but the diets would go to waste because the non-diets that weren’t consumed by our guests would not be consumed by us. There was none of that last night.

Here’s a video of a sample survey (Thank you, Jackie & Josie!):


If kids love it, it must be good! The adults also enjoyed all the flavors we sampled.

While the initial cost may seem large, it should even out over time if we continue to use it and not buy soda elsewhere. Also, we don’t have to use their syrups. I’ve already Googled recipes and found some we will be trying—plus, I love to experiment.

Overall, we give it 4 ½ stars. The reason for this is that the syrup measuring cup is poorly designed and can lead to waste. I’ll update in a month and again in 3 to see if we still love it!

*Note: We paid cold, hard cash for this product. In researching this product, we decided it would be a good holiday gift for ourselves—this is the only thing we spent money on for one another. SodaStream did not give us anything for free and is currently unaware of this review. The coupon was found on RetailMeNot.com.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Current Practices

Since I am not quite ready to post the first change of the week, I decided to post about some of the things Matt and I already do to lessen our impact on the environment.

  1. We use reusable bags while shopping. Sure there are times when we end up shopping and don't plan ahead. In those times, we either tell the cashier we don't want a bag or just suck it up as a learning lesson to always bring a bag! Thankfully, we can reuse and/or recycle the rare occasion plastic bag.
      • Tip: Always ask about a discount for bringing your own (both Meijer and Target give customers .05 back for each bag they bring--others do as well).
  2. We use CFLs everywhere possible. Our nightlights use LED or tiny bulbs that are not available in CFLs but consume very little electricity anyway. Luckily, none have ever burnt out on us--if they do, we'll have to get to work on finding a recycling facility that accepts them.
  3. We recycle! This seems like it should be obvious, but it's not. This is done in two ways:
      • We separate and collect plastics 1-7, cardboard, cans, aluminum foil, electronics, and paper. I'm sure something is missing from this list, but the point is, we make more than an effort. The goal of "bumping up recycling efforts" has to do with work AND special collection of number 5 plastics...we'll explore these soon.
      • We donate or sell no longer desired items. If a sweater is in perfectly good condition and I no longer want it, why would it make sense to trash it when someone else can give it a second life? This goes for all clothes, furniture, books, CDs, DVDs, and anything else that comes up.
  4. We do not consume meat in our house. I'm a vegetarian; Matt is an omnivore. This is not my rule: it's his. This means we do not cook meat in our house and we do not bring meat prepared elsewhere into our house. Matt sometimes eats meat for lunch or if we're out for dinner.
  5. We do not purchase paper/plastic plates, cups, or utensils. Again, this should be obvious, but a lot of people rely on these items daily. Why use a one-time-item when I can reuse (on multiple occasions) the same item made of a sustainable material? Sometimes when we eat out, however, plastic utensils are given to us even when we decline them. These do get used for lunches at work.
That's enough on this topic for today.  Thanks for reading :) 

Suggestions, comments, and questions are always welcome!

Monday, December 28, 2009

Introductions

Meet Munkii: 30; part-time student; studying Interior Design; full-time university employee; loves: all things art-related (music, film, architecture, everything), traveling, reading, entertaining, cooking and baking, learning

 
Meet Matt: 34; accounting manager at non-profit; recent MHA graduate; married to Munkii; loves: museums, movies, video games, reading, commentary, traveling, learning new languages, tickling Munkii

 
The Mission: Adopt greener measures to improve their lifestyle and their impact on their community, society, and the planet.

 
Some of steps we plan to embrace this year include:
  • Decreasing the amount of soda we purchase
  • Decreasing the amount of paper towels we use
  • Not purchasing canned food products
  • Using more environmentally friendly cleansing products (for self and home)
  • Bumping up recycling efforts
  • Ceasing the use of plastic produce bags
  • Purchasing more locally developed products

These, of course, are just basic ideas that do not go into depth of why we’re doing them or how we plan to achieve them. That’s where the blog comes in. At least once a week, Munkii will be posting the change of the week complete with the “What, Why, and How” of things.

 
Since this is merely an introduction, stay tuned for the change of the week! Suggestions, comments, and questions are always welcome.