Should I be ashamed to say....

[coyote]

I haven't had to drive a car to work in close to 10 years. I do drive on the weekends but I do so little driving now it is not comfortable. I would love to do all my weekend errands on the bike but I haven't convinced my DH yet. So, that will come one of these days in the future.

[emily_in_nc]

My guilty "pleasure" (tho it's certainly not that): a 60-mile round-trip commute to work. I do work at home once a week when I am able to, but I still feel bad driving that much. And we drive to our sailboat, 3.25 hours each way, for vacations. Bad, but not as bad as the pre-boat vacations we used to take, which usually involved driving to Florida, New England, and such.

DH and I try to make up for our carbon footprint by recycling ferociously, using compact fluorescents all over the house (the newer ones really do have a warmer light, I was surprised), re-using as much as possible, not purchasing junk we don't need, composting, growing some of our own veggies, buying locally whenever possible, and all that good stuff. But I sure wish I could bike to work. Hopefully someday -- our life-long goal is to be car-free eventually.

[GLC1968]

My guilty pleasure is paper towels. When I'm working in the kitchen, I can go through scary amounts of them. I can't help it, I hate cloth towels in the kitchen. The other day I realized that it's gotten even worse now that we process raw dairy and have been doing so much canning. I have to be virtually bad bacteria free in those tasks, so it's worse than usual.

I am torn between using recycled paper towels that only come in the big size or using non-recycled paper towels that are cut into smaller sheets so I use much less.

I do recycle just about everything that I can't compost. Our trash bin is small and we don't even fill it every week. 95% of our lights are CF, all our windows are new, we just bought a smaller older house, we updated the insulation and weather-proofed the outside, I just sold my Prius (one less car on the road!), we grow about 20% of our own food and are working on getting that to 80% (organically), I don't fly, I bike to work when I can and if not, we carpool... I'm really, really good - but I do have a paper towel problem.

[OakLeaf]

Marcal paper towels (available at Staples) are 100% recycled, a large proportion post-consumer, and they come in the half sheets. The TP is a little rough, but it's fine for me. As long as I don't have food poisoning (ok sorry TMI).

Yeah, canning. I like to have home grown and home-preserved produce, but I'm under no illusions that home canning is environmentally friendly. The energy inefficiency is pretty much staggering, actually. A couple of paper towels to wipe the jar rims doesn't amount to much when you're leaving two burners on the stove maxed for four or five hours... never mind the water consumption.

[GLC1968]

Marcal paper towels (available at Staples) are 100% recycled, a large proportion post-consumer, and they come in the half sheets. The TP is a little rough, but it's fine for me. As long as I don't have food poisoning (ok sorry TMI).

Yeah, canning. I like to have home grown and home-preserved produce, but I'm under no illusions that home canning is environmentally friendly. The energy inefficiency is pretty much staggering, actually. A couple of paper towels to wipe the jar rims doesn't amount to much when you're leaving two burners on the stove maxed for four or five hours... never mind the water consumption.

I disagree. I certainly don't use much water (I recycle the canner water over and over again) and once we get our PV panels up, the electricty usage will be minimal. In the meantime, I am only doing waterbath canning so it's like 40 minutes including warm up time, tops. I then keep the pot warm with towels while I'm prepping the next load instead of running the stove. I also use the crock pot whenever possible (for apple butter and the like) instead of heating up the stove. Everything else I use is hand powered (peelers, food mill, etc). It takes awhile, but it's not exactly a fast process anyway.

I guess my thought is that while the action of canning using power grid electricity may not be environmentally friendly in and of itself, if you compare it to the mass-produced canned goods shipped from somewhere else in the world, it's a step in the right direction. It's local, it's fresh and it's organically/sustainably grown. Plus, the more food I put up now, the less travel I'll have to do in order to eat come December. Way less fossil fuels burned in the long run...at least, that's what I'm thinking.

Thanks for the tip on the Marcal towels. I'll have to see if we have a local Staples!

[tulip]

GLC, I wouldn't worry about your use of paper towels with all the other things you are doing right. Funny, though, I had the paper towel thought today, too. I like Bounty, I don't like flimsy paper towels that just don't pick up!

[sundial]

I had a brief moment of guilt when I looked at my trash that was full of disposed shop towels. I don't like using rags when I paint and use those tough blue shop paper towels. Guess I'm a member of the paper towel club.