The Mug Search

The Winners

Like most weeks, I had spent too much money. Like too many times before, I needed a new coffee mug. My old favorite — emblazoned with the logo of a local bar — had been missing for some time and the dinky blue tea cup I was using in its place fell off folding table this week after a collision with my rolling computer chair. So long to that Walmart brand junk. I had to find a new mug. I wanted it to be manly, but I needed it to be cheap.

One of the most difficult considerations when trying to live sustainably is cost. Local grown and organic foods are extra expenses you may just have to swallow but when it comes to material goods there is the mighty, thriving thrift store. Thrift stores are the crucial intersection of low cost and low impact living and the city of Athens is home to four thrift stores that all serve a slightly different purpose. With so much selection — with everything from New-To-You’s pyramid of stacked couches to the professional vintage stock of Athens Underground — you can easily replace most of you life's purchases with only the treasure's other people have left behind.



I set out to Goodwill on East State, which is the only normal thrift store in town that's open on Sundays. This branch of the international non-profit has a very clean feel, a pretty large variety, and outrageously low prices. I found the mugs in the back of the store, each normally priced at a dollar, and chose my favorite after heavy consideration to be a small white, ceramic mug with the imprint of a 1908 Pratt & Lambert car varnish advertisement. When I arrived at the counter, dollar bill wrapped around the mug I was told, "You know you can get three more mugs for free with that." I was floored. The Athens Goodwill is, for a limited time, selling dinnerware items at four for a dollar, which is outrageously cheap. I got four cups and I love them all.

It'll be some time before I accidentally destroy these mugs. With such fantastically low prices though, I'm starting to notice how few plates we have around here.



View The Thrift Stores of Athens in a larger map.

In the land of empty mines

A photo of the Rio Tinto river provided through Wikimedia Commons by Carol Stoker

There is only one coal mine operating in Athens county. Nevertheless, the coal mining industry has been a major part of the region's past for most of it's industrialized history.

We're home to the Millfield Mine Disaster, the worst mine disaster in Ohio history which attracted international attention at the time. On November 5, 1930, an explosion killed 82 people, including the owners who were somewhat ironically inspecting the new safety equipment. Only nineteen people survived long enough to be found in the shaft nine hours after the explosion by a rescue team, the last of which just died last year.

More recently though, the after effects these long-closed operations have had on the regional environment are becoming known. Many coal mines involved underground mining that would go far below the water table. When the mines were operational, this meant constantly pumping water out of the mines to keep them from flooding. This notably terrifying necessity came to an end with the shutting of the mines when the coal ran dry and the shafts flooded. This flooding can slowly contaminate entire watersheds and ruin them. Acid mine drainage has become more known to those who inhabit Appalachia in recent years.

"Mitch Farley of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources discusses the efforts to clean up acid mine drainage along Pierce Run in the Raccoon Creek Watershed." (The Raccoon Creek watershed runs through the west end of Athens County.)

Appalachia is still full of active mining operations and a coal belt stretches along the southeast part of our state. Below is a map I made of all the active coal producers in our state, their addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers and the names of their presidents so you know who to ask for. Most of the information I used to compile the map came from the Ohio Department of Natural Resource's 2008 Mining Activities report available here. Check in as I continue to add individual mines and production information to the map.

In actuality, you might be better to contact your local officials and pray they listen. The most important (and simple) thing you can do though is spread the word.



View Ohio Coal Mines and Operation Headquarters in a larger map

The Farmacy: The Orignal Whole Foods Market of Athens

You can contact the Farmacy at 740-593-7007. Their website is farmacynaturalfoods.com, but it doesn't seem to be working at the moment.

There's Something In the Water...

This whole project started with the water.

Environmental concerns and sustainable living never really worried me until I heard how bad the water quality was in Athens. It's a major problem here, and one that goes widely unaddressed. People trust that the water that comes out of the tap is pure and regulated, but this is often not the case. The Environmental Working Group compiles data from 47,667 drinking water utilities and 20 million test results into a massive database where you can search the water quality test results from just about any provider in the nation.

According to them, the City of Athens had 12 unsafe pollutant categories in the water system, seven above safe levels in their last test. I took the data from EWG and compiled it into an infographic showing the pollutant levels relative to their safe amount.



All of these chemicals are disinfection byproducts which means they most likely come from the City trying to clean the water. Ironic. They also found nitrates, which come from fertilizer runoff and leaking septic tanks, and barium, which comes from drilling and mining runoff. Both were below health limits though.

New superefficient nanofiber bulbs light it up without chemicals.

Just when you thought it was cutting-edge and savvy to switch your incandescent bulbs to the more environmentally-friendly compact flourescent (CFL) bulbs, RTI International, a research group out of North Carolina funded in part by the Deparment of Energy's Solid-State have created a revolutionary new concept for energy efficient lighting.

It's the nanofiber bulb, a design utilizing a combination of nanofibers designed for the reflection with photoluminescent nanofibers. The individual fibers are smaller than a human hair, but when they're knit together, the result is a bulb that produces 55 lumens of light output per watt, five times more efficient than your standard lightbulb. And the light quality is primo. Researchers have been able to create high quality warm, neutral, and cool white light.

What really makes these lights special though is how the reduce environmental impact, both by saving energy and by using safer materials.

CFL's still use toxic chemicals to create their light, which creates a disposal problem. Nanofiber bulbs manage to produce light effectively without using chemicals, gases or even glass. It'll be another three to five years before we see these bulbs on the market though, and the questions of cost and lifetime are still unanswered. Keep an eye on these.

Want to learn more? Check out this video below that explains how the lights were made.

Seven lessons learned after 14 days as a vegetarian.

Tomorrow marks the two week anniversary of my decision to quit eating meat for this blog. I've learned a lot of things and had to make some changes to my routine to stay afloat. I never thought I'd eat cream of broccoli soup, for example, but somehow I learned to like it. Here are seven lessons I've picked up along the way to pass on to any aspiring vegetarians out there.

1. Never forget why you're doing it. There are significant moral, environmental and health reasons for giving up meat. My major motivation was minimizing my environmental impact, but it didn't stop me from keeping all of the benefits in mind. Perhaps more helpful than anything though, I've made my oath of vegetarianism symbolic of my total commitment to journalism. It's might sound childish, perhaps even pretentious, to think of it that way but it's about doing what it takes to stay the course.
   
2. Create consequences for failure. Every time I wanted to slip, I told myself that it would mean resetting the counter on this blog's sidebar. That helped. Set goals, even if they're artificial, and use them to safeguard yourself.
3. After you wrap your choice to go vegetarian in a sense of purpose, try actively not to be pretentious about it. Self-righteous maniacs give vegetarians a bad name. Nobody likes a self-promoter to begin with, but people hate meddlers even more. Early on, I caught myself looking down on some carnivorous strangers in the dining hall. Remember that eating meat is natural and that vegetarianism is just another way to live. Don't detract from your quest for personal improvement by forcing your beliefs on anyone who will listen.
   
4. Find a specially formatted multivitamin with lots of B-vitamins in it to make up for the nutrients your body normally gets from meat. I asked Rick Eddy, a pharmacist at the Court Street CVS, what he recommended for a new vegetarian and he told me to start out with a bottle of CVS Weight Sharp, which are formulated for people making dramatic changes to their diet. The multivitamin is especially high in B-complexes and trace elements that people usually get from meat. "Your body should adjust to changes", he says, so after you run through a bottle of Weight Sharp, it's fine to switch to any normal multivitamin.
5. Always double check. Animal products can pop up where you least expect them. An article appearing in Wednesday's issue of The Post spoke with Jackie O's Brad Clark who revealed that Isinglass, a popular coagulate used to make beer clearer, is made from fish bladders. It's often difficult to check for these things, but Clark assured readers that Jackie O's specifically doesn't use the product because it doesn't want to alienate vegetarians.
6. When the deli is no longer an option, PB&J becomes one of the only sandwiches you can get. This has been one of the most frustrating things I've had to deal with. I've long relied on sandwiches for their quick preparation time, portability, low cost and easy customization as a dependable on-the-go meal. Now I can't make anything but PB&J. In addition, the nearest dining hall to me is Shively and their "Grab and Go" makes nothing but sandwiches. I'm open to vegetarian sandwich ideas if anyone has some to share.
7. The dining halls really are not too bad for vegetarians. I've heard vegetarians complain about how insensitive the dining halls are to them. Compared to other places though, the dining hall really does go out of its way to accommodate the relatively large population of animal-conscious diners they serve here. There is always at least one vegetarian soup rotated through large variety of different recipes. The veggie burgers they offer taste better than the normal ones and are offered every day.

Despite my complaints, I've enjoyed the experience. If I make it through the night, I'll be halfway to my ultimate goal of staving off meat for an entire month. Wish me luck.

Recyclemania!

Image from the OU Recycling and Refuse Department site.

Anyone who has been to the dining halls in the last few weeks might have seen the Recyclemania signs reporting how we’re doing compared to nearby universities. In 2001, Recyclemania began as a friendly competition between Miami University and Ohio University (Miami won) but since then it’s grown rapidly, more than doubling every year until 2009. This year, 607 schools are participating from every state.

Since the competition started at our school nearly a decade ago, we’ve continued to be one of the most active participants in promoting Recyclemania. In addition to the scoreboards, which are displayed at Ping and Baker as well, Recyclemania promoters have created a trashcan mascot to appear at sports competitions and the college gate. According to their site, they also send letters with “friendly taunts” to the newspapers at other schools, and work with the University News Service to help promote the event on campus.

Through the school’s “Adopt-A-Game” program, students organizations ranging from the Green Network to the Women’s Rugby club have volunteered to collect trash for recycling at OU basketball games, a move the Recyclemania site claims allows them to recover as much as 80 percent of the waste generated by the games.

This figure falls in line with the goals of the university’s Recycle and Refuse Department, also known as Campus Recycling, which aims to recover 80% of waste generated at the university. To do this, they’ve deployed 16,000 recycling bins in halls (the small trashcan set that every dorm room receives).

According to scoreboards, Ohio University is sitting first in the state in waste reduction, the category we’re competing in this year. You can track our school's waste reduction statistics at the school's Recyclemania profile. So recycle, if not for the environment, then because it's time we take the title that we've been fighting for since Miami put us to shame all those years ago.

Eco-friendly Valentine's Day Gifts on a Budget

Valentine's Day is next Sunday — bring on the gifts.

Anyone can buy a box of chocolates, but if you're looking to wow your conservationist cutie it's just about last call to procure that green gift that'll let her know you care about her as much as she cares about the environment. There are already a few great lists of eco-friendly V-Day gifts such as this one from Inhabitat or this one from Green Daily.

There's one thing every list out there fails to take into consideration: the college budget. Trust me, if I could shell out $215 for a handmade silk garter belt I would, but I'll do no such thing this week. I've scoured the web to bring to you, my readers, this slideshow of environmentally (and financially) sustainable gifts.



Links to the products:
Eco-Friendly Pink Willow Dishware Earrings - $34.00
California Baby Bubble Bath - $12.60
Lumia Organic Candles - $6.99 and up
Heart Shaped Shell Necklace - $46.00
Organic Chocolate Vegan Truffles - $9.00
Bonterra Wines - $12.95 and up (Can't ship to Ohio)
Eco-Friendly Crimson Recycled Glass Pendant - $22.95
Handmade Vegan Artisan Soaps - $5.10
Handmade Journals - $23.80 (Medium) or $29.50 (large)

If you refuse to buy into the consumerist nature of Valentine's Day (or if you're really broke), there's always the option of taking sexy photos for your lover or just giving the gift of some good old-fashioned and certifiably organic smooching.