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Trashing the Fridge
Steven Kurutz, New York Times
As drastic as the move might seem, a small segment of the green movement has come to regard the refrigerator as an unacceptable drain on energy, and is choosing to live without it. In spite of its ubiquity — 99.5 percent of American homes have one — these advocates say the refrigerator is unnecessary, as long as one is careful about shopping choices and food storage.
(4 February 2009)
EB contributor Carl Etnier comments:
It’s a pretty balanced take on a subject that the reporter points out can lead to heated debate at green blogs. The article describes various methods people use to replace the refrigerator. A common approach seems to be using the freezer compartment as a fridge, cooled with plastic bottles frozen in a small basement freezer, and using the main fridge compartment for storage. Storage outside is mentioned. No mention is made of root cellars.
Unplugging the fridge seems like a good exercise to do, even if it’s not a permanent step, just to see how resilient one’s own life is in the face of electrical outages.
BA:
Refrigerators are a modern convenience. Wikipedia points out that “At the start of the 20th Century, about half of households in the United States relied on melting ice (in an icebox) to keep food cold, while the remaining half had no cooled storage at all.” Many people in the world don’t have a refrigerator now.
UPDATE (Feb 9) EB contributor Martin Payne writes:
Those who live on sailboats provide an overlooked resource as to how to live well with limited supplies of food, energy and fresh water. “Liveaboards” (as they are known) soon learn that when you have a limited ability to charge your batteries you don’t dare leave the light on when you exit your berth, nor do you brush your teeth with the faucet running! For that matter, just a week on a sailboat away from shore power and water provides a pretty good lesson for anyone. As to /Trashing the Fridge/, the January 2009 issue of Cruising World features an excellent article on doing just that. Included are storage guidelines for fruits, meats and vegetables.
Also, /Rancho Costa Nada/, an interesting book on desert rat culture, provides an example of how one can eat for a week in the desert with no refrigeration.
UPDATE (Feb 9) EB contributor Neil writes:
You might want to take a look at Emily Cummins site (flash) – she devised a fridge operating on evaporation driven by environmental heat for use in africa – no power requirement or tech required….
http://www.emilycummins.co.uk/
then go to “sustainable refrigerator”
Europe leads effort to push for design of “green” drugs
Jessica A. Knoblauch, Environmental Health News
Before Dr. Lars Lööf writes a prescription for his patients, he checks a new database–but it’s not just to search for the typical warnings about a drug. He wants to know whether the medication might harm the environment. In some cases, he even can find a more environmentally friendly drug, all with the click of his mouse.
The new database, available to physicians in Sweden, is the first of its kind in the world, prompted by a broader law in Europe that transforms the way pharmaceuticals are evaluated before going to market.
The European Union requires pharmaceutical companies to analyze the environmental risks of new drugs, adopting guidelines in 2006 that grew out of concern about traces of drugs discovered in waterways and drinking water. Medications such as antidepressants, painkillers, antibiotics and estrogen are excreted by humans, and they wind up in treated sewage that is released into the environment, where fish and aquatic animals, even humans, can be exposed.
(4 February 2009)
Library of the future? (paper or e-book?)
Naomi Alderman, Guardian
Paper books come at an environmental cost. Switching to electronic readers could be a much greener way to enjoy the printed word
(5 February 2009)
