Tuesday, September 29, 2009

What's Your Beef?

(I'm writing this sentence after finishing this blog entry. Warning: it's a real snoozer in the beginning!!! But it gets better toward the end. I guess I could do something about it as opposed to talking about myself behind my own back, but I don't feel like it.)

It took a couple of days to muster the energy to do something about the dishes after having guests on Sunday. Needless to say, the dishwasher was bursting. I had to wash some by hand and you can't believe how careful I was being to ensure that I did not use a ton of water. Really, it wasn't any more time consuming than handwashing usually is. But here's what I did.

1) Every time I washed a dish, I only put a little bit of water on it as I scrubbed (plus the water that I mix with the soap)
2) As I rinsed, I made sure that the next dish was underneath and catching the water so that I could scrub it using that water.
3) I made sure to run the sink at half the pressure and shut it off when I wasn't rinsing.

I wish I knew how much water all this was saving. I have to say, though, that when I had to wash out a cup that had milk in it. One cup, okay? I was sure to use the excess water to soak the dishes that were waiting to be washed and I filled three bowls. THREE BOWLS to wash just one cup. And that's using my whimpy half pressure method. So I don't really want to think about how much water I wasted all those times I had the water rushing out of the faucet like Niagara Falls.

Yesterday, after doing dishes, I read this really reliable source called Facebook (every hear of it?) that we could be saving like a kabillion gallons of water if we only ate beef once a week. (Okay, don't fact check kabillion, nerds, it was just a really high number, aight?) Now, I loves some beef, but I couldn't ignore this. So I looked for a more reliable source (if there is such a thing) and I found this great site called creativecitizen.com, which tells you the kind of impact you can make on the environment by changing certain behaviors. Here's the link about cutting beef down to once-a-week (http://creativecitizen.com/solutions/87-Eat-Less-Beef):

"Eat beef only once a week and reduce C02 emissions by 3,028 pounds and save 207,920 gallons of water. According to New Scientist Magazine, every one kilogram of beef produces the equivalent of 36.4 kilograms (80 pounds) of C02."

I highly recommend the site. Am I going to cut beef down to once a week? Who me? Uhhh, I have to say, I don't even know if I could tell you how many times I actually eat beef. Hey, I've already cut out bottled water and even greatly reduced bottled drinks... the beef would be really difficult. My daughter is a vegan, can I just swipe her brownie points on this one??? Jeez, you're persistent! I will say this, I am going to give my grocery list another look to see how much beef is on it and then take it from there, okay? You know I'll update you honestly. But, how about you?

Anyway, take a look at the site. You are bound to find one simple thing you can do that would make a huge impact on how much water you use, and the environment. It's a great site!!!

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