It’s Aliiiive! My Passion Project to Make Secondhand Shopping Faster & Easier

It’s been a minute! I’ve been up to a few different things since my last update about the beauty that is the Canadian recycling system:

  1. Going full-time with my sustainable events business
  2. Planning my wedding, then re-planning it because pandemic (2 weeks to the big day!)
  3. Launching the project this post is about!

I’ve written extensively before about my love of secondhand shopping, my ethical motivation for shopping secondhand, and how I think the world would be a better place if the people who had useful stuff and the people who want that stuff had a better way to get connected.

I’ve had an idea in my head for a few years about a way to make secondhand shopping easier, but I only worked on it intermittently and didn’t know how to bring it into reality. Enter my amazing fiance, Mark, a coding wizard with mad technical skillz, and together we brought my dream into reality earlier this year.

So I unveil to you (drumroll please)…

Hand holding iPhone showing homepage of Secondarie website that reads "The easiest way to find secondhand goods online" above a box containing search filters.

Secondarie, the easiest way to find secondhand goods online.

What is Secondarie?

Secondarie is a search tool that makes online secondhand shopping faster and easier by searching multiple marketplaces at once and showing you all the results in one easy-to-use interface.⁠

One of the major challenges of online secondhand shopping is having to go to multiple websites or apps and constantly repeat your search in order to find the right item. It’s tedious and time-consuming, creating a significant barrier for those who may want to shop secondhand but can’t spend hours searching for the thing they need.

For secondhand to be a practical first choice, we knew it had to get easier and less time-consuming for each of us to find the specific items we need.⁠ That’s what we aim to do with Secondarie. Our goal is to make choosing “secondhand first” just as easy as shopping at a big box store or ordering from a mega-warehouse.⁠

Secondarie also makes it easier to reach a larger audience when selling secondhand items online. Instead of having to cross-post to multiple marketplaces, you can simply post your item to one of the platforms that Secondarie pulls from, and it will be visible to everyone who searches on Secondarie.

Secondarie currently compiles results from:

  • Craigslist
  • eBay
  • Poshmark
  • Goodwill Auctions
  • Bonanza
  • ThredUP

And we’re adding more sources all the time.

We’d love to get feedback from secondhand aficionados. Check out Secondarie here and let us know what you think! And for the latest updates on new features and search tips, follow Secondarie on Instagram or Facebook.

I Nerded Out at a Canadian Recycling Station

I went on vacation to Canada a few weeks ago with my boyfriend’s family. His parents are retired and recently bought a house there to spend their summers, so we got a little bit more of a residential experience than one might normally get on a trip abroad.

His parents shared little tidbits about acclimating to life in Canada, including the robust waste sorting system they set up at the house to comply with the country’s recycling program. We even got to ride along with my boyfriend’s dad when he took the trash and recycling into town to drop it off at the solid waste transfer station. It was basically Christmas for a recycling nerd like me.

The first thing that struck me was that trash and recycling were accepted at the same station. It also struck me that everyone had to drive their waste to this station, rather than it being picked up from their homes. However, we were in a pretty rural part of Canada, so this probably isn’t true in more populated areas.

In addition to accepting typical household recyclables, the facility had sections for all kinds of specialty items I wouldn’t know how to recycle in the U.S.: tires, propane tanks, cooking oil, and even a “reuse” area where you can drop off large items for a $2 fee and anyone else can take them home for free.

Photo collage of recycling areas for propane tanks, cooking oil, tires, and large items for reuse

The standard recycling area was similarly separated, with different dumpsters for paper, cardboard, plastic & cans, and glass.

Multiple recycling dumpsters under awning

The recycling area was equipped with several large, detailed signs specifically describing what can and can’t be recycled. I would love to see more informative signs like these at recycling stations in the U.S.

City of Kenora informational recycling sign

The only piece missing from the recycling station was a food waste compost receptacle (they accepted yard waste for composting but not food scraps). Also, they had a bin/baler for recycling plastic bags, but it was out of service when we visited.

It’s free to drop off recycling at the transfer station, but each bag of trash costs $2, which you pay for by purchasing red trash stickers. There was only one small trash dumpster at the entire facility, and it wasn’t even close to full. Residents are limited to dropping off a maximum of 6 trash bags per visit.

Small trash dumpster with $2 fee sign

One question I wish I had asked is how they enforce correct recycling and discourage contamination. My concern with promoting a pay-for-trash model in the U.S. is that it could incentivize people to put their trash in the recycling dumpsters so they don’t have to pay for it. There was one staff member at the recycling station, but she was in a little vestibule, and I didn’t notice anyone actively monitoring the bins for contamination. Maybe because the bins were segregated by material type it’s easier for their processing facilities to pull out contamination when it does occur.

The transfer station accepts hazardous waste once a week, unlike many parts of the U.S. where “tox drop” days happen only a few times a year. They even have a corner of the parking lot with free mulch for anyone to take (“please limit yourself to 2-3 pails,” the sign requests politely).

I pretty much fell in love with the solid waste transfer station. However, recycling was prevalent everywhere we went. There were readily available recycling bins around downtown and in shopping centers. This beauty greeted us outside a Walmart right after we crossed the border.

Recycling station with sections for paper, beverage containers, and trash

Again with the helpful lists of accepted materials! Canada knows how to do recycling education.

I loved getting an up-close look at how our neighbors to the north do recycling. While I’m intrigued by the idea of a pay-for-trash system, what I’d really love the U.S. to adopt from this example is more descriptive educational signs on recycling bins. Many people are confused about what to recycle, to the extent that China has stopped importing all plastic recyclables from the U.S. because they were too contaminated with garbage. This confusion affects many people I know who are trying to recycle correctly. Other people who don’t have a lot of mental energy to dedicate to recycling are likely even more befuddled.

What does your town’s recycling system look like? Is there anything from the Canadian system you wish your facility had?

Commemorating Rana Plaza with a Different Kind of Fashion Show

Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This tragedy ultimately killed more than 1,100 people, many of whom had been pressured to continue working to produce apparel in a building that was visibly unsafe.

The anniversary of this event is commemorated each year by Fashion Revolution Week, which prompts each of us to ask “Who made my clothes?” and hold brands accountable for their supply chains, wages and working conditions.

Two local brands in Indianapolis, Liz Alig and People for Urban Progress, celebrated the spirit of Fashion Revolution by hosting a Slow Fashion Runway Show. All garments and accessories presented in the show were made of repurposed, handwoven or natural textiles and were produced ethically.

Designers from Liz Alig and PUP were recognized at the end of the show



Display of PUP's products

People for Urban Progress specializes in creating bags and wallets out of repurposed materials



People shopping in a warehouse setting

Guests had the opportunity to shop both brands after the runway show



I’ve written about Liz Alig before, as the brand is not only local to Indianapolis, but is truly one of the most consistent brands I’ve ever encountered in terms of demonstrating its social and environmental values. Liz Alig uses upcycled fabrics & handwoven textiles and partners with fair trade cooperatives around the world to produce their garments, with the goal of providing employment and opportunities for women.

People for Urban Progress is an Indianapolis-based nonprofit organization that creates products using discarded materials that contain a piece of Indy’s history. Some notable materials they repurpose are the covering of the former Hoosier Dome and outdoor signage from Super Bowl 46, which was held in Indianapolis. Each product is handmade in Indy by local artists.

Check out the galleries below to see the collections that were on display at the Slow Fashion Runway Show.

Liz Alig’s Collection


People for Urban Progress’ Collection

It’s Clothing Swap Time Again!

Are you depressed by winter doldrums? Is your life an endless and unvarying gray cloud? Do you find yourself wearing a burlap sack every day because you just can’t muster the energy to care?

Screenshot of registration websiteFret not, my pretties! It’s clothing swap time again! And we’re very optimistic, so we’re calling it SpringSwap18. Suck it, winter.

Join us at New Day Craft on Wednesday, Feb. 28 from 6–8pm for a jubilant evening of apparel, accessories, cider, friendship and more. Due to our cozy space, there are only 30 spots available, so sign up now!

See the deets and register >>

How to Start Spending Ethically

Woman holding three shopping bags over her shoulder

Recently a friend reached out to me about her goal for 2018. She wants to focus on making her spending more ethical, and she asked if there were any tips I could provide.

My friend is already an incredibly thoughtful and globally-conscious person, so I didn’t need to start at the very beginning. (“You may not have realized that the products you buy are manufactured by people, and they’re made out of natural resources provided by our planet…”) I remembered a post I wrote a few years ago called The Beginner’s Guide to Ethical Shopping, which focuses on how to evaluate the ethical qualities of a specific brand. While that information is still helpful, I realized I hadn’t written a holistic post about how to change one’s shopping routine overall.

After thinking about what practical tips I could give my friend, here are the steps I came up with for how to start spending ethically:

1. Buy less

The best way to reduce the environmental impact of your shopping habits is simply to buy less. This graphic created by my friend Elizabeth at The Note Passer was incredibly helpful to me when I began my ethical lifestyle journey:

Flow chart: Do I really need it? Does it need to be new? Can I buy it ethically?

This graphic is from 2013, so some of the secondhand companies listed are out of date, but the thought process remains the same.

The most important purchases to curtail are those of brand new items. New items have the highest environmental impact because they use new natural resources and require energy to be produced and distributed. Products made with recycled materials have a lower impact, but recycling still requires a great amount of energy and often some new resources to be combined with recycled material.

I was never a big shopper even before I began focusing on ethical consumption, but I found that as I’ve focused on cutting down on new purchases over the years, my purchases of even secondhand items have gone down as well. I’ve gotten much more into the habit of asking myself if I truly need to own something, or if I can borrow it or make do without.

This adaptation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs into the Buyerarchy of Needs, designed by Sarah Lazarovic, has also been a helpful guide for me:

Pyramid from bottom to top: Use what you have, borrow, swap, thrift, make, buy

Now, you may have rightly realized that in the short-term, the strategy of buying less may not provide direct economic benefits to people employed by manufacturing. However, the culture of rampant consumption leads to long-term effects I consider far more harmful and significant, effects which require a significant economic pivot in order to be resolved.

Constantly growing consumption leads to pressures for factories, and therefore workers, to produce more products faster and cheaper, leading to lower wages and more stressful and dangerous working conditions. Unbridled production also leads to environmental degradation, often in locations with minimal environmental regulations. (Rivers running red and purple with dye in India come to mind.) This kind of poorly regulated manufacturing can lead to unhealthy or unpleasant living conditions. So rather than providing direct economic benefits, the idea of buying less is about creating a cultural and economic shift that realizes both human capacity and natural resources have limits, and that a system based on endless expansion is not sustainable.

2. Prioritize your values

If you want to shop more ethically, chances are you already have one or more issues in mind that are motivating you to make a change. Whether it’s a desire to alleviate poverty, support women, reduce your carbon footprint, prevent deforestation, or any other motivating factor, when it comes to creating a practical shopping strategy, it helps to prioritize your values from most to least important to you. Having an idea of what’s most important to you will help you make decisions when choosing from products with varying ethical/sustainable claims.

After prioritizing your values, determine what characteristic of a product goes along with that value. In other words, what “counts” to you as meeting that value? This will help you understand which product labels, certifications, ingredients, etc. correlate with your values. Here’s an example using some my values:

  • Workers treated ethically – label from Fair Trade USA, Fairtrade, or Fair Trade Federation; or a thorough and transparent statement from the company about their practices
  • Organic/chemical-free – label from an official organic certifying body such as the USDA or Oregon Tilth; or for local small producers, assertion from the producers that their products are chemical-free
  • Palm-oil free – ingredients list does not include any of the palm oil root words that I know about

You might need to create a couple of different rankings based on different broad product categories. For example, for clothing, accessories and other non-consumable goods, my priorities generally go in this order:

  1. Secondhand
  2. Fair trade/workers treated ethically
  3. Zero waste/minimal packaging/no plastic microfibers
  4. Recycled materials
  5. Organic materials
  6. Local

However, for food, my priority list looks more like this:

  1. Fair trade/workers treated ethically
  2. Organic/chemical-free
  3. Palm-oil free
  4. Zero waste/minimal packaging
  5. Local

Sometimes these values will shift around depending on the circumstances. You might find a product that meets every value except your #1 value, or you’ll find yourself comparing a product that meets two of your values with another that meets three totally different values. It’s easy to fall into analysis paralysis in situations like this, especially when you factor in other characteristics of a product like price, style, and quality. To help with this, you may want to include price in your value rankings as well. Which values are you willing to pay more to get, and which are just nice-to-haves if they fall within your budget?

Despite the occasional fluctuations, being clear on your values and how to tell if a product meets those values are important steps to shopping more ethically.

3. Change your routine

Now that you know what types of products you’re looking for, you need to figure out where to get them. The hardest part of changing your shopping habits is changing your routine. If you’re a “get everything at Target” person, it will take some adjustment if you need to go to different stores to find the values-based products you want. However, I’ve found that now that I’m in a new routine, shopping by my values comes naturally, pretty much automatically. It doesn’t occur to me to shop in the mainstream, conventional way, because I’ve created a routine that’s both convenient and personally fulfilling to me.

Start by getting into a routine for the products you buy most often, which for me is food. With how I shop now, I’ve found that I shop at more stores for food than I did before, but fewer stores for everything else.

I’ve gotten familiar enough with the stores in my area to know that for organic, zero-waste peanut butter, I need to go to Fresh Thyme. I get organic bulk foods at the Good Earth, Fresh Thyme or Earth Fare, and I get organic packaged goods at Kroger (their Simple Truth store brand has a lot of organic bargains). I get chemical-free, zero-waste produce at the farmers’ market, Kroger or Fresh Thyme.

For personal care items, I start at the Good Earth, but I also get some items on Etsy because they have a bigger selection of palm-oil free products. Kroger is my stop for inexpensive recycled toilet paper.

For non-consumable goods, my first stop is always Goodwill, then usually Amanda’s Exchange consignment store, or sometimes Craigslist or Facebook. If I need to get gifts, my first stop is fair trade store Global Gifts, then other locally-owned boutiques and gift shops.

4. Cut yourself some slack

Just because you’ve decided to change your shopping habits, that doesn’t mean you’ll suddenly have enough time in the day to perfectly follow your new system for every purchase from day one. I’d say it took me about five years to really develop a comprehensive ethical shopping routine, and it’s still growing and changing. I started in college with the items I bought most often and that had high levels of worker mistreatment: clothes, shoes, chocolate. Once I moved into an apartment, I started being more conscious about other food items. As my interest in sustainability grew, I started favoring used items and products with less packaging. And just within the last year, I’ve started avoiding palm oil and plastic microfibers.

There will always be some aspect of a product that’s unethical on someone’s standards (unless you live on a self-sufficient permaculture farm and weave fabric out of your own hair). That doesn’t negate the positive effects of the values-based choices you make. Buying less is pretty much always a win. But when you do need to buy something, getting a product that causes less harm in a certain area than the standard option does seems like a no-brainer to me.

If you’re an old pro, what other tips do you have for someone getting into an ethical shopping routine? Post them in the comments!

Real Solutions for Climate Change from the Spirit & Place Festival

Sunlight shining through trees

Right now Indianapolis is in the midst of the Spirit & Place Festival, an annual 10-day span of arts, religion, and humanities events throughout the city. This past weekend I attended a thought-provoking panel discussion about real solutions for climate change. The discussion not only reaffirmed my philosophy behind this blog and my sustainable events business, but also helped clarify the bigger picture of broad changes that need to happen in order to avoid the most disastrous effects of climate change.

Something I vaguely understood before the event was that the current Republican party is a significant impediment to meaningful climate policy. What the event clarified for me is the extent to which the Republican party is possibly the biggest hindrance to preventing climate disaster not only nationally but globally. (Because the U.S. is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, lack of action on our part has effects that reach far beyond our borders.)

The panel discussion opened with a screening of an episode of Years of Living Dangerously, a National Geographic series about climate change. Without being a witch hunt, the episode, entitled Safe Passage, laid out the political reality experienced by Republican lawmakers: Even if they personally believe in human-caused climate change and want to take action, they often face the withdrawal of major support, and even career-ending opposition from fossil fuel interests, if they go public in support of climate change policy. It’s not enough to simply convince Republican representatives of the science; they must also be provided with politically acceptable cover for their climate beliefs and action—that is, until the party changes its position officially.

Enter the Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL). This organization, one of the hosts of the panel discussion, takes a deliberate—sometimes slow—but effective approach to lobbying Republicans to address climate change. By training concerned citizens to effectively and respectfully discuss climate change with their representatives, and by appealing to Republicans on values like freedom and market-based strategies, CCL has influenced several Republican lawmakers to join the bi-partisan Climate Solutions Caucus, which now boasts 30 Republican members.

CCL’s ultimate goal is to introduce the Carbon Fee & Dividend solution as a bill in Congress. This concept would establish a fee for fossil fuel extraction that would be returned to U.S. households in the form of dividends to help offset resulting higher energy bills. The overall result would be a financial disincentive for fossil fuel use, leading to a market-based transition to cleaner forms of energy.

One of the things I like about CCL is their focus on encouraging people to get involved in our representative democracy. This is something I’ve been more intentional about over the last year or two, largely through email and social media alerts from the Hoosier Environmental Council (another presenter of the event). HEC sends periodic updates about pending environmental legislation in Indiana and at the federal level, with clear explanations of why they support or oppose certain policies, and how citizens can advocate for sound environmental policy. I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable contacting my elected officials, and even though a few years ago I wondered “Is that something people really do?”, now I consider it a quick and easy way to influence issues I care about.

The panel of speakers included Janet McCabe (left), who served as the EPA’s Acting Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation under President Obama.

A theme that emerged from both the National Geographic episode and the panel discussion was the fact that we don’t have time for an incremental solution to climate change. While many articles about climate change talk about actions that individuals can take (such as driving less or eating less meat), these actions alone will not create the level of change needed to avert the most severe predictions of climate scientists. Change needs to happen faster than one individual citizen at a time—hence the focus on policy-based, industry-wide solutions.

A second, seemingly contradictory theme that emerged from the panel was the power of individual actions: specifically, how individual actions help people realize that they themselves have agency and can make an impact. This realization has the power to inspire individuals to take more and bigger actions, leading to greater change.

A high school science teacher on the panel gave a great example of how she helps her students begin to understand their impact. First she has students complete a carbon footprint calculator, and then she has the students calculate how many Earths would be necessary to sustain the global population if every person had the same carbon footprint they do. While this isn’t necessarily an example of an individual’s positive impact, this exercise helps students see themselves not as insignificant small-town kids, but as participants in a global system.

I see the two themes of the discussion as a natural progression. As citizens and humans, we first need to recognize our own impact on the world, and our ability to change that impact, before we begin to address the ills of the systems that compose society. For example, before someone can question the long-term viability of a consumption-based economy, they first need to consider the implications of their own consumption habits.

The action takeaway from the event was a marriage of individual and larger-scale action: CCL encouraged all attendees to fill out a form letter about climate change concerns (with space for personal comments) to their elected representatives, which CCL will deliver this month at their annual lobbying day in Washington, D.C. Taking this individual action is a building block toward the larger and more impactful goal of policy change—which, CCL emphasized, is unlikely to materialize without a chorus of voices in support of it.

I encourage you to check out Citizens’ Climate Lobby to learn more about their proposed solutions for climate change and to be inspired to contact your own representatives, not only about climate change, but about any issue that matters to you. As idealistic as it sounds, your representatives won’t know you care unless you tell them. It’s your responsibility to make your voice heard, and adding your voice to the collective support of an issue just may tip the scales toward policy change.

Less Than vs. Empathy

Close-up of struggling carved human figures

One night the other week I was reading a recent issue of National Geographic while I ate dinner (as is my nerdy custom), and I was struck by a passage in an article about the conflict in Central African Republic. It was the account of a teenage girl who had been sexually abused by a French peacekeeping soldier. The girl and her mother had taken refuge at the Bangui airport, which was protected from feuding militias by peacekeeping troops. She claimed the soldier promised her food in exchange for sex and threatened to beat her if she cried; the girl was five months pregnant at the time of her interview.

It’s probably naive of me to be shocked by this story, which I’m sure is no surprise to those who avidly protest human rights abuses (and indeed, I’ve found with some quick research that these allegations are all too frequent), but it stopped me in my tracks. The idea of exploiting someone who is relying on you for protection is so sickening that I struggle to wrap my mind around it.

I tried to put myself in the position of the girl. She said at first the soldier was friendly. I imagine the confusion and then dread as the situation changed and she realized what she would have to do. I imagine how during and after such an encounter, a person must feel like no one in the world is looking out for them, and that the world is full of unpredictable violence and danger.

I tried to put myself in the position of the solider. What would motivate someone to threaten and sexually exploit a teenage girl, especially one who is under your protection? Notwithstanding the possibility that the perpetrator was a psychopath, I could only think of two other scenarios. The first is if the soldier was embedded in a culture where this type of behavior was accepted or encouraged by his peers. He did it because others did it. Initial hesitation may have been overshadowed by assurance that it would be enjoyable and without consequences. The other scenario is that the soldier actively resented the Central Africans he had been sent to protect and believed himself to be superior in some way, and that he was justified in exploiting the girl. He may have even felt his behavior reinforced the power structure, reminding the Central Africans who was really in charge.

Both of these scenarios boil down to a common theme: the soldier viewed the girl as less than. Either because she was African, a female, or both, the soldier felt it was acceptable to threaten and abuse her, because she was somehow lower, different, other.

In the past I’ve been involved in organizations that fight human trafficking, but beyond that I’ve stayed pretty ignorant of crimes against human rights, mostly because they seem too complicated to do anything about and are too horrifying to dwell on. (Controversy regarding sexual abuse allegations against peacekeeping soldiers has apparently been on the global stage since 2015, despite my blissful cluelessness.) I keep myself similarly unaware of accusations of war crimes and human rights abuses at a political level. How do you even begin to address evil at that echelon? But on the other hand, how can I attempt to be connected to others in the world and not know or care about these injustices?

It isn’t connected or harmonious or empathetic to distance myself from the suffering of others. I don’t want to fall into a white savior complex, but I’m reminded that it’s important not to become blind to these types of atrocities, especially when people of power and privilege are exploiting the vulnerable. (I shudder to think what injustices some American soldiers perpetrate, either by command or in secret.)

There are human rights groups who focus on these issues, but I’ve never been drawn to getting involved with them because it seems so daunting and disturbing. But the daunting and disturbing injustices are probably the most important ones to pay attention to. However, they also get the closest to what one might call pure human evil, which I’m not sure the efforts of an organization can ever eradicate. Stopping human rights abuse seems to me like a Sisyphean task: you can stop one dictator from killing his citizens, but another will rise up somewhere else in the world. I like attacking the root of a problem, but what is the root problem of human rights abuse?

The best answer I can come up with is seeing people as less than. Lack of empathy. Seeing others as “other.” People don’t typically abuse people they view as equal to themselves. They abuse people they believe are inferior, dirty, wrong, immoral, weak, offensive, blasphemous, stupid, evil, unimportant, inconsequential. The wellbeing of the other is not as important as my own wellbeing, so I am justified in exploiting them for my gain.

If I were to stop avoiding human rights issues out of self-preservation (which I hope I have the guts to do), I think the root issue I would want to target is empathy, and support organizations and efforts that aim to foster it. The more I dwelled on empathy today, the more it seemed like the solution to many of the world’s ills: racism, sexism, violence, exploitation.

This probably isn’t a revelation to most of you. “Yes, empathy makes people nicer to each other, duh.” If you had asked me before reading that article what one thing would solve most of the world’s problems, I probably would have landed on empathy after some thought. But sometimes you re-realize something you’ve known for a long time and start to think about it differently, which is what happened to me the other day. And hopefully it deepens my connection to humanity in a way that using a reusable shopping bag doesn’t quite accomplish on its own.

How to Not Use Air Conditioning All Summer

At the beginning of the summer, I made a challenge to myself to see how long I could go without turning on the air conditioning. Now it’s mid-September, summer is winding down, and I’ve only turned on the air conditioning twice. Once was to create some intermittent air movement in the house while I was on vacation for a week (I set the thermostat to 82 so it wouldn’t come on very often), and the other time was this past weekend when I had six houseguests and it was 90 degrees (it seemed like the courteous thing to do).

This lifestyle change was surprisingly easy for me to adapt to. I’m the kind of person who’s always cold, and I tend to think most places are over-air-conditioned in the summer. (I always feel relief when I get to leave a cold building and thaw out in my hot car.) I also live in a one-story house in a climate where the high temperature rarely get above the low 90’s, and I live alone, so I don’t have to balance the temperature preferences of multiple people.

If you find yourself a similarly viable candidate, here are my tips for living comfortably without air conditioning:

Open your windows.

During the day when I’m at work, I keep my windows and blinds closed to keep out the heat. Every evening when I get home, I open the four windows in my living room and two windows in my kitchen, the two rooms I spend the most time in. If I’m working in my office I open the window in there too. Having multiple windows open creates air movement in the house and lets in cooler air as the temperature drops throughout the evening. I keep the windows open until I go to bed. Since my house is one-story, I close the windows at night for safety, but if you have a two-story house you could definitely leave the upstairs windows open to keep the cool night air circulating.

Fans, fans, fans.

I’m fortunate to have a ceiling fan in my bedroom and another in my kitchen. Sleeping in a hot house can be uncomfortable, so having the ceiling fan on at night is key to keeping the air conditioning off. If you don’t have a ceiling fan, a large oscillating fan would probably work well. I use the ceiling fan in the kitchen to help dissipate hot air from cooking, and to keep me cool while I sit at the table and eat.

I realized midway through the summer that the ceiling fans alone are not enough to keep the house comfortable. I got a box fan at Goodwill to move between the living room and the office, and that helped a lot, but what I really needed was a large oscillating fan. I looked for a used oscillating fan for a couple of months with no luck, but I finally found one on a curb alert a couple of weeks ago. I don’t really need it at this point in the season, but it will make next year much more comfortable.

Box fan and stand fan

My biggest fans.

Dress for success.

This is an obvious one: If your house is hot, wear cool clothing. When I come home from work on warm days, I change into shorts and a t-shirt or tank top, and I walk around barefoot or in sandals.

Have a cold one.

A cold drink, that is. I keep a pitcher of chilled water in the refrigerator to help me stay hydrated and cool down when I feel warm. This is especially helpful after I run or ride my bike—I used to rely on air conditioning to cool me down after exercising, but now I drink cold water and hang out by a fan or in one of the cooler areas of the house.

Take advantage of subterranean spaces.

Speaking of cooler areas of the house, my basement is definitely the best one. On the hottest days of the summer, I spent my leisure time in the basement, where it feels at least 10 degrees cooler than the main level of the house. If I didn’t have a basement with a finished room to hang out in, I admit that I probably would have turned on the air a few more times over the summer.

I chose to forego air conditioning to reduce my energy consumption and lower my environmental impact, but doing so had financial benefits too. My electric bill didn’t rise at all compared to my bills over the winter; it has been about $40 consistently for the last seven months.

Living without air conditioning isn’t practical for everyone, depending on the climate you live in, your age, your health, or other factors. But for those in good health living in a moderate climate, I challenge you to push the boundaries of your temperature comfort zone. You may find it’s easier than you think!

I Tried the Guppyfriend Washing Bag

A few months ago I posted about the issue of synthetic microfibers being released from our laundry into waterways, where they accumulate and cause environmental problems. While re-engineering modern fabrics is the best long-term solution to this problem, as a proponent of secondhand clothing and making items last as long as possible, I wanted to do something to mitigate the pollution caused by my existing wardrobe.

Guppyfriend box on top of washing machine

Enter the Guppyfriend washing bag. The bag, created by German nonprofit organization STOP! MICRO WASTE, claims to contain microfibers released during washing so you can dispose of them in the trash rather than through the pipes. I purchased my bag through Patagonia, who sells them at cost as part of their microfiber pollution campaign.

Using the Guppyfriend is pretty straightforward. First, I sorted my clothing made of synthetic fabric and placed it in the bag. I sorted out my polyester, rayon and acrylic garments. For blended fabrics, I put it in the bag if the percentage of synthetic fibers was more than 40 percent.

One complaint I have about the Guppyfriend is that it doesn’t come with a list of synthetic fibers, leaving it up to the user to determine which fibers to put in the bag. This caused confusion for me about what to do with modal fabric, and about whether spandex sheds microfibers or not.

Guppyfriend bag with laundry in it

The Guppyfriend instructions say not to fill the bag more than half full so clothing can move around in the wash. The bag is pretty large, so I’ve been able to fit all of my synthetic garments from each load into the bag without exceeding the general halfway point. I estimate that I can get about 10 garments into the bag per load, give or take a few depending on their bulkiness.

Once the bag is full, I put it in the washing machine with the rest of the load and washed as usual. After the wash cycle, it was clear that the bag had indeed captured some microfibers:

Microfiber residue on Guppyfriend bag

The microfibers are easiest to see after washing darks; I can’t really see them after washing lights. I also realized that some of the fibers visible on the bag are actually on the outside—they’re fibers released by the natural textiles that weren’t in the bag. But there are still visible fibers inside the bag as well. In terms of laundry effectiveness, my clothes seem to have gotten just as clean inside the bag as they did outside of it.

I usually wash two loads right in a row, and I’ve found no problems with loading garments into the bag once it’s already wet. When I’m all done, I hang the bag to dry for next time.

One thing I haven’t totally figured out yet is how to remove the microfibers from the bag. According to the Guppyfriend FAQs, the microfibers will eventually collect in the seams and corners of the bag, where they are easier to remove. I’ve used the bag five or six times and haven’t seen much accumulation around the edges yet. Apparently this is an observation a lot of users have had, because there’s an FAQ response for this as well, pointing out that the fibers are indeed microfibers and some are transparent, making them hard to see. The bag is also designed to cushion the mechanical forces of the washing process, thereby reducing the amount of fibers shed by garments in the first place.

The bag itself is made of polyamide, which the Guppyfriend website says is fully recyclable. It requests that users mail back their bags at the end of their useful life so they can be recycled into new bags.

A second complaint I have about the Guppyfriend is that even though its material construction is addressed in great detail, there’s no information on the website and minimal information on the product packaging about how and where the bags are produced. The back of the packaging simply states: “Product of Switzerland. Sewn in Portugal.” I’ve found with moderate consistency that eco-friendly products often neglect to discuss the social aspect of their production, which to me is surprising and disappointing, since in my mind environmental and social issues go hand-in-hand.

Overall, I think the Guppyfriend is a valid interim solution for stemming the tide of microfiber pollution, and I plan to continue using mine. In addition to using the Guppyfriend, STOP! MICRO WASTE recommends the following other ways to mitigate microfiber pollution, most of which I was already doing:

  • Wash in cold water
  • Use liquid detergent as opposed to powder
  • Wash less often
  • Purchase clothing made of natural fibers

Have you tried the Guppyfriend, or any other methods of reducing microfiber pollution? How has your experience been?

Save the Date for Our Next Swap!

It’s that time again! Our next style swap has been officially set for Wednesday, August 23, at New Day Craft Cider & Mead.

SummerSwap17 promo image

If you’re on the fence about whether a clothing swap is your scene, check out Bethany’s previous post about why swaps are basically the best thing ever. Then head over to the registration page to sign up!

See you at SummerSwap17!