90 Percent Project - First month

Friday, 8:21 pm

By Kate

Jun

29

2007

We’ve come to the end of the 90 Percent Project’s first month. I didn’t post values for last week, so this end of the month posting includes weeks 3 and 4 in bold, with the first two weeks added to give a better idea of what progress I made for the entire month.

Week 1: June 1-7
Week 2: June 8-14
Week 3: June 15-21
Week 4: June 22-28

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Electricity
Week 1: 56 kWh
Week 2: 44 kWh
Week3: 41 kWh
Week4: 44 kWh

US Average: 11,000 kWh per household per year (avg. of 900 kWh per month, 211 kWh per week)
90 Percent reduction goal: 1100 kWh per household per year or about 90 kWh per month.

Week 4 was going along so well, with a projected total of 39 kWh. Then the hot weather hit and the fans came out. Still, a couple of 75-96 watt fans running all day and night is a heck of a lot better than a 2200 watt air conditioner that would add about 17 kWh (9 hours of use) to one day’s tab.

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Gasoline purchased (for 2 people)
Week 1: 16.5 gallons
Week 2: 6 gallons
Week3: 0 gallons
Week4: 9 gallons

US Average: 500 gallons per person per year.
90 Percent reduction goal: 50 gallons per person per year.

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Water (for 2 people)
Week 1: 263.36 gallons
Week 2: 221.43 gallons
Week3: 543.86 gallons
Week4: 211.71 gallons

US Average: 100 gallons per person per day, 700 gallons per week.
90 Percent reduction goal: 10 gallons per person per day, 70 gallons per week.

The problem with week 3—I watered the stinking lawn. As much as I rail against it, the alternative is a dead lawn and the costs of replacing it with either more grass or gardening material, mulch, and...water. This is an on-going area of much irritation. I hate lawns. I hate grass.

I have discovered that washing my hair in the sink rather than in the shower saves several minutes in shower time, thus saving a fair stream of water. Washing it in the sink probably uses about 3-4 gallons of water. The water stream from the sink faucet does a better and faster job of washing shampoo and conditioner out.

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Natural Gas
Week3: 5 cu. ft./5.35 therms
Week4: 5 cu. ft./5.35 therms

US Average: 1000 therms per household per year.
90 Percent Reduction Goal: 100 therms per household per year.

I finally hacked my way through shrubbery to the gas meter. It looks as if 5 cu ft of gas is the normal weekly flow. This is mostly hot water heating and pilot lights. This is probably not going to change much unless I knock the hot water heater back another click or install a tankless hot water heater. Since I also heat with wood—about 3 cords per year—which, for the purposes of this project, is counted as 20 therms of natural gas per cord, it looks like I’m going to go well over the 90 Percent reduction goal for the year, but still significantly less than the US Average.

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Trash (for 2 people)
Week 1: 12 lbs.
Week 2: 5 lbs
Week3: 3 lbs
Week4: 12 lbs (kitty litter included)

US Average: 4.5 lbs per person per day, 31.5 lbs per week.
90 Percent Reduction Goal: .45 lbs per person per day, 3.15 lbs per person per week.

I’ve been using the scoopable and flushable kitty litter which helps reduce some of our trash volume, but I still need to empty, clean, and refresh the litter box once every two weeks. Kitty litter is, unfortunately, heavy. Those are not my rules...Abbie has decided this is how it must be and one doesn’t argue with a cat in these matters. I am still looking for other options that she’ll tolerate.

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Consumer Goods
Week 1: $29.95 - Kill A Watt meter, $16.17 - Book
Week 2: $11.98 - dish rack and draining tray
Week3: 0
Week4:$9.99 - big bag of rawhide dog chews

US Average: $10K per household per year.
90 Percent Reduction Goal: $1000 per household per year.

Rawhide dog chews are a non-negotiable item for Terry and are, usually, a more than a once a month purchase. She does not care in the least if we’re trying to reduce anything. She wants her dog chews. Otherwise, so far so good. But the year is young and there is a refrigerator and a freezer on the horizon. It’ll be interesting to see what I spend money on and just how much less I drag home when I have to list and add up every bit of it. There has been quite a significant reduction over the norm, so far.

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Food
This is harder category to break down. The ideal is to grow our own and/or purchase foods grown or raised locally (within a 100 mile radius). The rule of thumb offered by the 90 percent project’s co-founders is: If you use 20 food items in a week, you’d use/buy 14 home or locally produced items, 5 bulk dry items, and only 1 processed or out of season thing.

I guess we’re doing pretty well in that regard since almost all of our meals the past couple of weeks have been local produce and locally raised meat and lots of rice and a couple of pasta meals which count as a bulk food. I haven’t opened a can of anything in a while. Except for a jar of spaghetti sauce. And yes, folks, I’ve actually dug some baby dandelion greens out of the yard to eat. They are like spinach only better. Since I use no pesticides or herbicides or chemical fertilizers in the lawn, I feel pretty safe in doing that. My relationship with dandelions has improved tremendously since I’ve decided to eat them.

In all, not a bad first month. The main benefit has been awareness. Having to keep track of everything forces me to be aware of what is legitimate use and what is waste. The easier part is eliminating waste and I’ve still not completely reached that end point yet. It’s a process. The next phase after eliminating waste is making some choices about what’s important and what isn’t (with, probably, some creative substitutions). If I only have so much to spend (energy or dollar), what do I choose to spend it on? That won’t be so easy. But it’s a commitment that I made and there are 11 more months to go. The goal, obviously, is to reach a 90% reduction of US Averages. There are a couple of categories where I probably won’t be able to get that low if for no other reason that it isn’t practical to replace all appliances when I don’t intend to live in this house for more than a couple more years. I’ll beat or come really close in other categories, though. Things should become really interesting long about November. It’s a learning experience, a challenge, and, yes, it’s actually kinda fun. You knew fun had to be in there someplace, right? It’s not all icky sacrifice stuff.