THE Ways to Conserve Thread (merged)

Aaron

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nocar · Intermediate Crude Joined: Nov 05, 2004 Posts: 665

I think the one I bought in Estonia, looking like the picture, was French made. As to size - buy a big one. You should leave a good space to the rim. A stew for a family of four gets rather big. Meat with bones, like a chicken, fills a lot in the pot. I get two retired laying hens (small) into mine, if I cut one in half.

nocar

WildRose · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jun 21, 2006 Posts: 1009

It's a good list. I'm happy to say that we have been doing many of these things in our home for a while now.

I have another tip re: clothes drying. If you live in a climate like ours in Alberta, you have to use a clothes dryer for much of the year because it's too cold to hang your laundry outside; and, if you have lots of laundry (large family) you can't hang it up inside or you will have a problem with mold. So, organize your laundry in loads according to how much drying they need - towels may need a full hour or 50 minutes, but many things only need 20 minutes and you can take them out and hang them up.

Another tip for those who use plastic Ziploc bags for freezing and storage is to reuse them. We wash ours out with warm water and soap, give them a good shake, and hang them on our fridge with fridge magnets to dry. My daughter thought of this, and we've been doing it for months now.

strider3700 · Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:44 am Post subject:

Steam_Engine · Coal Joined: Apr 15, 2007 Posts: 3

Look for a pressure cooker that is 15 psi, made from stainless steel and doesn't have a complicated (and ugly) lid clamping mechanism. They are the best, fastest and most energy efficient. You can find a brief pressure cooker price comparison on the same website that has the pressure cooker energy savings details. Get a size that's 6 liters (6 quarts) or larger as you can't fill a pressure cooker more than 2/3 full. The French T-Fal pressure cookers are only 12 psi and, therefore, aren't as fast or energy efficient as a 15 psi one.

I'm probably alone on this, but I try to avoid big box stores. (1) Their sales staffs aren't very knowledgeable. For example, try to find someone who works there that has actually used a pressure cooker. (2) Big box store operations aren't very energy efficient when you consider their long distribution chains. (3) They push hard for the importation of low cost, energy intensive Chinese made products that cost a lot of jobs in the local economy both directly through manufacturing losses and by employing a lot less total support workers like bookkeepers, accountants, bankers, retail staff, etc. compared to a small business. (4) They have too much political influence. What's good for them isn't necessarily good for us longterm.

anagami

strider3700

nella · Tar Sands Joined: May 11, 2007 Posts: 57

From the tales of a indiffernet housekeeper : I never understood why anyone would run a dishwasher unless it was full. Ditto on a clotheswasher.

AbbieT · Coal Joined: Mar 18, 2008 Posts: 13

http://peakworld.org/blog2.php/2008/04/01/prepare-for-a-peak-world-by-reducing

This article talks about not only buying less stuff, but also about urban sprawl and what to do about it. It also has a link to the full Affluenza PBS documentary which I found interesting.

patience · Expert Joined: Jan 04, 2008 Posts: 1371

AbbieT,
Great article for hopefully reaching a wide audience. We desperately need the MSM to cover these ideas, and start to reverse the advertising/brainwashing that promotes consuming!

Our family has lived well below our means, and a fairly frugal life forever, but we have relatives that think we're either poor or weird for doing so. One has filed bankruptcy twice, and continues to spend flagrantly, to the point she is in trouble with paying her taxes. AGAIN!

How about printing it off and circulating it to friends? Think I'll try that.
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FiniteQuantity · Coal Joined: May 09, 2008 Posts: 8

I will feel a lot better about people preaching conservation when they can add population stabilization to their words. As long as population increases, population growth will eventually negate any reduction in consumption brought about by conservation.

Heard an NPR piece over the weekend that talked about Connecticut's garbage collection. They have landfills in the state (I think they said that) but they send 400,000 tons of garbase out of the state each year to be landfilled in Ohio, Massachusetts and New York. They have a recycling program which saves some percentage of their garbage from having to be landfilled. However, the Connecticut government employee involved in Waste Disposal said said that they hoped to double the amount of recycling they were doing. But then he added (and as per usual, not denouncing the fact) that they would need this increase in recycling just to keep their landfilling constant due to the fact that both consumption and population were increasing.

kpeavey · Expert Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 1094

The MSM have an inherent need to NOT spread the word for conservation. They are corporate, their revenue depends on advertising. The consumer spends money, the companies make money, spend it on advertising, the press stays in business.

It is the fiduciary duty of the directors of news organizations to tell the people to consume.
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AbbieT · Coal Joined: Mar 18, 2008 Posts: 13

Good Point FiniteQuantity. I agree, the world can't handle the population at the growth rates we are seeing. Population stabilization is key. I'm always amazed that in many third world countries where there isn't enough food to go around that couples have 8 or 9 children and then they starve. I can't imagine having that many kids if you can't feed them.

Kpeavey, I also unfortunately agree with your statement. It would be great if MSM would cover these ideas. But, you're right. Their very existence is based on advertising, and advertising exists to convince us to buy and consume:-(

mommy22 · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 22, 2005 Posts: 264

As far as the population issue goes, I hope that whoever takes the White House in 2009 reverses Bush's stripping money from family health clinics from offering birth control, just because they offer abortion services there.
I wonder how many extra hungry mouths there are now because of that decision.