last night i went to the wise water expo, a small gathering of mar vista residents (neighborhood in los angeles) in an auditorium at mar vista park. they had a few speakers lined up including a gentleman from los angeles department of water and power and ed begley jr. i had planned on writing a blog about how great it was and ways to conserve water but those will come at a later date. this one is about my dad.
last night, as ed begley jr was speaking (he was involved with the first earth day in 1970, so ed has been in the green scene for a long time), he said his wife made the comment about his efforts to cut costs around the house, that he doesn’t care for the environment, that he is just a cheapskate. of course everybody laughed. then i found myself thinking about my dad.
now, my dad was by no means a cheapskate. i know us four children were raised on a limited income, but i also remember having every star wars figure and toy that were on the shelf. he was from a different time when things were, well, just different. he was born in 1929 in a small town saranac, new york and spent most of his time in vermont and new hampshire. he was a french canadian whose dad was born in quebec. my dad was one of eight children and he never went farther than the eighth grade because he needed to work to support the family. he served in the korean conflict (yes, war was never declared). he was a simple man and was a member of the teamsters for 30+ years, working mostly in the local areas of new hampshire and vermont. he was also active with the boyscouts.
i’m mentioning all of this because i think my dad was green without ever applying a label to it and here’s why;
1. keep the thermostat set at 68 degrees. that was the golden rule at our house in new hampshire. i remember those cold winter mornings waking up and trying to turn the dial even an 1/8 of an inch to maybe 70 degrees and my dad would turn it back to 68 and give a scolding at the same time. if we were walking around the house and we said “it’s cold in here”, my dad’s response would be to “put on a sweater”. we weren’t really allowed to go bare feet in the house in the winter time either, “get some socks on your feet” i’d hear as i would awake in the morning and come into the kitchen. we had an oil fired furnace, and it was about not using any more oil than we needed, about keeping the costs down. sounds like he was teaching us about energy efficiency, we just didn’t know it yet.
2. take shorter showers. i was always pretty good about taking shorter showers, but my brother derek was the one who liked to take his time. i remember vividly numerous times, my dad knocking on the bathroom door, shouting “that’s enough water” and soon after the sound of the water stopping. i remember at one point in my early teen years, something was broken on the hot water heater that prevented the whole tank from being heated and my dad refused to fix it because it naturally made for shorter showers. once your shower started to get cool, your time was up, as determined by the hot water heater. maybe we should all install smaller hot water heaters. that would conserve energy and water. pretty smart dad.
3. turn off the lights. i remember my dad always after us to turn off the lights when we’d leave the room or getting up in the middle of the night to tell us to go to bed (because we had to play one more game of golf on intellivision). he wasn’t telling us to turn off the lights because it was good for the environment, it was so we would have a lower utility bill, i.e. conserve energy.
4. eat everything on your plate. it’s no secret that most of the waste in landfills is composed of food scraps and cnn wrote an article last year that stated that 1/4 of the U.S.’s food will get tossed into the garbage. it costs the U.S. 1 billion dollars annualy just to dispose of it. now, that was probably not in my dad’s mind when he was always telling us to eat everything on our plate. he just believed in eating what you take and don’t waste it. i remember one night, when i was probably 6 or 7, at the dinner table i had a hot dog i couldn’t finish. he had no sympathy and wouldn’t let me leave the table until it was gone. he went in the living room and sat in his chair where he could still see me. i felt like i was there forever. my sister eventually rescued me and slipped a napkin to me that i was able to put the hot dog in.
5. conserve gas. i remember when i turned sixteen, my dad wanted to give me his 1977 baby blue chevrolet monte carlo. i had been working since i was 14 at the local dog track so i saved some money and decided i wanted to buy my own car because i wanted to make my own rules (which didn’t really work). i just remember my dad always going on about the car is just to get to work and back. it’s not for joyriding or wasting gas. where i grew up in hinsdale, nh, there was nothing to do but drive around. there were 40 kids in my graduating class and no stop light in town. but he insisted that i just drive it to work and back (of course i was 16 at the time and thought he had it all wrong and i didn’t listen then).
my dad passed away in 2002. i always knew i inherited the creative gene from him. he was always helping me make cool things for school. in the 3rd grade, he cut two dinosaurs out of plywood and helped me paint them green, they were a t-rex and stegasaurus. one year, for halloween, he made me a mickey mouse whole head mask out of chicken wire and paper mache, all from scratch. in the seventh grade, he helped me build a castle out of sugar cubes. it’s kind of funny for me to be sitting here now calling myself a green architect. truth is, green has been around a long time, it just never had a label. i guess my dad’s words sunk in there someway or somehow. thanks dad.
this month’s COOL product is actually one company, two products. the company is caroma and the products are their waterless urinal and dual flush toilet. caroma is an australian company that has been dealing with drought issues for years and they are genuinely committed to the environment and helping the world conserve resources, namely water. you can click to read their eco-statement. you can also review several tutorial videos on their website as well.
the waterless urinal is coroma’s h2 zero model and it really is a waterless urinal. it has a “bio-seal”, a one way air-tight valve to seal the cartridge from the drainage system. it also includes a special tool that allows for hands free periodic replacement of the bio-seal. the manufacturer suggests replacement every 9-12 months. this is a great product and it will save the homeowners 4800 gallons of water a year.
from my understanding, a homeowner would be using flush #1 a majority of the time, so there would be substantial water savings there as well. when i combine the waterless urinal and dual dlush toilets installed in the westbourne project, the homeowners would be saving more than 7000 gallons of water per year. now, that may not seem like a lot, but water is a precious resource and every little bit helps. i’d say saving 7000 gallons a water a year without really doing anything different, is a good thing.
