Since we’re discussing the environment, it’s important to step back and take a look at some of the aspects of our daily lives that might receive little attention, yet potential changes abound that could have a huge positive envirohuman impact.

So, standardized reusable shipping containers?  Yes.  At your place of work, you likely see hundreds of boxes come in the door, get unpacked, broken down, and sent off as garbage, or, hopefully, shipped out for recycling (or maybe you don’t see them, but they’re there).

Let’s take, boxes of printer paper, for example.  We all likely do some printing or copying in our everyday lives, or at least use paper that someone has printed information onto in our meetings and correspondence.  Billions if not trillions of sheets are printed daily.  Boxes, like those at the left, are used to ship that paper to our place of work, and, once unpacked, most of them make their way to the dock of the building in which we work, again, hopefully at least for recycling.

Recycling is a good way to continue the lifecycle of usable material, but it is highly energy- and cost-intensive for the very reasons of shipping, water use, and chemical, manual, and mechancial processes that all go into continuing the cycle of that product material, like the paper fibers used in cardboard boxes.  A better recycling process is one in which the material is reused again and again, hundreds, if not thousands of times before it gets sent off for recycling in which it gets broken down into its raw materials for future reproduction of new materials and goods.

What the heck am I talking about?  At your place of work, you likely receive a good deal of mail, which, hopefully gets recycled when you’re finished reading it.  But have you noticed the bins that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), the United Parcel Service (UPS), and Federal Express (FedEx) use to bring your mail?  It’s usually a plastic-, angle-sided, open-ended container with metal reinforcements, that make these containers so reusable.

You might also receive beverages, like bottled water and sodas, that might be shipped in reusable hard plastic trays, like those here from Pepsi-Cola, that also can be reused many times before needed to be broken down again for recycling.  Although I recommend you choose a better beverage option: water, served from a reusable water bottle, these trays prove that shipping materials can be made to withstand repeated use, abuse, sliding and slamming all over the country (and world!) and that disposable, one-use shipping containers need to become a rarity.

Inter-office mail systems often reuse envelopes within a building several times before discarding them, which goes to show that there are many ways in which we have built the idea of “reusability” into our daily habits.  That’s something we need to take to the next level and push toward doing on an even larger scale.

On and off of postal and parcel trucks, beverage trucks, and others, we receive shipments of items from both reusable and those deemed throwaway, one-use packages.  But back to those boxes of printer paper.

Printer paper typically is packaged in reams of 500 pages, wrapped in paper, and placed ten to a box.  Because large businesses (and small ones, too) use so much paper, this results in millions of boxes being used for the purpose of packaging paper (only one of very many items packaged in this way) and then being tossed shortly thereafter.  Why not mimmick the boxes used by our postal deliverers?

We could have plastic ones made from recycled plastic product with straight sides, metal reinforcements, and a corresponding lid that would cover the box (just like the cardboard ones have).  In this manner, the boxes could be picked back up by those delivering the paper, be it OfficeMax or others.  The point is that reusable packaging for such industrial products, where the packaging does not even matter to the consumer, are a great place to start with reusable packaging.  USPS and Pepsi are already doing it, now how about others?

Certainly, the boxes may weight slightly more than the cardboard, however the fact that they are reusable will be a net monetary savings to the companies using them, and a net savings to the environment as our methods of shipping move toward clean, renewable fuel sources of the next decade or two.  Also, the fact that less paper will be used on packaging boxes would be even more helpful.

So you’re making a quick dinner of it with a pot of pasta and a jar of your favourite prepared sauce.  Great!

How are you heating the sauce?  The microwave?  A saucepan?  I recommend a different approach.

If you have a double boiler, you’re in good shape, but even if you don’t, you probably can pull this off just fine.  As your pasta boils, get ready for heating your sauce by emptying the contents of the jar into the inner container of the double boiler.  Go ahead and add your spices or balsamic vinegar — whatever your routine for a jar of sauce — if you’re like me, you do so just to feel as if you made it (somewhat) your own.  If you do not have a double boiler, directions are found below.

Once the pasta is al dente, strain it so that enough of the water ends up in the bottom part of the double boiler to heat the inner container of sauce.  Place the container with the sauce into the double boiler.  If you’re patient, there’s likely enough of a heat transfer from the boiling hot pasta water to heat your sauce to a pleasant temperature within about five to ten minutes.  Spend that time finishing draining the pasta, stirring your favourite olive oil throughout, serving drinks, maybe enjoying a first glass of wine.  After a few minutes, check to see the progress of the sauce’s temperature.  Use the stove’s heat only if it’s not quite hot enough, just to finish getting it up to the correct temperature.

If you do not have a true double boiler…

…Make one! You can do so with a larger- and a medium- sized stainless steel bowl, ones that have about a two-inch diameter difference.  Pour the water into the bigger bowl as described above and place the sauce into the smaller bowl, heating it as described above.

How is this greener?

Simply put, you are not using a stove or microwave for the amount of time it would have taken for those appliances to heat the sauce.  You’re taking advantage of the already boiling hot pasta water to transfer its now unneeded heat to the sauce.

Sure, freezing food that might otherwise go bad is a great way to save money and environmental costs by not wasting perfectly good foods.  But how many times do you need that food, get it out of the freezer, and plop it into the microwave for ten to fifteen minutes for defrosting?

Considering that your microwave uses a lot of energy, you’re actually taking away a lot of the environmental good you did by saving the food in the first place.  But behold, a better, more envirohumanly friendly way to defrost.  It just takes a little extra pre-planning, and you’re set to go!

So, when you decide that tomorrow you’re going to have the chicken breasts you lovingly stored away in your deep freezer last month, get them out of the freezer and put them into the fridge to defrost.  No, it’s unlikely that they will be fully defrosted the next day, but if you plan two days out, you’re likely to have them fully defrosted.

Also, the fact that they are still partially frozen is not so bad, because the microwave will not have to defrost them for quite so long.  Additionally, the cold temperature from the frozen chicken breasts (or other frozen items) is conducted and convected throughout your refrigerator for a (albeit slight) reduction in refrigeration-related electricity use.

No, your refrigerator will not shut down during this time, but it will certainly help to have the frozen item in there helping to keep it cool.  Better that than using your “I need this to happen right now!” microwaving, and you’ll actually (albeit slightly) reduce your electricity consumption, meaning not just saved environment, but some money saved.