pointing out the obvious

It’s been on my mind lately.

The arguments for consuming local food make a certain amount of sense - if it’s local, it didn’t require as much burnt fuel to get to my local grocery store. You can define your own ‘local’ boundary, but I’ve been trying to stick with ‘Ontario’ over the last little while to see how it might affect my diet. It seems as though it wouldn’t affect me much. I generally don’t eat as many fresh vegetables in the winter because they are expensive (i.e. imported from South America) anyways.

So, local/regional food makes sense. Can we apply it to all consumables? Should I use the same rules for beer and wine?
Beer, wine and other short lifespan items make sense. They are consumed quickly, so all the pollution generated during shipping is for 1 hour of use. It would make sense to acquire these items locally, because there is no lifespan or number of uses to spread the pollution out over (think depreciation).

There are many local and international breweries producing beer in the area that I can think of off the top of my head - Mill St, Amsterdam, Steamwhistle, Molson…

We are also spoiled with wineries in the niagara region.  For some reason, the VQA or LCBO don’t carry many of the higher end wines.  However, you can visit the wineries and pickup a case - (i hear) it’s a beautiful area out there.  I’m guilty of not visiting.
For items with longer lifespans, like a table, or clothing (for some), the pollution from shipping can be spread out over the lifespan of the item. So if the table lasts 15 years, or the shirt lasts 5, the pollution can be spread out a bit. While it still makes sense to reduce pollution as much as possible, if you use something for a longer period of time (i.e. less new things you buy) we have less purchases, thus less pollution, less waste, etc.

I’m still going to think about this, but I might shift my wine and beer selections too.

Akismet is an awesome spam filter - no question.  It’s successfully caught over 2000 comment spams correctly so far.  Unfortunately, it catches spam AFTER the user submits it.  So my little host is still being destroyed by traffic as a result of these spammers.  So, I put in a quick javascript check field into the comments.  I did it in 10 minutes, while waiting my turn here at jury duty, so please let me know if it causes problems for you.

Spammers - why do you do it?

My ZipCar application (single driver) was approved on May 16th at 4:02pm, having applied on May 8th at 1:15pm according to the confirmation emails sent. This is about 7 business days… or 6 business days, 4 hours and 47 minutes to be exact (who’s counting). I was a little worried that I was going to be rejected given the website suggested an approval generally takes 2-3 business days, but the approval came through.

A day or two after applying, I dropped by the ZipCar office at Spadina and Richmond during my lunch break, picked up my card and information package from a friendly, young woman. The office was nice, bright and open. After returning to my desk I proceeded to simulate a denial of service attack on the application status page until I was approved - every 5 minutes or so for a week.

The very next day, a co-worker in the office told me that he applied to AutoShare and was approved within 48hrs. Hmm.. I figure I got lucky with the ZipCar promotion and owe the system some money so I filled out a joint application (which included my partner), using the “Smart Living St. Lawrence” promotion at 11:45am this morning. To my surprise I received a confirmation email at 5:25pm, TODAY. This is about 5 hours and 40 minutes according to my watch. Wow. That was fast.

So, I check the website for office hours and I have time to pickup my welcome package, keys and related information on my way home. Perfect. I get there about 15 minutes later, am greeted at the door by a nice young lady who confirms that I am in fact a fast walker - she just sent me the email! Awesome, they do the processing right in this office and know exactly who I am. I take my time looking around the office because it’s an old one on Mercer St, just across the street from the old Andrew Mercer Reformatory for Women - which is now Rain (fire your web designer) and Schmooze. If I ever start a company, I’m getting an office like this - it’s nice and cozy. Anyways, she explains the welcome package, asks if I have a gold card (which I do) and asks me to fill out the $0 deductible form. I am out of there in 10 minutes.

The fact that AutoShare uses BullFrog Power does not go unnoticed. For those who are choosing car sharing for green reasons, it seems AutoShare is serious about it. AutoShare +1.

Points not mentioned so far: ZipCar +1 for the free application and credit on my account. AutoShare +1 for being so damn fast and organized.

Oh, and when I got home, the nice woman at AutoShare who processed my welcome package informed me that they overcharged my card by $27, but promptly reversed the transaction so I shouldn’t be alarmed if I see it on my statement. -2 for incorrectly charging my card, but +2 for identifying, correcting the situation and informing me immediately, so it’s even.

While we’re talking about incorrect charges, ZipCar forgot to credit my account with the full promotional amount. I emailed them and they corrected it right away. -2 for missing it, +1 for correcting it as soon as I pointed it out - sorry, only 1 point because I had to ask about it.

I had some trouble logging into the AutoShare website - it wasn’t clear for what my username or password was. Through some bumbling around, I figured out the username is my autoshare member number, and forced a reset of my password by attempting to login incorrectly. Either I missed something in the information package, or it was just missing. -1 for Autoshare.. the ZipCar site was far more usable.

So, if did the math right, it’s fairly even out of the gate: ZipCar 1, AutoShare 2.

Don’t worry, ZipCar will catch up in the ‘coolness’ factor with their fancy technology. I’ll keep you posted.

When I moved into my home about 4 years ago, I noticed that the eavestrough (aka gutter or rain gutter) drained directly into a pipe next to my house. I had never seen this before, but it seemed very common for the homes in my neighborhood, and downtown in general. I later learned this pipe fed directly into the sewer system, or if I was unlucky, directly into my basement.

Fortunately, most (not all) of the water avoided my basement, but it seemed odd that it would go directly into the sewer rather than feed my lawn. Redirecting this flow of water means a drier basement and avoids unnecessary load on the sewage system, which seems like a win-win. But, with a new old-house, we were quickly overwhelmed with other projects and quickly forgot about it.

A year or so later, my better half learned of the City of Toronto Downspout Disconnection Program - which provides free disconnection of the downspout and reworking of the existing eavestroughs to divert the runoff to your lawn. Sweet. Sounds like an even better idea now that I don’t have to do the work myself! So we called and registered for the program.

6 months after applying, I got a call from the city for a ‘consultation’. I spoke to the consultant about our disconnection needs, we walked through the options, signed the paperwork and was told a local professional would complete the job when a few more jobs were queued up on the street. A month or so later, I was told that it was my disconnection day and by the time I got home from work, the job was done. It was a quality job, and exactly what I discussed with the city employee. No complaints… other than the 60+ year old neighbors thinking I’m nuts… but I’m getting used to that.

If your home’s eavestroughs are still connected to the sewage system, have them disconnected. You won’t have to water your lawn or garden as often, and it will help reduce the load on our sewage system (thus save energy, and reduce water pollution).

We all use paper. Some of us use wood. If you look hard enough, there are wood and paper products that are harvested in a sustainable fashion. For wood, you can look for the FSC (forest stewardship council) label on the lumber itself. For paper, there are usually crests on the packaging, but I really don’t purchase much paper so I’m not as familiar with the labeling.

To make life easier, you can just purchase Domtar products. Domtar partnered with WWF a little while ago to ensure that all of their forests (8 million hectares in canada) are FSC certified. This is a pretty heavy mandate, but an important step in pushing the forestry industry towards change.

I was convinced to try ZipCar over AutoShare (at least initially) by way of a promotion that eliminated the application fees and gave me a small credit to try out the service. While I still feel as though I’m a better fit for AutoShare because it’s Canadian and has existed in the city for a while, I’m itching to give any car sharing service a spin.

So, I applied to ZipCar on Tuesday, picked up my ZipCard on Thursday and am waiting for the insurance approval step. The website suggests a typical approval takes 2-3 days, and it’s Friday, day 3.5.

I feel like a kid in a candy store. I just can’t deal with this.

I got my first bullfrog bill a few weeks ago, and can now properly compare the charges. To compare apples with apples, I found a recent Toronto Hyrdo bill with EXACTLY the same kWh’s used. Here are the details…

Bullfrog Power: 873kWh’s used in the current bill, with the mystery adjustment (adjusted loss factor) the overall usage is 905.825kWh’s. The total bill is $152.96.

Toronto Hydro: 873kWh’s used, with the adjusted loss factor the overall usage is 905.825kWh’s. The total bill? $123.32.

Remember, much of your hyrdo bill is made up of delivery and administration charges, so let me identify these charges. The Bullfrog admin charges are $62.25. The Toronto Hydro admin charges are $66.21. I’m assuming bullfrog passes the admin charges back to Toronto Hydro to pay for poles and maintenance, so why would bullfrog’s be cheaper? Weird.

Anyways, this leaves us with $49.03 in actual electricity charges for Toronto Hydro, and $82.05 in electricity charges for Bullfrog Power. The power is clearly more expensive, but I don’t see it in my overall bill because the other charges make up half the bill.

So, the power costs 67% more with bullfrog. However, because almost half the bill is made up of infrastructure charges, the actual bill is only 24% more. Not bad eh? A 24% increase (~$29 dollars) in my electricity bill for green power. Awesome. Totally worth it, and completely affordable. Who would miss $29 dollars over a 2-3 month period?

What I love about my bill is that it details the pollutants I pumped into the atmosphere as a result of the power I used. It reminds me that although it’s green power, there is always a price. Cool.