Greener light bulbs

Have you switched out incandescent bulbs in your home for LEDs or CFLs? There was an interesting piece in the LA Times, which says most people who use the newer, greener types of bulbs prefer CFLs to LEDs mainly because of price even though LEDs have better light quality. I have some CFLs in my home, mostly in lamps as there are some sockets in my old apartment that don't work with CFLs, unfortunately.

I've been kicking around the idea of have a one-word theme to my year next year, a la Gretchen Rubin. I think that word might be green.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Joe Goldberg

Say no to every plastic bag

Local bans of plastic grocery bags have come into vogue. There's a good article in the Los Angeles Times on the plastic bag ban now being enacted in unincorporated parts of LA County. There are numerous reasons for avoiding the use of plastic bags, among them the environmental impact of manufacturing and distributing the bags, the problem of having such disposable products floating around our streets and waterways and the hazards these littered bags pose to animals. From an organizational perspective, plastic bags can quickly take over a pantry or closet. We see these convenient tools as being too good to throw away; they are usually strong and stand up to multiple uses, so we are loathe to trash them and we are uncertain about recycling them. In many places, they are not recyclable.

Tiny bag folded up.

Unfolded, it holds so much stuff, stylishly!

I am vehemently anti-plastic bags and I think the bans are a good thing. I always bring reusable bags when grocery shopping or even shopping at a mall. I never take a bag if the item I'm purchasing is small enough to stow in my purse or carry in my hand. I keep two collapsible bags in my purse at all times. If I must take a bag, I reuse it as many times as possible before recycling it.

To those who think they are incapable of remembering to bring bags with them, I say nonsense. Stash a few in your car, your glove box, your purse or backpack. Many businesses offer incentives for bringing your own bags - take advantage of this! Bulky canvas bags are super sturdy, but lightweight scrunch-style bags take up very little room. There's really no excuse. Get on the no-plastic-bag bandwagon!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

A year ago: clutter-free gifts revisited

Last year I wrote no less than nine separately themed clutter-free gift idea posts. I have linked to them all below. Why is it nice to consider going clutter-free when giving gifts? Quite simply, though we all like receiving and giving gifts as a way to signify many complex social relationships, things do not make people happy.  For the receiver, the experience of anticipating and opening a gift is sometimes more pleasurable than the gift itself. For the giver, selecting, wrapping and watching the gift being opening is more enjoyable than the knowledge that whatever was given is being used or appreciated. So, if the thing is not that important, why give something practically guaranteed to end up in a landfill one day? Contribute to a rich life experience and consider your alternatives. Many clutter-free gifts are also low-waste gifts as they get used up or are intangibles like memberships or experiences that create memories instead of trash.

Also, if you are starting to plan for winter holiday gift giving, take note that the number of shopping days between now and Christmas is 42 and Hanukkah is right around the corner - only 19 shopping days there.

Clutter-free gifts:

Financial and charitable gifts

Gifts of experiences

Consumable gifts

Romantic gifts

Gifts of education

Service-related gifts

Meaningful gifts

Technology-related gifts

Gifts of memberships

About clutter-free gifts

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Field trip to the recycling center

On Saturday I went to the Burbank Recycle Center on a field trip with my neighborhood group from the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers. (What a mouthful!) We met with Craig, one of the recycling experts who works there and he gave as an overview of how recycling works at this recycling center and lots of information about what can and can't be recycled and why.

I had about a million mini-epiphanies during the two hours I was there, but I'm just going to list a few of the major take-aways that I absorbed.

• A lot of things count as hazardous waste, including anything that has electronic parts like circuit boards. These cannot be put in the trash or the recycle bin and must be taken to a special collection site. Los Angeles County has various collection points for their S.A.F.E. program. They are mostly just open on the weekend, but they are free to all residents of L.A. County.
• Individual cities have individual rules for what materials they will accept to recycle. For instance, Burbank doesn't take plastic bags, but the city of Los Angeles does. This is because each city has different facilities with different equipment as there is little standardization. The Burbank Recycle Center is owned by the city of Burbank and operated by a private company.
• Obviously the best way to avoid waste is to reduce your consumption in the first place. We talked a lot about refusing things like plastic bags at stores, and also about putting pressure on companies to take responsibility for the waste their products create. Some companies already pay for the recycling of their products, such as computer batteries, but many do not. Sustainable package design is a large part of this.
• In order to get companies to realize that consumers want to be able to recycle or avoid using extra packaging, Craig recommends you take your plastic bags and wrappers back to the grocery store you bought them from and put them in the recycle bins they have at the front of the store. That way the store and the manufacturers can see how much there is and that consumers want them to be accountable for it. You can also call the customer service numbers on products and let the companies know your thoughts directly.
• At the Burbank Recycle Center 90,000 to 100,000 tons of material come through every year. 70-80% of that is paper, which gets bundled and sent to China to be made into paper again. 10% is not recyclable and gets sent to the landfill.
• Items made from multiple materials are not easily recycled. For instance, the cardboard/foil/plastic combo of antiseptic boxes that hold chicken stock and soup and the like are not recyclable. Buy tin cans instead, as they are much easier to recycle.

• I think if you are interested in being a responsible member of the community, visiting a landfill and/or recycling center is a great way to get a vivid picture of the waste we create as a society. It's really clear that what we've been doing for the last hundred years isn't sustainable. 
• It makes you think about the economy in different ways. I feel good when I can reuse something. I like getting more use out of clothing I buy at a used clothing store, and I certainly donate as much of my used items as I can. Buying used appliances makes me feel great - they have lots of wear left in them, and I'm not creating waste by buying something that comes in a lot of styrofoam and cardboard packaging. But how does that affect our consumer-based economy? I'm not sure, and there are obviously lots of things I still buy new. Something to think about.

Recycling is important, and it's important to know what is recyclable and what is not. But getting to a point where what you are sending the landfill and recycling center is drastically less due to refusing, reusing and composting, is probably the most sustainable model of all.

Creative Commons photo of bundled paper posted to Flickr by Derrick Coetzee

Creative Commons photo of tetra paks posted to Flickr by Tetra Pak

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Remote organizing

It seems like I've been running into a lot of businesspeople who are branching out into online consulting. They have clients who live outside their normal work radius and they are able to service them by setting up an appointment and connecting via Skype or Google Chat, which has video capabilities. In this way, they can meet with more people who want to hire them, without traveling long distances, which saves both parties money and is also better for one's carbon footprint. At one networking event I attended this week, I spoke with an ayurvedic consultant as well as a pilates trainer who both work with clients in this way.

I'm fascinated by the concept, though I have always thought that "virtual" organizing is tricky. Sure, you can coach people verbally with organizing tips and strategies, but it's tremendously difficult to get an accurate picture of a disorganized situation without seeing it in person. The advent of video calling, made free and easy by fast Internet connections and new technology, makes that more of a possibility. If my client has a laptop equipped with a built in video camera, they can take me on a tour of their space, while I sit at my computer at home and give my expertise.

The drawback to this method is the lack of the hands-on organizing work, which is something that drew me to this field in the first place. I love working with the stuff, organizing it, tossing it out, taming it. It remains to be seen if remote organizing is as effective and satisfying as the traditional kind.

Creative Commons photo posted to flickr by Justin Ruckman.
Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Organizer's blog digest: Earth Day

From time to time I like to highlight great content found on other professional organizers' blogs. Here are some of the best recent posts on Earth Day, which is tomorrow, April 22.

Christie at SOS Organize gives some statistics on why junk mail is so bad for the environment, and advice on how to stop it from cluttering up your home.

Lorie at The Clutter Diet Blog exhorts us to dispose of hazardous waste properly, and to donate and recycle the waste that gets exposed when we clear clutter. She says "Organizing exposes a lot of waste in our own personal environments."We can all learn from that and try to make a conscious effort not to purchase items that are going to create a lot of waste in our own lives and for the Earth as a whole.

The topic of waste ties in to Abbie at Organizing-Life's recap of her packaging series, in which she examined everyday household items for wasteful packaging. Her conclusions and recommendations are well worth a read.

Vicky and Jen of the podcast What Really Matters post about compost. Composting is an easy and rewarding way to cut down on the amount of organic waste heading to landfills. If you live somewhere with access to a garden, you should compost.

If you want a whole avalanche of "green" themed blog posts, just check out this month's Professional Organizer's Blog Carnival, the topic of which is green organizing.

Creative commons Earth Day photo posted to Flickr by Beverly & Pack
Creative commons raw compost photo posted to Flickr by stevendepolo
Creative commons compost dirt photo posted to Flickr by wisemandarine


Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com 

Paperless billing and living simpler

Over the last few years, I have slowly switched from traditional paper bills to paperless billing, where instead of getting a piece of mail that you have to open, read, store until you are ready to pay the bill, then file instead you get an email that you have to open, log in to read, and then either go back and pay at a later date or sign up for automatic bill pay (which is extremely convenient). Aside from saving paper, as well as a money for both the service provider and you in the form of stamps, the biggest reason to choose paperless billing is to never have the dilemma of what to do with the bill after you have paid it. Most bills you will never refer to again, and knowing that you can access them online if necessary is, for most people, enough to ensure peace of mind. For those people who feel like they need more control than that, or who track their expenses far more minutely than most, you can always save electronic copies downloaded from your service provider's web site in a folder on your computer (and back it up with the rest of your files regularly).

I just signed up for paperless billing from my electric company, and in the email from them thanking me for doing so, they actually touted "helping you live simpler" as a main reason for choosing paperless billing. I never thought that huge companies would be interested in helping their customers live simpler, but in this case what benefits them benefits us as well.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by G & A Sattler

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com