Zero Waste Home Office

My husband and I share an office.

A big adjustment from our old house, where I had turned the granny quarters (a fully equipped kitchen) into a studio and where my husband had a room so large that he added useless furniture to fill the space... the kids did find it useful to draw on the lounge chair with markers though. It was so easy back then to just close his office door, when I could no longer stand the sight of his pile-scattered floor (Scott is a compulsive “piler”). And in my space, it was also too easy to collect used frames found at garage sales. I had high hopes of using them to exhibit my art, but they never actually “helped” my artwork. In our separated offices, we both had a stapler, we both had a shelf for office supplies, we both had a printer, we both had a TV… we both had a refuse can: one labeled “trash”, not “recycling”. Paper, food, pictures, plastic bags, packaging, all went in the same bin, destined to landfill.

How did we ever think that recycling should be relegated to the kitchen only?
Boy, have we come a long way in the past 5 years. In our new (1920’s) small home, we’ve learned to share, for the better… a more streamlined and more sustainable office. (Bonus: una officina to clean, not dos!). It’s not yet perfect as we still have to deal with long-ago purchases and their imminent disposal: Food coloring containers which await to color my homemade paper, large artist acrylic paint jugs, adhesive spray can, etc. I am not sure how I will choose to sustainably replace these products (make my own, or find them used on Craigslist perhaps?), if replace them at all, when I empty them. In the meantime, I am reminded everyday of the wasteful office life we use to lead, and look forward to putting it behind me, with no visual reminders.
Here are some of the things we have done to get us on the right track in our current home office:


Pens / pencils:
REFUSE

• Better to have one good pen than a dozen “cheapies”. Thru my simplifying business, I have witnessed homes filled with dozens of free business pens. If you have allowed them in your house, you have also created a demand for it. Help stop the free-pen madness.
• Teach your kids to REFUSE pencils as party favors, as homes can get filled with those too.

REUSE

• If you do need a pen or a pencil, choose a stainless refillable model, and buy them from a stationary store: They come unpackaged.
• Use refillable white board markers (Auspen): we don't personally own them since we're still using those from our previous life, but we've seen them at the SF Green Festival
• Donate extra office material (paper, pencils) to your public school's art program.

Paper:

REFUSE

• Start your own junk mail war
• Cancel your phone directories: available online anyways
• Request less paper from your kids teachers/school and refuse duplicates when you have more than one child.
• Refuse paper billing (and it would be nice if we could keep it at that;)…sign up for electronic bills and statements. Call them as soon as you open their mail.

REDUCE

• Buy recycled paper products, packaged in paper: Some manufacturers choose to sell their reams in plastic (?????)

REUSE

• Use single-side printed paper for printing or making notepads with a metal clip: Dedicated a file or paper tray for it
• Collect and use junk mail response envelopes

RECYCLE

• Ditch the trash can (use it as a receptacle for your goodwill donations): Strive to use your recycling bin exclusively, an office is all about paper management.

Shipping:

REFUSE:

• Request recyclable-only packing material from your shippers: Refuse bubble wrapping, styrofoam and plastic bags.

REDUCE:

• Use paper tape on your parcels, and masking tape for smaller uses. I confess, it was a hard switch for me. There was something comforting about protecting my shipping addresses behind a waterproof plastic tape.
• Buy lick-on stamps instead of stick-on’s (if and when possible). At this point USPS only has $1 lick-on stamps available, so we're left with a sticker sheet the rest of the time (landfill). Send them an email to help bring the lick-on's back in fashion.
• Use USPS.com to print postage directly on your envelopes.
• Use surface mail to reduce the carbon footprint of your posted items.

REUSE:

• If you shred paper (we don’t because of the added energy cost and extra machine laying around), reuse the shredded material for shipping or COMPOST it: Shredded paper is a nightmare for recyclers to separate if you have a mixed recycling can.
• Use a return address stamp instead of stickers (the latter leaves you with a non-recyclable sticker sheet destined for landfill): You already cancelled the pesky charity themed address labels, right?
• Reuse packaging material: donate your bubble wrap (with no tape), peanuts, entire styrofoam pads to UPS, dedicate a cabinet for the rest and reuse it.

Other Supplies/Equipment:

REDUCE:

• Use paper clips instead of staples, or a staple-free stapler (packaging is ¾ cardboard, ¼ plastic). I personally don’t have one yet, I can't get past all the packaging.
• Buy paper clips in bulk: bring a bulk bag to Staples, they have a great selection of such items sold by the weight.
• Use solar powered calculator (looks like they still make battery operated ones...)

REUSE

• Use your library to read business magazines and books. Sell your books on amazon.com (you’ll be amazed how much you can sell your old schoolbooks) or donate them to your library for other people to enjoy them.
• Use memory sticks and external drives instead of CD’s (they last longer than the rewritables too)

RECYCLE:

• Only print when absolutely necessary, recycle your cartridges (at Best Buy for example) keep a receptacle next to your printer for easy recycling.
• Donate your unused computers/equipment to Goodwill. They will refurbish and resell the equipment if possible. And, if buying a new computer, get a laptop, it’s more energy efficient.
• Cell phone: repair or donate. Best Buy will take them.

Operations:

• Use zero waste cleaning (recipes coming up next week!).
• Smart strip your equipment if you can. Since it did not work for our system, we have strategically plugged our equipment in power strips that we turn off at the end of the day.
• When your bulb burns out replace them with CFL’s (duh).

A letter to Whole Foods

A few months ago, I found out in horror and great embarrassment that “Marin County generates the most garbage per capita of any county in the country” (Redwood Landfill’s District Manager Jessica Jones, Ross Valley Reporter, 8/25/09). Yes, you read that right! Ironically, I live in the trashiest place in the whole country! Interestingly, the county’s “green” reputation is one of the reasons we chose to move here. Oh, it’s green all right, full of parks and redwood trees, but that’s as green as it goes. What are the eco hippies that this county is known for, doing? Perhaps hugging the trees…

I even bought a pair of clogs to fit in when we relocated here 3 years ago… I wore them once on Coastal Cleanup day. Climbing and picking up trash in the rocks was not easy with those things on. I even envied my better equipped friend’s Wellies! I donated the clogs back to Salvation Army that week. I guess I should have realized that day, that I had joined a careless community: picking up plastic bags, empty bottles, fishing line, styrofoam bits, shoes (?...), cigarette buds… The kids looked like they hit the jackpot when they found a piece of Lego they could reuse though. They were in a positively better state of mind than I was:

How can an educated community be so clueless about their environmental impact?

And then I sat foot in Whole Foods. The local store reputed for caring about the environment. But do they? Do they do everything they can to help their community reduce waste? Do they know our county’s sad record? Do they understand that they sell some of the trash responsible for our county’s sad record?

This is my letter to them a couple of weeks ago…

Hello:
I live in Mill Valley and blog about zero waste (zerowastehome.blogspot.com). I plan on writing an article about "What my local Whole Foods could do", and I thought it would only be fair to give you heads up on the list that I will post. Your comments are welcome. You can also pass this on to whoever at Whole Foods is concerned about helping Marin residents get to the Zero Waste Goal by 2025.
-make bulk cheaper than packaged: potatoes, cauliflower, baking soda, croissants, etc… are cheaper in a bag/box at your stores.
-sell more bulk: staple items such as olive/cooking oils, vinegar, pastas, laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent should be available
-sell affordable cloth bags for bulk, and display them well: right now, $3/bag is too much … if you can find it in the dark corner where they're displayed
-sell cheese European style: behind a counter, a la deli. I was once told by one of your cheese counter associate that they sell too much cheese to serve it that way… what the??? Does that imply that the Europeans/French eat less cheese than they do here, to be able to sell it behind a counter, cling wrap-free?
-sell baguettes a la francaise also: Baguettes sit naked, in baskets, there. You grab them with a small square paper wrapper (if one wants to use it)
-educate your associates: another cheese counter associate made fun of my jars once, telling me that "there was no point in eliminating the use of the cling wrapper from my cheese because I still came to the store in a plastic car". I bought my cheese from Safeway the following week.
-give credit for home jars and bags (incentive) not just grocery bags: some of us have graduated from the grocery bag level.
-charge for any grocery paper bag that you give out.
-replace your plastic bulk bags with paper ones would be a good step too.
Bea
And you know what their reply to my letter was?
Nothing.
Sad.

Zero Waste Cleaning and Laundry

An alternative guide to your cleaning disposables

- House cleaning agents:
castile soap (bulk), a magic gentle natural soap, that can be used on floors, kitchen sink, dishes, hands, dog, body, hair…
homemade all purpose cleaner (see recipes) for the weekly house cleaningbaking soda in a Parmesan shaker (1.99 unpackaged at cost plus) for scrubbing jobs
hydrogen peroxide for mildew (use sparingly since it’s not available in bulk)

- House cleaning tools:
metal scrubby, it works wonders on stainless if used in the direction of the grain

loofah, natural brush, or a homemade scrubby knitted out of sisal twine for light scrubbing (loofah is a veggie, and you can grow your own!)
feather duster for speed dusting
old toothbrush for hard to reach places
microfiber cloths for every thing else (counters, floor, fridge, mirrors, etc…)

- Floors: Sweep with a natural boar bristle broom and wash with a wet microfiber mop and a few drops of castile soap. Compost your dust bunnies! We sold our vacuum cleaner: For the better, it saves on energy costs and storage space and we do not miss buying accessories or repair pieces.

- Windows: Microfiber cloths are great, just add water… no window cleaner needed

- Un-washable messes: Use un-donatable clothing items made into rags to clean up wax/auto grease/glue/caulk (use sparingly since they end up in the landfill!)

- Dishwasher: 2 options for the detergent (liquid in bulk from Rainbow or powder in a recyclable cardboard box such as Seventh Generation) and white vinegar as a rinsing aid

- Air: Let plants absorb toxins and clean your air. I do not like to have objects sitting on the floor since they make floor cleaning more painful, but I have found a vertical wall planter that is ideal (picture above).

- Laundry: Wash once a week only (to save time and dryer energy costs) with eco-friendly detergent (the one that has worked best for us is powder from a recyclable cardboard box such as Seventh Generation), using cold water cycles as much as possible. Savon-de-Marseille, dishwasher detergent, lemon or hydrogen peroxide work great on stains.

- Drying: Dry on a line when possible. If you use a dryer, compost the dryer lint and forgo dryer sheets (you should not be wearing synthetic static clothes anyways). I personally have not found the heavily packaged, but reusable, dryer balls to be very effective.

-Ironing: Iron very few things only (for us it's men’s dress shirts, dinner napkins and handkerchiefs), use a homemade starch in a stainless spray bottle (see recipes).

-Dry Cleaning/shirt laundering: Find a dry cleaner that has joined the sustainable world (Clean Look in Mill Valley for example). One that offers a reusable garment bag or nothing instead of plastic. And please do not settle for compostable bags, they are a real greenwashing ersatz.

Ready, Set, Clean Green!

Bulk shopping guide in and around Mill Valley, California

Here is the list of bulk staples available from vendors in and around Mill Valley: all items mentioned here only represent a small selection of the respective bulk sections.

Mill Valley Whole Foods (New)
Agave Syrup

Baked goods (bread counter, croissants, focaccia, cookies)
Cocoa powder
Dried fruit (raisins, coconut, mango, etc…)
Flour
Ginger snaps
Grains (couscous, rice, quinoa, etc…)
Granola and Flake cereal
Honey
Juice oranges
Meat, fish, deli and cheese counters
Nuts
Olive bar: olives, cornichons, pickles, marinated mushrooms and peppers, mozarella balls, feta cheese...
Olive oil
Peanut butter
Salt (fine)
Small selection of spices and teas
Straus milk
Sugars
Sweet snacks (malt balls, gummy bears, yogurt pretzels, tiny PB cups, etc...)
Tamari Sauce

Tofu (in the fridge section next to meat department)
Trail mix bar

Whole Foods, San Rafael (12mins from downtown MV)
All items mentioned above, plus:
Baking soda (overpriced!)
Body lotion, shampoo, conditioner
Coarse salt
Dr. Bronners castile soap
Larger selection of spices (cumin seeds for ex.)
White stevia (to make tooth powder)

My Pueblo Market, San Rafael (also about 10mins from downtown MV) : Nothing here is organic but people are super friendly and accomodating. You can ask the bakery/deli to fill your cloth bag with tortillas chips and tortillas.
Fritura
Guacamole
Mexican cheese
Non-organic flavored yogurt
Pastries
Salsas
Sour cream

Good Earth, Fairfax (19mins from downtown MV)
All items mentioned above, plus:
Agave syrup
Apple cider vinegar
Different shampoos and conditioners
Dishwasher detergent (powder)
Fig bars
Laundry detergent (powder)
Pasta
Rice Crackers

Rainbow Grocery, San Francisco (26mins from downtown MV): The Bulk Mecca
All items mentioned above (excl. meat and fish counter), plus:
Active yeast
Agar Agar (to substitute for the pectin in jams)
Animal crackers
Baking soda (cheaper here than elsewhere)
Baking yeast (fresh)
Beeswax (1lb block)
Capers (large)
Cookies
Cooking oil
Dishwasher detergent (liquid)
Dog food
Epsom saltFresh Pasta
Henna
Large collection of teas and spices
Large selection of body lotion, shampoo and conditioner
Pretzels
Rice vinegar
Soy beans (to make soy milk)
Strauss milk (cheaper here than elsewhere)
Sun-dried tomatoes
Tofu
Tortilla chips
Wine vinegar

The following stores are in the bay area, and only worth shopping at, if visiting those areas

Berkeley Bowl, Berkeley (31mins from downtown MV): I was disappointed with this one, I heard that the bulk was fantastic and went there only to find out that they carried barely anymore than the San Rafael Whole Foods. A lot of it is items packaged in plastic bags! A total waste. I was able to find a couple hard to find items, hardly worth mentioning though.
Capers (small)
Interesting snacks (incl. wasabi peanuts)
Good pasta selection (alphabet pasta, lasagnas, etc…)

New Leaf, Santa Cruz area (1hr44mins from downtown MV): My favorite of the smaller bulk stores, because it carries the most needed staples for a simplified pantry and one-stop bulk shopping.
Balsamic
Body lotion, shampoo, conditioner
Cookies
Dr. Bronners castile Soap
Honey
Large selection of spices and teas
Licorice candy
Maple syrup
Nuts
Olive oil
Pastas
Peanut Butter
Wide selection of reusable containers