hecker’s blizzog

it’s been a few months since i’ve been trying to reduce my power consumption. thus far it’s been going well. i find myself shutting off the lights when i leave the room, even if i’m coming back just a few minutes later. i’ve come to realize that my previous light usage was completely ridiculous. in most cases, there is absolutely no need to leave the lights on in a room when no one is in there. i found i was doing that somewhat regularly. there are even times i now catch myself turning off other peoples’ lights where applicable. i feel like i’ve made a good impact myself. not only that, but my habits are reflecting on others as they are becoming more aware of their lighting habits. pretty neat.

in other news, i’ve been hardcore about my battery recycling. i’ve also been using my battery charger much more. i had a couple gift cards to use, so i picked up some rechargeable batteries for my biking lights, wiimotes, and other uses.

on top of all that, i’ve been configuring all the computers i manage for lower power usage. tricks i use are allowing the hard drives to spin down when idle, lowering the screen brightness, setting the screensaver to blank rather than show anything, and setting the systems to turn off monitors and/or standby after a few hours of idle time. i really feel like i’m making an impact!

all in all, i’d say reducing my demand on the grid has substantially reduced. and it wasn’t even difficult! we’ll see if i can keep that up with the xmas lights up around our house

my next goal is to deny the dozens of mailings we get each week. after reading about paper recycling i’ve come to learn that repurposing paper is very easy. it seems a huge number of folks around milwaukee recycle their paper products efficiently. that’s good news. however, there are other things to consider: paper cannot be reused like the clean paper it once was. not only that, those mailings have a lot of ink, cost a fair amount to create, and their deliveries have a decent environmental impact.

i don’t suspect my next task will be very easy or fun, but i hope to get rid of a large chunk of our mail (most days i recycle 80% of the mail we get because it is useless to us) and report back here with my findings so that you too can do this.

well, it’s been quite some time since i last added a layer to my tasty green cake. my last endeavor was to save on water. for me, the transition was a little difficult. i grew up in an environment where our water supply seemed endless. if we accidentally left the hose running all day, it wasn’t an issue – it all filtered back into an aquifer, the water table, and back into our well. piece of cake (not a green one, but equally delicious)!

i had trouble breaking some of my bad habits: leaving the water run while washing dishes, brushing my teeth, or washing my hands. i also had to be more conscious about leaving the sprinklers running on my new grass as well as making changes to my showering schedule. however, the biggest and most powerful change is probably our new toilet etiquette. kate and i have been abiding by the if “yellow leave it mellow” policy. considering we both use the bathroom 4-5 times a day, we’re saving at least 10 gallons daily by not flushing each and every time. not too shabby.

on the flip side, i realize that reusing my glasses probably doesn’t save much water. sure, if i only consumed water out of them, reuse wouldn’t be so bad. but i’m always drinking milk, orange juice, margaritas, or beer out of my glasses. that means i need a fairly substantial rinse to rid of any resident beverage. the rinse alone probably takes up as much water as a dishwasher load’s water demand divided by 50 glasses.

lastly, i put out a few buckets here and there to catch some rain and drinking water for the wrigmeister. that was relatively effective, but didn’t save much on water. i’m still interested in building a rain barrel to collect roof water for my lawn, plants, etc. all-in-all, i’d actually rate my water conservation effort at a difficulty level of 8 to 9.

so, what’s next? reducing power consumption. i think we’ve all begun to cut back on our energy consumption by turning the lights off when possible and shutting down computers/monitors when not in use. however, i’m going to try to take my effort to the next level. i manage hundreds of computers both at work, home, and abroad. i’m going to try to work on each of those areas and establish the best power-savings scheme i can. certainly i don’t want to make computer usage cumbersome for myself or the primary user, but a computer which goes into standby for a few hours in the night can save a lot of power. especially when multiplied by such a large factor! while at it, why not turn the brightness on all these monitors down a few notches?

on top of that, i’m using my solar charger (-$10 after rebates!) more and more to charge my phone, ipod, and other small electronics. i’m still maticulous about turning the lights off in all my rooms when possible, doing the same in other people’s houses where applicable, and buying lower-wattage, more efficient bulbs for home. we don’t use the air conditioner all summer in our house and i’ve learned to become pretty savvy with wind conditons – opening and closing the right windows and doors at key periods in the day can cool off a house pretty well!

finally, i’ve learned another valuable lesson – unplug your electronics when not in use. particularly those which have AC to DC converters (laptops, phone chargers,….nearly all of your electronics). even though you may not be using them or charging a battery, they’re still using a fair amount of power to provide the right DC voltage on the other end. have you ever put your hand on an unused laptop power supply while it’s plugged into the wall? see how warm it still gets and you’ll realize what i’m talking about.

there are one hundred billion ways to save electricity in your life. let me hear of a few of your favorite tricks.

my last green post was about recycling and doing my best to actually put trash in the proper recycle bin. i found this more difficult than i actually expected. i’m pretty good about recycling at home and don’t think about it as much at work. i decided to be completely dedicated to this approached and struggled to completely abide.

i found my habit was to properly recycle large items and those which were obviously recyclable (noted by a recycling symbol on the trash). however, smaller items and those unmarked threw me for a loop. my tendency was to simply discard them in the normal trash and not worry about it. however, sticking to the plan, i found it relatively difficult to put all my napkins and paper in the recycling. not to mention remembering to properly dispose of the recyclable plastic i use/discard every day.

i’d rate proper recycling habits at a difficulty of 8 (1 being the easiest). how did you do with this?

my next effort is to save on water. here’s how i plan to do it:
-reuse my drinking glasses with a quick rinse
-leaving the water off longer while brushing my teeth
-shorter showers at home and at the gym
-watering the grass only when necessary (i’d normally say never, but i have new grass seed which needs it!). perhaps i can use some strategically placed barrels to catch rainwater and use it to water the grass later.
-washing my hands more efficiently
-and the less popular, “if it’s yellow leave it mellow” policy (within reason).

think you can keep up?

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