No Impact Week Has Begun: How Am I Doing?

As I wrote last week, I'm participating in a week-long "no-impact" challenge inspired by Colin Beavan's "No Impact Man" project (book, blog, and film) and is done in conjunction with the Huffington Post. This "carbon cleanse" week, as it has been dubbed, kicked off on Sunday.

The first day was dedicated to thinking about consumption. How much do I need to buy for the week -- what can I borrow or do without instead? This seemed like a relatively easy way to kick off the week, besides food, I generally don't buy much in an average week. That was until I realized that three of my closest friends are celebrating birthdays this week, including my partner.

So, what to do? Here's a few ideas that I came up with. I know there are loads of really crafty people out there that have absolutely no problems just stitching together something for their loved ones, but unless my friends would like a blog post, they're out of luck on my end. Here's what I can offer though. I have lots of books, some of them really good, and I think a few of those would make an excellent gift. And although we are encouraged this week not to purchase anything, I did get one friend a gift certificate to a favorite restaurant in her neighborhood that serves delicious local food. Other ideas -- having some prints made of photos I've taken, baking a loaf of monkey bread (if I can convince one of my Southern buddies to give me his recipe), and planning a super beautiful nighttime bike ride through San Francisco.

In additional to just thinking about what I am buying, this consumption thing has also gotten me thinking about what I already have. What clothes, shoes and dusty camping gear can I donate some place? Are there electronics we aren't using that can be given away or taken to an e-recycling center? Are there other ways to minimize stuff?

So far, I've started by cleaning out my closets and trying to end the scourge of junk mail that I get each day.

And this directly correlates to day 2 of No Impact Week, which was yesterday, and was a day dedicated to no trash. I managed to make it through the day with a minimal amount of trash -- one paper tea bag wrapper and the tin foil that my burrito was wrapped in -- both of which are recyclable.

I also did a little research, and here in San Francisco we do pretty well when it comes to trash. About 70 percent of waste coming from construction and demolition is diverted from the landfill. There's room for improvement with recycling when it comes to homes and businesses though which keep only 40 percent of their waste out of the dump.

The city does have a new mandatory recycling and composting law, which is fantastic. Recycling seems like a given these days, but having curbside composting is awesome -- very few city dwellers like to keep bins of worms in their houses if they don't have a yard. An estimated 300 tons of food waste goes to composting facilities here and this was before the mandatory law went into place.

I'm going to try to hold on to all my garbage for the week and see how I do -- how much I generate, how much could go in recycling, and how much I just didn't even need in the first place.

And that brings me today, which is transportation day. My office is a relatively flat 4-mile bike ride from my house, although, I did decided to work from home today. I swear, it was just a coincidence! More about transportation later ...