Monday, January 30, 2012

Grand River Transit will improve

Grand River Transit is regularly in the news here in the region and recently I read this opinion piece
Higher Bus fares are entirely fair about the fare hike that will be spread out over the next couple of years. I also found a related article Transit's long ride to value  that compares the transit system in K-W & Cambridge with 8 other transit systems in Ontario. 

First of all I learned that GRT was only established in 2000 and has since seen growing numbers of riders. The introduction of a mandatory term-long transit ticket for students surely plays a role in this as does the fact the the connections have improved by coordinating the services provided in three cities instead of letting them each do their own thing. And service is bound to get better, yeah: more express buses, more routes, and a light rail train. The latter one apparently is planned for K-W only at this point which upsets some Cambridge residents but I hope once the train is running and becomes a success (I can't imagine it doesn't) the connection to Cambridge will be made. After all it would simplify the commute between K-W and Cambridge a lot compared to hopping on a bus half way there.     

The main issue in these articles is the fare and how little it covers of the cost of running the transit system. GRT recovers only 38% of the cost! Politicians want to make it 50% in 4 years. For me that's the value that matters more than the average fare because once you use the average fare you need to take in consideration the ratio of student riders to other riders for each transit system. The term pass here is cheaper than the monthly adult pass which seems wrong. I don't care how many students ride the bus; I actually find it shocking how many students have a car - how do they afford that on top of living costs and tuition? If they can afford that car they can afford to pay more for the bus too, even if they don't use it. They most likely don't pay taxes so might as well do something for the transit.
   
As always taxpayers shoulder the rest of the bill which I don't think is wrong either. I can't help it that the federal government spends my taxes on oil sands subsidies. People who drive gas guzzlers might as well suck up to support an environmentally friendly way of travelling! Granted that GRT is deemed not as good yet as other systems in Ontario it still makes sense to raise the fare. After all, we want the Light Rail Train. "We" that's people like friend's of us who want to buy a house close to Uptown Waterloo so that once the train is there they live in walking distance and can get rid of their car. "We" that's members of the hiking group I'm out and about with almost every weekend. I'm not the only one without a car there and asking for a ride is not unusual.  We do need rides since the bus does not take us everywhere yet. Frankly, when we met at the Grand river yesterday I cycled in the snow because there was no decent connection to travel from the West to the East of the city. And  I'm glad to see that people here in K-W think better of public transit than in Edmonton.     

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Movie time - Chemerical

Yesterday the Take-Action-film Chemerical was shown at the Waterloo Public Library. Not quite sure what chemerical stands for I went and watched it. It featured the Goode family that threw out all their conventional cleaning products and later on body care prducts to get rid of the toxic stuff (ingredients like phthalates, parabens, sulfates) and replace it with cheap, natural, toxic-free ingredients such as baking soda, vinegar, olive oil, castile soap etc. It was an experiment and they were sceptical and they learned to love it and they won't go back to the highly commercialised toxic crap. Way to go!

Chemerical in that movie is a fictitious company that promotes healthier cleaning products and behaviours. There is for example OTW for bad smells, gases, you know. Open The Window! The other one is Elbow Grease. Instead of using harsh chemicals that you only need to wipe off, you should use more gently substances and scrub, scrub, scrub. Saves you the trip to the gym too which in return saves you money. Just saying.      

It was interesting to see how much trouble the family of 5 had to convert. We already have no more toxic cleaning products in our household, ever since the baby came. It's baking soda, vinegar and water for us. We use Eco-balls for laundry and dishwashing detergent from the organic/ healthy living store. I never took it as far as mixing my own laundry detergent etc. although there is obviously nothing wrong with it and it is a lot cheaper than anything you buy in the store. Store-bought solutions, especially from the organic store, tend to be quite expensive too. Sometimes it's only the first impression though. Our dishwashing detergent has gone a long way, I need very little. The same with the (liquid) castile soap I use for washing my hands. A single drop will do the trick. Made me realise how most dispensers of conventional soap/ detergents are designed to spill out large amounts so you use the bottle up quickly and run back to store for more. It's so wasteful!     

Replacing cleaning products is one thing, body care products are another story. Especially the teenagers in the household had their problems with that but they eventually agreed to the edible body care products that they could create themselves. Yes, they are often edible, not necessarily tasty but swallowing them won't harm you. Haven't you heard that you should not put anything on your body that can't be eaten? Our skin is an enourmous organ that is capable of absorbing lots of good and bad substances with all its consequences. It's better to be careful! Anyhow, our bathroom is not entirely toxic-free but it's improving. I mix my own hair conditioner from water and apple cider vinegar. I also started to rub olive oil into my hair, cover it in plastic for 20-30 min and then wash as usual. This gets rid of the frizz in my hair, my hair feels better although I'm still getting used to the new look. My hair is darker, looks wet but is not, it's curlier too. My husband already loves it. I'm about to finish my liquid body wash and it will be soap bars from the organic store from then on. Our chapsticks are from a local lady who started her own cosmetic line with natural ingredients in her kitchen and sells them at local markets. My deodorant is a crystal rock. 

I have had trouble with store-bought shampoo so far and toothpaste. Using a paste of baking soda was terrible, tasted disgusting, left my hair too soapy. Unfortunately I hate researching recipes for do-it-yourself because there is too many options and I was not going to turn my kitchen into a lab and mix away for a day. Going to the movie helped me out here. The organiser brought recipes and ingredients and we got to mix some toothpaste and shampoo to take home. Yeah! I love the toothpaste. Taste good, cleans well. I think the shampoo is good too but after I washed my hair this morning I went outside for a bike ride followed by a three-hour-hike with a hat on so my hair did not get a chance to look good. The recipes are fairly simple, the ingredients aren't hard to come by (if you have a good store nearby and I'm talking about the supermarket) and it's much better than baking soda alone. Watching the movie I once more was not unhappy for not using make-up although I have been recently considering to start using a little of it. Without the knowledge on how to apply it I am not going to buy anything though and if I ever get so far I better buy the "yummy" options.     

Back to the movie. There were a couple of things that bothered me. The Goodes live in a 2.5 million-people city which remaind unnamed. The city has 6 locations where residents can drop off hazardous items and materials such as batteries, paints, cleaning substances and body care products. Only 3% of the population there make use of these centres. They interviewed someone who runs such as centre and he said he resells some of the stuff and his wife is happy to get her cleaning supplies for cheap. Obviously he does not care about exposing himself and the environment to toxic chemicals that often have been known to cause cancers and other deadly diseases for many decades. The family mother was put off by his attitude, who could blame her. In a different location an "explosion-proof" room was shown were the handed-in materials are kept. It was not said what happens with them once the room is full. Also, afte the cleaners and cosmetics are emptied into barrels you are left with the plastic bottle. These bottles are contaminated too and therefore do not go into recycling but instead into the garbage and then into the landfill. Hang on here! Many households use these cleaners etc. and then put the bottles into their recycling. A lot of effort has been made to teach people to do that and what for? I can't imagine somebody picks the bottles out to add them to the landfill, so they probably get recycled with the toxins attached to them? Or what kind of aggressive cleaning process is applied to clean the bottles and transfer the toxins to somewhere (where?) else? 

So the Goodes (and they are just an example) felt guilty to pour half a bottle of cleaner down the drain since it's bad for the environment and will end up in the lake/ river. But almost nobody worries about using smaller amounts of the substance for cleaning and then pouring it down the drain. It still ends up in the lake, it simply needs longer to get there but it will accumulate. As it was said in the film too, any chemical substance ever produced does not just disappear. Reminded me of the story with the leaded gasoline. We stopped using leaded gasoline but the lead that was once pumped into our air through many exhaust pipes did not just go away. It's still around us. Cough! 

The film shortly reported on Chemical Valley (photos) which turns out to be around Canada's most polluted city Sarnia, ON and on Love Canal, NY. Both locations are extremely contaminated with toxic waste "thanks" to the chemical industry and yes, people who lived there did get cancers etc. and kids died from playing outside. Now tell me, we ought to be grateful for the contributions that the chemical industry makes to the economy because the state of the economy is all that matters in our modern world?!?!?!?! Be smart, stop using conventional cleaners and body care products and let those stupid companies go bankrupt. No money in the world can buy a healthy environment but we can influence our environment by chosing the right products when we shop. Also remember to buy organic ingredients for cosmetics where possible. Not much point in buying natural ingredients when those ingredients have been sprayed with pesticides and herbicides.                   


Here the recipe for toothpaste:

Mix 1.5 tablespoons coconut oil, 0.5 teaspoon baking soda, pinch of salt, few drops of an edible essential oil (such as lime or spearmint), and honey to taste. That's it. Remember that a pea-sized amount is enough to brush your teeth. And even though the initial investment for the ingredients may seem high it will last for a long time.
         

Monday, January 16, 2012

The best birthday card ever

In November 2010 I went for the first time to the Reuse Centre in Edmonton. It's the best shop ever when it comes to crafts supplies. Basically people can drop off whatever they don't need any more from books to candles, wool, cardboard, paperclips, trophies, calendars ... you get the idea. As a crafts person it's a resource centre, you go there and spend a long time going through the well-organised boxes and sorting out what you will need for the crafts on your mind. It's mostly for crafts I think, and a bit decorating your home. You pay $5 for how ever much or little you take home, it's a flat fee. 

As I was going through some cards I found one addressed to "a special brother-in-law", with a sports car at the front, a bit more text and a hand-written line "To Robert, from so-and-so and family." Awesome, I thought, it perfectly matches one of my brothers-in-law and took the card home. Well, his birthday had just passed so we had to wait almost a year to send the card. My husband and I had a discussion about leaving so-and-so's name in there or using white-out and inserting my name. It became the latter. I suppose he got the card although he never said anything about it. But Robert, you are welcome to leave a comment in case you read this.

Banff Mountain Film Festival

To me the films of the Banff Mtn FF are the only ones really worth watching. Forget about Hollywood, Bollywood and all the rest of it. At Banff they show awesome stuff that's real and amazing and thought-provoking. Of course we love the action films, people skiing, mountain biking, canoeing, climbing etc. the most beautiful, the least accessible, the wildes places on Earth. But there is other films that we love for example the journey of Tim Cope who walked from Mongolia to Hungary with three horses and a dog to follow in the footsteps of Ghengis Khan. It took him 3.5 years! Or the documentation of a photographer who followed the Colorado river from its source through the Grand Canyon to its end which since 1998 is not the ocean any longer. So much water is redirected from the river and pumped hundreds and hundreds of miles even uphill into the desert for irrigation and to Las Vegas and Phoenix that the river actually does not reach the Gulf of California any more.

Every year watching the screenings makes me wonder why I live in a city, far from the ocean and the mountains. I am not a city person and nature is disappearing around at an alarming rate and still I have to consider getting into the outdoors as a treat because I am stuck in a city. I'd much rather wake up in the morning looking out the window and be in awe over the natural beauty that's still there. Dare I to mention that my husband is getting to the point where he wants to move across the big point. Sure, for different reasons than me but does not matter in the end. At least we'd have a train network to take us out of the city or into the city since we might not have to live in one to start with, without a car. 


By the way, the show finished at 11 PM and it would have been a 20 minutes wait for the bus to ride it 10 minuted home. It turns once and goes straight down (in fact mostly downhill) the road. Considering outside temperatures (below -10 C) I said to my husband I'd be faster home running. It took me 15 minutes. Since he is not fit enough to run he walked and was home in 30 minutes. The bus passed him as he walked up to our front door. Meanwhile lots and lots of cars were slowly moving out the parking lots as hundreds and hundreds of people tried to get home. I know it's a vicious circle but it will need people first to take the bus before the buses run more often, not the other way around.

Friday, January 13, 2012

There was no green thing back then

A friend of mine posted this on her facebook page and I thought it's great. Read it even if you are not 35, or unable to admit it.

Food for thought!! Anyone over the age of 35 should read this, as I copied this from a friend ..

Checking out at the supermarket recently, the young cashier suggested I should bring my own bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. I apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my... earlier days". The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations". She was right about one thing--our generation didn't have the green thing in “Our” day. So what did we have back then?After some reflection and soul-searching on "Our" day here's what I remembered we did have.... Back then, we returned milk bottles, pop bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles repeatedly. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day. We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day. Back then, we washed the baby's nappies because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 240 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn't have the green thing back in our day. Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Wales. In the kitchen, we blended & stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right. We didn't have the green thing back then. We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then. Back then, people took the bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mums into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint. But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then? Please post this on your Facebook profile so another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smarty-pants young person can add to this.
The problem is obviously that too many people changed towards something that was supposed to be better but turned out worse for the environment. I figured I actually do quite a few things the way they were done in the "earlier days". So if I can survive the old fashioned way, why can not every else too, no matter their age?

Sorry, World

http://sorryworld.ca/   That's an interesting link! 

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Redecorating and other bits and pieces

How is the New Year been so far for you? As crazy as here? My daughter lost my wallet yesterday, just to name one issue.

We had the Law Enforcement Agent from the city of Kitchener in yesterday to look at our windows. We heat very little (20 C is all we need) and the winter has been mild so far but with these windows we'd be heating the outdoors too. And they are wet and we get mould that I am sure was here before they painted the walls before our move in. The management sees nothing wrong in the windows because they are cheap and don't care but hopefully the agent can help us sort the issue.           
Today we finally got our organic box back. I'm so glad because our fridge and obviously we have been starved of organic produce during most of the holidays. Eating has just gotten better again. For Christmas I got a small food processor and now we even make our own sugar and salt-free organic peanut butter. Yum!

My most recent project was to sand off and paint the sturdiest chair in out apartment. It's a zebra now! Beautiful!! It's a unique chair now more than ever, we never had a match to it any way since it was given to us by family together with a dinner table and three chairs (they had broken one). But we don't need four ordinary chairs at the table because we have a high chair too so this fourth one adorns our living room. And it goes well with the rest of our black, white and dark green furniture. I also repainted the top of our coffee table that my husband redid over a year ago. He never sealed the top though so the paint kept chipping off. I put glaze on top, all good. I am still working on our former TV stand that has been turned into a play counter for our daughter. It's got a white base so far and large farm animal stickers around the side but I want to paint geometrical shapes still on top. Why buy new furniture if redecorating is so much more fun. 

Makes me think about a change in career considering the slow job market for office admin/ tourism jobs here in KW.  I have also taken up tutoring German and showing Cutco knives to whoever is interested. If you have read the article of David Suzuki that probably appeared in almost every paper in Canada on Christmas you know that these aren't the worst jobs and products. Services, contrary to manufacturing and mining, often do not harm the environment. Services generally do not produce (as much) carbon emissions, destroy landscapes and forests, pollute air & water. The article was great and I am sure I read something similar from him the year before - it needs constant reminders that we should not be so materialistic and wasteful. Did I mention that Cutco has a forever guanrantee? Cutco knives need very little resharpening (every 10 years or so) and the company does this for free for you forever. Cutco also takes back and recycles your old knives and therefore reduces a lot of waste. I could not sell anything I don't personally like but Cutco I do like not only from the environmental perspective.  

Did you read the article of the UN advising people all over the world to stop consuming so many dairy and meat products in order to stop climate change? Super interesting too. Producing food for cows and Co. produces as much carbon emissions as burning fossil fuels for cars, industry and households. And it takes good food, grains etc. away from our tables. You know we already don't each much meat but still have quite a number of dairy products in our household such as milk for the child, yoghurt for mum & daughter, cheese for all. Not sure if our dairy consumption is below, above or at average with the rest of the population in Canada, Germany and elsewhere. Something would be missing without these dairy products in our household. Especially since we can't grow tropical fruits here which would be a nice replacement but other than that I can't even think of one. Maybe that's how lots of people think about replacing meat. Although I find lentils, grains, greens, vegetables, beans are around in such a variety that I have certainly as many options there as there is different cuts of meat.         
Does any of your new year's resolutions help the environment?