Well its been two months since I moved into my new home in Narragansett, RI, and I, of course, haven't made the progress in my efforts to 'go green' that I would have liked to have made by this point. Nevertheless, the experiment continues on sluggishly, and I suppose I will at least document my minor successes...
My 5-bedroom home currently houses seven permanent residents. My younger sister Bethany (a senior communications major at URI and overworked lifeguard), my friend Christina (a 5th year elementary education major), and myself (a political scientist doing post-bach work in biology, in hopes of escaping to a graduate school of public health) are residing there for the year (June 1, 2008 - May 31, 2009). We are joined in our lease for the summer by Tom and Claire, who will be replaced by Graeme and Kayla on September 1st. The catch is that China revoked Graeme's student visa earlier than expected as part of their Olympic Crackdown, so now he lives on the couch. Maarten lives in Claire's room and pays the electric bill.
So far I've paid little attention to house energy costs, as there are generally fewer costs in summer, with only electricity and hot water to pay for. The fact that our windows are all of the horitzonal (rather than vertical) sliding variety, makes installing any air conditioners impossible. While sometimes distressing, I suppose it is an inescapable way to reduce our carbon footprint.
My biggest initial goals were in the realm of transportation and recycling, and I'm pleased to report that I haven't totally failed in either. With gas at $4/gallon, I estimated that it would cost me a minimum of $70 per week to commute from Narragansett to my job at the RI Dept. of Health in Providence. To avoid this unpleasant scenario I've taken the bus to work every day this summer, and astounded that I haven't missed it once. For $11.50 (student rate) I can obtain a 15-ride pass from RIPTA. Not a bad deal when a ticket costs $1.75 each way at the standard price.
As for recycling, I have to say I'm pleased with our efforts, but there's always room for improvement. Its inevitable that items which can be recycled are thrown away because no one realizes they actually are recyclable (case in point: Dunkin Donuts iced coffee cups). Aside from the occasional recyclable being tossed in the trash, we've done a decent job of recycling cans, bottles, cardboard, plastic bags, and so forth. With the amount of beer cans that get emptied here, it would be a travesty to do otherwise.
My latest 'green' development was the procurment of a vintage Univega 10-Speed bicycle from someone's trash heap. While rust seems to be a persistent feature on both the frame and most of the components, there's nothing terribly wrong with it, and so I've made plans to refurbish it and turn it into my very own fixed-gear bike, which I'm hoping I won't injure myself terribly on while getting accustomed to it. I'll detail my efforts in bike recycling in my next post once I can get my hands on a camera to snap a few photos with.
