These are the four items I take with me every day.  I haven’t always done this, but now that I have gotten into the habit of packing reusable goods I’m realizing how much money and more importantly resources I’m conserving.  I used to think carrying these things with me was too much of a hassle or took up too much space, but the two bags I recommend take up next to no space and weigh very little, while the mug and water bottle can both fit in a medium sized purse.  This post may be a little more on the basic side, so all you who consider yourself dark green already will probably have loads more to teach me on this front (and I welcome all comments).  But I know a lot of people who don’t use all of these items, including myself a few months ago.

1) The reusable “plastic” bag

Details: We’ve all heard how important it is to bring your own bags when grocery shopping etc.  I’m advocating bringing your own bag everywhere.  A few brands, including Chico Bags, have made reusable bags which fold up into a tiny stuff sack and weigh next to nothing…this means you have no excuse not to pack it on your person at all times.  On top of that, many companies, like Stonyfield Farm, hand these out for free at events. If you want to buy one at a store, you’ll have to shell out no more than $5.

Planet Savings: 500 bags/year. An average American uses 300-700 plastic bags a year (according to ChicoBags).  Let’s say 500 bags on average. 97% of these bags do not get recycled and end up in landfills or littering the landscape.  Carrying 1 or 2 reusable bags at all times will therefore save 500 plastic bags from the landfill!

Financial Savings: $15/year. Many retailers will give you a 10 cent credit for bringing your own bag.  Assuming only 150 of the 500 times you use a bag each year gives a credit, you’ll be saving $15 over the course of a year!

2) The reusable “brown paper” bag

Details: This is the newest addition to my fleet of reusable staples.  I got mine for free at the Food Inc film preview.  And I’ve seen them for sale for ~$2.  It’s perfect for pastries, fruit and veggie purchases and other small edibles and other delicate small objects.  It basically replaces the brown paper bag.  And as Barron noted, paper bags may not be any better than plastic bags, so best to conserve.

Planet Savings: 180 bags/year. I eat out a lot, so I may be unusual.  But I use my replacement brown paper bag about twice a day.  Let’s say the average American uses one every other day.  Going reusable will save 180 brown paper bags per year per person.

Financial Savings: Maybe none currently, as I’ve yet to get a credit for bringing my own small bag, but hopefully incentives will be put in place for this sort of bring your own bag as well.

3) Travel coffee mug

Details: A travel mug goes for $10-$20 depending on the brand. I’ve been happy with my OXO GoodGrips Liquiseal Travel Mug, but I know there are many great ones out there.  I carry it with me everywhere for all my hot and cold daily beverage needs.

Planet Savings: 300 cups/year.  Americans love coffee.  Among coffee drinkers, average consumption is 3.1 cups per day.  Overall, average daily consumption ranges from 1.4 cups for women to 1.9 cups for men.   This equates to about 500 to 700 cups of coffee per year.  Let’s assume that half of these cups are imbibed at home with reusable kitchen mugs.  So without a travel coffee mug, the average American will use ~300 paper or styrofoam coffee cups per year.  Ouch.

Financial savings: $30/year. Many coffee shops offer a discount for bringing your own mug.  And this is something that will increase over time.  For now, since not all shops do this, let’s assume a 10 cent savings for each time you bring a mug.  That brings you to $30 in savings after a year.  Meaning your mug will pay for itseld after 4 to 8 months!

4) Reusable water bottle

Details: I am partial to my Sigg (which start at ~$22 and come in many shapes and patterns) while others swear by their Kleen Kanteen.  Regardless, carrying your own water bottle not only ensures you stay hydrated, and protect the environment, it also keeps toxic plastics out of your body.

Planet Savings: 100 bottles+/year. Americans drink an average of 99 liters of bottled water per year.  Green Options notes in a piece about why not to drink bottled water that:

Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year. According to Food and Water Watch, that plastic requires up to 47 million gallons of oil per year to produce. And while the plastic used to bottle beverages is of high quality and in demand by recyclers, over 80 percent of plastic bottles are simply thrown away.

Financial Savings: $100+/year. Americans spent $15 billion on bottled water.  Bottled water is often from the tap (which should be near free) and costs more than gasoline, according to Green Options.   So depending on how often you buy bottled water, switching to a water bottle and drinking from your too-often-taken-for-granted tap could save you a bundle.  If you’re buying bottled water at $1 per bottle, twice a week, you could stand to save $100 a year!

So to sum it all up, investing ~$40 in these four reusable items can save you $150+ per year (and much more if you depend on bottled water).  You will also be saving 500 plastic bags, 180 paper bags, 300 coffee cups and 100 plastic bottles from the landfill or other receptacle.

For more about reusable products, see this blog.

To buy these products and more online check out GreenHome.

If you are a business and looking to buy sustianable swag, check out ecoimprints

[Note:  I am sure some of my assumptions aren't as accurate as they could be, but I think you get the picture.]

Wow – I never thought I would have a blog. But here goes…

By way of introduction, I am a sustainability enthusiast, living in San Francisco, home to some of the greenest folks and legislation in the country. That said, I’ve been overwhelmed at times by the blinding green light emitted by so many companies and organizations around me. It’s hard to know who is hopping on the green bandwagon sincerely or with an eye at favorable press. I do appreciate even small steps in earnest in the right direction, though, and I know that it takes time to get to the zero-waste, carbon-negative, equal-opportunity ideal I envision. So I want to devote this blog to celebrating what’s good and green in my life, this city, this country and this world. I want to share with others what I’ve learned through my own research in the sector – about products, companies, organizations, events, jobs, websites and more – and save you some of the legwork in greening your lifestyle, as it were. I want to help navigate the green scene, creating an unbiased forum in which we can share resources and information.

This blog is not about me, and this will likely be the most personal of all posts, but I’d like to give a little background so folks can learn where I’m coming from with this blog. I grew up in small town coastal New Hampshire, with an avid gardening mother and a yoga teacher father. We had three compost piles in the backyard and a slew of vegetable and flower gardens. My mom even planted me and my siblings our very own gardens where we could choose the crops and reap the rewards. Mom of course did all the gardening but we felt some ownership of the process. I spent summer afternoons wandering around the neighborhood picking neighbors’ flowers to make potpourri and also sifting through the house and collecting any unused items, both of which I would sell in a daily mini lawn sale, with minor success. I wanted to make money by recycling things others didn’t need (though it’s a stretch to think the neighbors didn’t need their flowers). To this day, the most exciting area of the green realm is reusing and recycling goods a la used clothing stores and using waste to make new products a la Preserve and TerraCycle. I plan to devote a good many posts investigating this sector of the green economy; now you know why.

Alas, my yard sale days came to a close. In middle school I lived in Switzerland for a time and was wowed by their waste diversion techniques (a separate bucket for food scraps to bring to the farm for the pigs!). I wanted to be an environmental scientist…until I took environmental science and became profoundly depressed by the hopelessness of the situation. In college at Brown I majored in Psychology, and wanted to be a psychologist…until I realized people only change when they want to, which isn’t often, and that I wanted to have a bigger impact on the world. So I went into business management consulting at Bain & Co, where I hoped to discover what I love doing. It was here that I was reminded of my passion for sustainability. In my first few weeks of work I noticed a few things amiss in the office – there were no recycling bins at our desks, no compost bins in the kitchen, our paper was not recycled, our disposable kitchen products were made of plastic and non-compostable paper, and so on.   Unsolicited, I emailed a request to our office services department and received a ‘not our fault’ reply. Four months later they had made each and every change I demanded. I was shocked and exhilarated at the same time. How was it so easy? Had they just not thought of these things? I then noticed that our other offices had developed Green Teams, so I went about putting one together for my office (the fact that San Francisco was behind the Atlanta office on this front was embarrassing). With the help of my smart, resourceful colleagues, we went about greening the office – we replaced office supplies with post-consumer and recycled alternatives, we brought in local organic fruit and snack vendors, we performed an assessment of the carbon offset provider landscape with an eye towards firm-wide carbon neutrality, we examined office energy use, and we promoted environmental awareness in the office.  All in all, this was quite possibly my most rewarding consulting experience.  Which is why I left after just shy of two years.  I can thank Bain for sending me back to my roots.

I currently work at Green Zebra, an awesome green start up that compiles “sustainable savings guides” to make it easy for Bay Area residents to go green and rewards businesses for caring about the environment.

Now that I’ve given you a tour through my life’s environmental landmarks, I think I’ll close.

Thanks for reading my first ecofrenzy blog post!

Amie