Riot for Austerity: The Beginning
So it’s August 31st and tomorrow our Riot begins. The past few weeks I’ve been casually calculating our daily usage so that we can see how much we’ve reduced from the way we are accustomed to living at the end of the year.
Much of these are estimates based on this month’s usage or our average monthly usage since we’re not billed for water, natural gas or garbage.
Gasoline:
Average Household of Our Size: 1500 gallons per year
Our Current Usage: 624 gallons
Goal: 150 gallons
Our Plan: To reach our goal, we’d have to reduce our gasoline consumption by about 75% or474 gallons. That’s a pretty significant amount (though not quite as significant as 90%). Taking the bus to work daily would cut about 50 gallons off the total. Making fewer trips to the city would reduce that amount by about 70 to 100 gallons annually and it’s not too hard to talk me out of long drives. Still, that leaves a lot of room for improvement.
Electricity:
Average Household: 11,000 kwh per year
Our Current Usage: 23,727 kwh per year (yeah, I know, that’s really fucking high.)
Goal: 4,400 (which includes 1,100 times 4 since we purchase wind power)
Our Plan: Everything in our home is electric. Couple that with the fact that the condo we rent is grossly inefficient, and it begins to become a tad clearer why we use so much electricity. Plus it’s damn cold here, damn cold … brrr. I’m not trying to get out of it, though, just saying that we’d be lucky to reduce our numbers by 20% of our current usage, let alone 90% of the national average. I imagine that eliminating phantom energy suckers would be a good step, followed by using fewer heaters come January and using less hot water.
Heating and Cooking Energy:
Average Household: 1000 therms of Natural Gas per year
Our Current Usage: 110 therms (via coin op laundry)
Goal: 100 therms
Our Plan: With only ten therms to cut, we don’t have too much work to do on this one still that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t cut below that amount if possible. Using our drying rack more–since line drying is expressly forbidden by condo covenants–is a start.
Garbage:
Average Household of Our Size: 4,928 pounds of garbage per year
Our Current Waste: 468 lbs
Our Goal: 492 lbs
Our Plan: Since we’re already 24 lbs below the goal, I think we may just focus on not exceeding our current output with soft plans to reduce it as we can.
Water:
Average Household of Our Size: 109,500 gallons per year
Our Current Usage: 97,455 gallons per year
Our Goal: 10,950 gallons
Our Plan: Though we’re below the national average by about 11% or roughly 12,000 gallons we still have a lot of reducing to do. I love long, hot showers and decadent baths and eliminating baths and reducing shower time would likely shave almost 17,000 gallons off our total yearly usage. Handwashing dishes might save us close to 15,000 gallons a year. Of course, handwashing dishes will certainly not be a water saving choice for everyone considering that newer dishwashers are often more water efficient than handwashing dishes. Our washer, however, is really old and we practically have to wash the dishes before setting them in the washer so we may as well eliminate the step entirely. Even with those two reductions, we have a long way to go.
Consumer Goods:
Average Household: $10,000 per year
Our Current Usage: $1,620 (this calculation includes used goods which are calculated at 10% of their value for the purpose of the riot)
Our Goal: $1,000
Our Plan: The thing that pushed us above $1000 this past year was the purchase of a snowboard. It’s difficult to find a used board that is also a safe board; fortunately we haven’t any plans to purchase another or any other high-priced items this coming year so maintaining our reduction shouldn’t be too difficult.
Food:
Average Household: Most foods coming from greater than 1500 miles away, many packaged foods and few local, organic or sustainably grown foods.
Our Current Household: Tough to tell. This summer our food is almost all from within 100 miles of our home. Winter is different. Most of our winter food is organically and sustainably grown but it comes from a far distance: California, Mexico and other places.
Our Goal: 70% local, 25% bulk and 5% other maintained throughout the year
Our Plan: I’m working on preserving as much as I possibly can, though storage in a tiny condo is a bit challenging. I imagine I have about a month’s worth of produce stocked up now, but that will only take us through the first part of November once the market closes the first week of October. Perhaps my goal this winter will be to make sure that foods harvested in North America comprise the bulk of our diet. Little steps, I imagine, little steps.
So … it begins.
August 31st, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Could you tell me where you were able to find statistics on average household energy use? I tried yesterday to find something that was easy enough for me to understand and compare my own use too, but all I could find were government studies, and they’re not reader friendly
thanks!
August 31st, 2007 at 4:49 pm
It is almost maybe even impossible to eat food grown within 100 miles in the winter in Crested Butte. You have to travel 30 miles just to get to a large grocery store and 90 miles to get to Montrose. I have heard of people who live in remote places like us to change the rules from 100 to 500 miles - maybe just try to consume food made and grown in Colorado.
August 31st, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Alotta -
After trying to look through those studies, I just opted to use the 90% Rules here which list household totals.
August 31st, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Tiff -
I agree. It may not be possible to eat locally year-round. I think that if I had begun preserving food earlier in the summer I might have been able to make some headway, but it’s impossible to have access to produce year-round when the growing season is 90 days or shorter. I’m afraid that even keeping it to Colorado-only might be difficult since very little grows here in the winter. Mushrooms, onion, garlic and potatoes are all that come to mind. You’re probably right: 500 miles might be a better goal for this winter.
August 31st, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Hi,
I’ve been reading and enjoying your blog for sometime now. I love how your posts truly connect to your readership. I’m interested to have an interactive/link-up/post with you. I’ve written a book that you and your audience might enjoy and am preparing to do a virtual blog tour and would love an opportunity to participate on your blog.
However, my young adult book ‘Turtle Feet, Surfer’s Beat’ is only a small part of what I’m trying to build. The book itself revolves around a typical suburban teen girl, Penelope, from the States that is forced to go to Costa Rica with her parents for her father’s job assignment. Involuntarily, her parents sign up Penelope and her little brother to spend two weeks at the Leatherback turtle biological station (for ‘their own good’). Penelope, obviously isn’t pleased but forgives the horrid accommodations and the never ending bug brigade as she sees the turtle and instantly pledges to do all she can to help it from extinction. But hang ten, dudes! Penelope is about to get help. One lonely night, as she’s patrolling the beach for turtle poachers she stumbles and falls directly into the arms of the local surf champ. Together they dive into the world of surfing and marine preservation.
These days, we are constantly facing global problems that seem to be getting worse and worse daily. Living in Costa Rica, I’ve been inspired to take action. I started by writing this book and am now developing a community of teens, surfers, artists, scientist, and everyone else who is interested in working together to have fun while helping out.
I would love to join forces with you and your readers in a fun, interactive way. I will gladly write a post about your blog (and whatever you will like to plug:), plus a link with your blog to my website and blog, in return for a short interview and mention on your blog.
Looking forward to hearing from you soon. To start we can link up!
Thanks so much,
Marina
marina@turtlefeetsurfersbeat.com
September 3rd, 2007 at 4:44 am
You are inspiring Jenny
I love your blog! Here in Alaska, eating local means subsistence fishing, hunting and food gathering. We do some and need more time (and money) to do more. Our intention is to get to a place where the bulk of our food comes from the wild.
September 4th, 2007 at 3:34 am
I am sorry that your condo ass’n forbids line drying. i think that is so absolutely ridiculous.
IKEA has a drying rack this year that easily holds 1-2 loads of laundry. $17 and worth every cent in my book. It folds up smaller than the wood ones when not in use. But probably IKEA counts as a big box store, so I don’t know if you want to shop there to get it…?
September 4th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
I’ll have to look into that drying rack. There’s no Ikea anywhere near here, but if it’s available online I’ll look into it. The drying rack I do have is really flimsy and doesn’t hold much at all.
Thanks for the tip.
September 5th, 2007 at 2:49 am
if you can’t get it shipped, let me know and I’ll get in touch with you and ship it to you. Even with shipping I am sure it will cost less than the gigantic wood ones do.