Tragic Sandwich

Not the planet. Well, I’m sure it could, because it’s super hot and also if it fell on you, ouch! But that’s not what I’m talking about.

Mr. Sandwich and I try to be environmentally friendly. Yes, we love our air conditioning, but we also do things to cut down on how much energy we use.

• We line-dry a lot of our laundry.
• We have solar screens (that Mr. Sandwich made!) on the windows.
• Mr. Sandwich has added insulation under the roof.
• We replace our worn-out appliances with the most energy efficient ones we can afford.
• We have a gray-water system (that Mr. Sandwich built!).

We’d love to have solar panels on the roof, but that’s a much bigger project.

And indoors, we’ve been using these:

Compact fluorescent lightbulbs can save a lot of energy. They cost more up front than the old incandescent bulbs, but they last much, much longer.

Also, they contain mercury. This isn’t a problem unless one breaks.

The other night, I went into our bedroom and turned on the light–and a bulb popped. Over our bed, an assortment of Baguette’s stuffed animals, and some clothes.

So we pulled out the sofabed and slept in the living room. The next morning, Mr. Sandwich cleaned up the debris, following the directions from the EPA.

Please make a note of those instructions, because they are important. And a little research revealed that leaving a burned-out CFL in the socket can cause it to explode. So learn from us, and don’t do that.

For now, we’re switching (as the CFLs burn out, and we remove them from the socket immediately, because who needs more exploding bulbs?) to LEDs. They come with their own toxic elements, such as lead and arsenic, and they also need to be cleaned up with extreme care–but they use even less energy than CFLs.

So it’s literally a case of choosing your poison.