Last year, I had written about a plastic coffee tumbler that I’d gotten for cheap from the Starbucks store here (opens in a new window). The post received a lot of interest from informed readers like you, especially concerning the presence of any BPA in the tumbler material. After repeated attempts to get that information from the store as well as several other sources, I was not able to provide an answer. Yesterday morning, however, I logged into the site after a long hiatus and found out that one of my blog readers, Kori, had posted a comment about the recycle code on the bottom of the tumbler. I said to myself, D’oh! How could I not look beneath the tumbler! Anyways, this is some really valuable information for most of us who love to transport our coffees along with us everywhere and at the same time, want to know the safest (and cheapest) option out there to do it. Thanks a ton Kori.

After reading Kori’s comment, I decided not to use the Starbucks tumbler anymore and look for something nicer (read safer) elsewhere, within my budget though. I had been wanting to get a stainless steel one for a long time now but most of them run in the $20-$40 price range. Not only is the price a big bummer, but most of them are not that great in the quality department either. To make it worse, the coffee does not stay hot that long, I guess since it is steel. This info was based on my experience with another steel tumbler that I had received as a present from a friend.

Last night, I was doing my weekly errands and had stopped at Costco for some quick grocery shopping. My eyes fell on a set of stainless steel coffee tumblers that were strategically placed at the entrance. Not only was the price attractive, I was smitten by the style too. These were tumblers made by a company called Contigo and they were selling for $20 a pair. Yes, that is $10 a pop. The packaging said that the tumbler had an AutoSeal feature to prevent spilling and it kept liquids hot for about 4 hrs and cold for around 12 hrs. I was clearly impressed. I picked up a pair just to give it a try and so far, I have been pleasantly surprised with how good this tumbler actually is.

The build looks very sturdy. Fits in quite snugly in the palm with a pretty tight grip. The lid is very well-built too and it is dishwasher-safe. The lid is completely air-tight which helps it keep the temperature steady for a longer period of time. The lid also has a switch that you use to let the drink out every time you sip on it. Another thing I observed was that the lid has a very cool design right around the opening. Gives a very good feel when you sip on it, letting out the right amount of drink while at the same time, making sure not to burn your tongue. I cleaned the tumbler twice since yesterday and I must tell you, it is extremely easy to clean; both the lid as well as the bottom container. And even though it is steel, it is as light as my previous Starbucks tumbler.

The only gripe I have is that they have only one stainless steel finish available at Costco. On their web site, I did see an additional four colors to pick from. The red one would be pretty cool! But again, the Costco ones are selling for half the price and the stainless steel look isn’t totally terrible. In fact, it looks pretty cool! You do get a choice of colors with the lids. I got the blue and green combo.

Overall, I’m thoroughly impressed with this tumbler and going by its build quality, I’m pretty confident that it’s going to last a lifetime. So go ahead, if you are a Costco member, grab yourself a pair. I’m sure you will enjoy it.

Image courtesy: Contigo.com

If you remember, when we started the Green Project^ in early November of last year, I had pledged that I was going to ‘drive a better car’. During that time, I had the 2005 Honda CRV and a 2000 Mitsubishi Montero. In May of 2008, when I bought the Montero, little did I know that it had the carbon footprint the size of an 800-pound gorilla. I felt helpless. I really wanted to get rid of it but I had just bought it and that too for a dirt-cheap price of $4800. And I must say, I’m not as green as I’m frugal. I continued to use the Montero sparingly, bringing out the CRV as much as I could. However, things turned a little ugly after a few months. The Montero, as old as it was, started giving up on me. At first, it was the minor stuff like the battery etc. Then, major breakage set in. I ended up spending a good $2000 on it within two months. I didn’t mind much about the extra expenses since I had bought it at such a bargain price.

While this was happening, I’d completely forgotten about something else that was playing a big role in my auto expenses every month. Even though I seldom used the Montero, my monthly auto expenses remained high. After a few hours of dissecting my expenses on auto, I realized the culprit was Gas aka Petrol (for my non-US readers). Without my knowledge, I had been spending close to $150/month on filling up this gas guzzler’s tummy. Yes, it was averaging about 16mpg, standing true to its name, an 800-pound gorilla, with a big appetite of course! This was inspite of me using the CRV more than the Montero. Maybe it was averaging even less than 16mpg, who knows! I still didn’t mind it. I thought maybe if I just stopped using this sucker completely, I will not have to worry about all this. I and Khushi started to co-ordinate our trips so that we used only the ‘better car’. We were not ready for a new car yet (check out my Money Experiment^).

Last April, however, things changed for the worse. One fine evening, when we were coming back from Sun Harvest, the damn thing refused to boot. After repeated attempts to revive it, the thing did not budge one bit. We had done a good bit of shopping and had to call a friend to pick us (and our groceries) up. We left the car that night in the parking lot and the next day, my insurance guys eventually towed it to a shop. The shop guy calls me the next day and says the alternator has gone bad. Usually, one would suspect the battery to go bad when a car doesn’t start. But I had replaced the battery only a few months before. Didn’t make sense! Well, it so happened that the bad alternator had caused the almost new battery to fail too (due to an overcharge). The estimate came out to be $650. That was the day when I decided enough was enough. It did not make any sense owning a 10 year old vehicle that I was spending top dollar on, month after month when I could get something nicer for the same amount (post coming up in the Money Experiment on this). In a year, I had spent about $2700 in repairs, about $1000 extra on fuel and another $2000 in depreciation totaling to $5700 for 13 months or about $440 per month.

Last week, we finally pulled the trigger on a new Prius. I traded in the Mitsubishi Monstero (happily so) and welcomed the green machine to our family. So far, I have been enjoying the 48mpg. Will report more and add pix shortly.

Even though we didn’t take it to the level of extremity that I mentioned above (furniture? c’mon!), we thought we could do better. Eventually, late last year, we got ourselves a recycle bin. We looked around many stores for something specific for recycling and the ones we found weren’t any different from regular trash bins. We wanted something that we could use to dump stuff like bottles, paper, plastic etc.; anything that can be recycled. But I wanted something bigger so that we did not have to make half a mile trips to the community recycle bins everyday. Also, I wanted something that could be transported easily. A regular trash can is a b1tch to carry around. Something more horizontal was what I was looking for. So, I thought why not use something like a laundry basket? They are pretty sturdy and are extremely easy to haul down a flight of stairs right? I ended up getting a medium-sized Rubbermaid laundry basket that looks something like this.

It did not cost me more than $5. Compare that to the regular trash bins of identical size at $20. It’s highly transportable and quite easy to clean too. Try it out, it’s been working out really well for us.

In my quest towards going green for the next year, I have decided that I shall be carrying my own coffee mug to all coffee stores from now on. Most coffee stores serve coffee in either plastic/styrofoam cups or partially recycled paper cups which you know eventually end up in a landfill. In fact, even popular stores like Starbucks use cups that are made out of only 10% recycled material. And we don’t even know what happens to the cup once it gets dumped in their trash cans. Does it get recycled? Or does it just get dumped? Well why bother to think about all that when you can bring in your own coffee mug? Not only would it make you green, it might just let a few people around you know that bringing in your own mug is totally cool at a coffee store! I have also heard that you usually get a discount too if you bring in your own mug.

Last night, I was at Starbucks and stumbled upon this really cool tumbler. It is made out of more than 28% post-consumer recycled content and guess how much was it selling for? $9.95. Yep. And here comes the even more fun part. With this tumbler, Starbucks is giving away a drink of your choice for free! Yes, anything on the menu. Needless to say, Khushi ordered her favorite White Chocolate Mocha. So, essentially, the tumbler cost me about 6 bucks. Pretty sweet deal huh? I did try looking on Starbucks’ online store, but could not find this tumbler. But I think you should be able to get one at your neighborhood SB.

This post is part of my Green Project series.

This is one of those things that I fail to understand, no matter how many times or how hard I try. I just do not get the reason behind people’s fascination with bottled water. For the uninitiated, bottled water is the water that you buy at gas stations for a buck.08 and it comes in a PLASTIC BOTTLE. I could understand people drinking bottled water if there wasn’t enough clean water supply, e.g. in a third world country. But, for someone like me and you who has almost 24X7 access to clean, filtered water, I feel it’s a total no-brainer. What my pea-sized brain is not able to comprehend though is the very economics behind the whole bottled water concept. OK, assuming the water (in the water bottle) can pretty much be retrieved at zero operational costs, all the company is charging you is for the bottle. Assuming that you paid a buck.08 for just the plastic bottle, does it just end there? That plastic bottle has a long journey to take before it can meet its end. How do we figure the costs involved in disposing off the bottle? Does it take more than a buck.08 to recycle that bottle? Does it hurt our planet more than just a buck.08? How much energy is involved in recycling or disposing the bottle off? I’m sure it is more than a buck.08.

Obviously, the manufacturer does not care what happens to that bottle once it’s sold right? Only if our politicians could make the manufacturer more accountable, things would be a lot different. If it were me, I’d make it mandatory for the manufacturer to buy the bottle back from the consumer and in fact, pay for it. Sadly, I’m not in charge of things around here. So, let’s see what else can we do to fix or at least circumvent this problem. Here are a few things I think we could do

1. STOP buying bottled water. Yes put a full-stop to this useless habit.
2. STOP buying anything that is bottled as much as you can, not only water. How about carbonated drinks or juices? Buy the ones that come in aluminum cans. If you buy things in bulk, buy a crate of cans rather than a crate of plastic bottles!
3. Get yourself a steel or aluminum water bottle. Go to your nearest REI or a sports store. You will find plenty of choices. A nice aluminum bottle can give you a touch of style too.
4. Recycle. If you end up getting plastic home, don’t just dump it, recycle it.
5. Be an advocate. I think what we lack right now isn’t motivation but awareness. We need to let know as many people as we can about the ills of plastic. You will be surprised to see how many people you end up educating.

Last month, we started our green project as a pre-new year resolution and so far, we have seen some mixed results. I say mixed because there have been a lot of positive outcomes and at the same time, a few surprises. One such surprise has been our electricity bill for November. If you remember, I had posted our electricity usage for the last 4 months in this writing. We were really excited to see our bills coming down month after month. However, for the month of November, our bill went back up to $80.75. That is almost a 20% increase from the October bill. I’m not sure as to where we having been using up more electricity but I must admit, November was at least 10 degrees cooler than October in Austin. So the heater has been ON for a few hours daily the past 3 to 4 weeks. Now I wish I had more info on Nov 2007′s electricity usage for a better comparison YOY. But it wouldn’t be an accurate one since we were living in a different apartment then, a much smaller one indeed. I do have data Jan 2008 onwards for our current apartment. It’d be interesting to compare next month’s bill with Jan 2007′s. Till then, we are going to continue to strive for minimum usage/wastage and stick to our green project for the rest of 2009 (and thereafter too!). One way to save electricity during the Winter would be by turning OFF the heating while you’re away for work during the day.

I was watching CNN yesterday and saw this dude on TV. I was not able to catch the whole interview but did take note of the site he was talking about. www.365daysoftrash.com . I made a note to myself that I was going to take a look at this site first thing in the morning. What I saw has impressed me to no end. This guy is a crusader for all of us earth-friendly souls and what he’s doing must serve as a great motivation to all of us towards going green. In fact, many a things that he talks about are quite close to what I’ve written in my green project writeup. Check the site out and see for yourself how you can equip yourself to go green for the coming year! www.365daysoftrash.com . It’s absolutely amazing!

Here’s more info from the manufacturer.

In my Green Project Writeup recently, I had written about some of the measures we have been taking to go green. Changing all our high-wattage bulbs with CFLs was one of them. Here is a comparison of the last few electric bills and the effect that CFLs have had on our energy costs. Feels great to go green and save some green at the same time!

11/07/2008 – $67.36

10/08/2008 – $79.21

09/08/2008 – $85.35

08/07/2008 – $99.51

I and Khushi have decided that 2009 would be a completely green year for us. I’m not talking about going green with The Money Experiment that we have taken up recently but green as in ‘environmentally green’. We are totally charged and excited about all the cool things we will get to do, while at the same time, be able to give back to mother nature. We thought it would be one of the best new years resolutions we could make. However, the new year, even though is just a month and a half away, yet seems so far. So we thought why not start right away? Why wait till Jan 1st? In fact, I was thinking it would be kinda cool to see how green we have gone in the 45 or so days. And then maybe redefine our goals accordingly which would in turn be our real green resolutions for the coming year

A few things we are planning on doing as part of our initiative.

1) Will use CFLs.

In fact, we did change a few bulbs a couple of months ago and we have been seeing outstanding results so far. Just last week our community signed up some kind of a deal with the Austin Energy Company and gave us a free CFL upgrade. Right now, almost all our old bulbs have been replaced with CFLs. They did not change the ones in the closets, for some reason, which should not be a big deal after all.

2) Will drive a better car.

I don’t think we will be able to buy a Prius or a smaller car next year, but we shall try to get our ‘greener’ car out as much as possible. I just compared the stats on my two cars and I don’t think the 2000 Mitsubishi Montero scores well on the Green-o-meter. The CRV fared much better I must say. With the CRV, we would also be saving about $600 in fuel costs over the year.

3) Will keep all electronic equipment ON only when required.

Just this evening, I came home from the grocery store and as I enter our darkly lit living room, I see at least 8 to 10 LEDs glowing in the dark. That would be all my electronics running on standby mode. I’m sure they have been draining enough electricity everyday to light up an entire village street in India.

I do understand most of the equipment we use nowadays is Energy Star compliant but I don’t think there is anything out there that does not draw any power at all while on standby. Some of the equipment that is plugged in, I have not used in the past several months. I have a pair of rabbit ear antennas that has not been used ever since we got cable 4 months back. Time to unplug such stuff. Keep an eye especially on wall chargers. We tend to leave them on the wall almost 24X7. Even though the charger is not connected to a device, it can suck a lot of power. Unplug it as soon as you know your device is charged.

4) Shall use the laundry and the dishwasher smartly and sparingly.

This shouldn’t be too difficult. Many a times, we tend to turn the washer on even when we have a handful of clothes. Believe me, not only does this use more electricity, you end up wasting a lot of water as well. TXU has a few very helpful tips on using your washer, dryer and dishwasher. Check it out. Also, we tend to leave the dryer on even after the clothes have dried. Come up with an estimate as to how long your usual dry cycles might take. You can do this easily by checking on the clothes every few minutes to see if they are already dry. The next time, set your cycle to around that time.

This shall be a work in progress and I will keep sharing tips as and when I come across new ideas. Feel free to suggest your ideas as well by adding comments on this page.

Wish us luck and good luck to you too
Image courtesy: http://explore.toshiba.com/images/showcase/green-recycle-img.jpg