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Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar filling in for Alison Stewart. Let's continue our Earth Day coverage with some ways that you can live more thoughtfully when it comes to the environment. Katie Okamoto is the sustainability editor for Wirecutter at The New York Times, and she's put together a list of tips and habits that you can pick up this Earth Day and even after today to live more sustainably. Hey, Katie. Welcome.

Katie Okamoto: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. Listeners, we want to know what are you doing to live greener? What questions do you have about how to incorporate more sustainable practices into your day-to-day? Do you have questions for Katie? We're here for it. Call 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692 or you can hit us up on social. We're @allofitwnyc. Love to get your calls. Really excited about Earth Day.

Katie, in our last segment we were talking about environmental justice with an attorney and an advocate, and part of the challenge of Earth Day is a lot of about individual action. I think that's just generally the big block that we have. There is that statistic we pointed out from the carbon distribution project that was saying that 100 companies were responsible for 70% of greenhouse gas emissions over the last two decades. How do you respond to questions about why should I be responsible as an individual if the problem lies with corporations? How do you normally tackle ideas like that?

Katie Okamoto: Yes, it's a great question, and it's completely true that corporations and also the government have a lot of responsibility, if not the largest part of the responsibility in this. I do think that something that we as individuals can do is get involved with some of those community advocacy or political engagement, if that's something that draws you. The experts that I've spoken with have all said that this is an all-hands-on-deck situation.

While we want to hold corporations accountable to make changes in how much of an impact they're having on the environment, and ask the government to implement regulations or other measures that might help grease the wheel for that to happen, it's also upon us, especially in the United States, where we have a larger impact on average than other people in other parts of the world to consider our consumption and our energy use, and just thinking holistically about how much we contribute to climate change and other environmental crises.

I will say that certain things are really more lifestyle adjustments and they have a bigger impact than any "sustainable product" that you might choose. Thinking about flying less often, reducing how much you drive, I know that's a little bit of an easier one for New Yorkers, and also eating less meat and dairy. Even cutting back in small ways in these areas can have huge impact as an individual.

Kousha Navidar: Why these examples that you highlight above all?

Katie Okamoto: Well, research shows that those are really the ones where we as individuals have the largest environmental or a carbon footprint, I should say. Focusing on those will go miles beyond. If you swap out one water bottle for another, not to discount that as an important step to take, but just thinking contextually, I think we often get a bit anxious if we care about the environment on this day. Thinking about scale is really a nice way to put things in perspective.

Kousha Navidar: Just to put out those three again that you mentioned, it was flying less, driving less, and eating less meat and dairy, right?

Katie Okamoto: Yes. Of course-- Go ahead.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, I was just going to ask, how do you figure out how much of each you should be doing? What does it look like in practice to calibrate that?

Katie Okamoto: There are some carbon footprint calculators out there. I really say those not to say that there is a quota that any individual needs to take. I think environmental sustainability looks different for everybody. For some people, some of these are easier than others. The first step is really taking a more mindful approach to those habits and thinking about that first before stressing a lot about the smaller things and then turning to those smaller things. I think, again, it's different for each person.

Kousha Navidar: If you're just joining us, listeners, we're talking about Earth Day. We're here with Katie Okamoto, who is the sustainability editor at Wirecutter, and we're taking your calls about your perspective on what it takes to live a more sustainable, a greener life. Or if you have questions for Katie, we're here for that too. Give us a call. We're at 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. Katie, we've got a caller that I'd love to get to. Sheila in Brooklyn. Hi, Sheila. Welcome to the show.

Sheila: Hello. Thanks for taking my call.

Kousha Navidar: Sure. What's your story, Sheila?

Sheila: I was wondering, I've been pondering the fact that all of our personal care products come in these small bottles. Even if you get the bigger sizes, they still get used up pretty quickly, like shampoo, conditioner, lotions, facial care, et cetera, et cetera. Even if you minimize how many of them you use, you're still using bottles and bottles a year. For detergent you can go to powder detergent or the sheets, but for hair care or whatnot, there don't seem to be a lot of options.

When I lived in San Francisco years ago, there was a grocery store where you could go and get refills on your shampoo or whatever, but there doesn't seem to be anything like that in New York. Do you have any suggestions for how to reduce your usage of plastic for those daily care products?

Katie Okamoto: Yes, that's a great question. I think about this question a lot myself. I do think there are some refill stores in New York City, although I have to say I live in LA now, so I don't have them off the top of my head, but I have heard that there are some there. Again, I think we should first take a beat and think about the context. If we're thinking about carbon footprint in general, the biggest thing you can do to reduce the impact of your shower is actually to take shorter showers and cooler showers.

The heat from heating your water is going to be the biggest thing you can really do for that. However, yes, plastic waste is a huge problem. I've been thinking about this. I think we can think about maybe looking at plastic-free options if those work for your hair care. I'm currently researching bar shampoo, for example, which often comes in cardboard, and that's a more recyclable material than plastic. I've spoken with some lifecycle analysis experts, and unfortunately, this is really complicated.

There's kind of two issues that you're discussing. One is the plastic waste specifically. We know that plastic pollution is a giant problem. We know that corporations are the ones who have to be on the hook for that. In the meantime, we as consumers can put pressure maybe by choosing products that don't use as much plastic. However, thinking about the carbon footprint, it's a little bit difficult to say which of these is worse. I think first and foremost, think about your shower habit, like which product works best for your hair so that you're able to rinse for less time and wash your hair least often. I don't know if that's a satisfactory answer, but that's the way that I've been framing this stuff.

Kousha Navidar: Sheila, thank you so much for that call. Speaking of water, we have another call. I'd love to get to Neil in Sea Cliff. Hi, Neil. Welcome to the show.

Neil: Hi. Thank you for having me. I'm echoing what Sheila just said about them. Showering, I think that's the key. The small changes make the big effect; using less water, being thoughtful about it, putting glass in containers in your refrigerator give you more coldness, you can turn down your fridge, thinking about how you're washing your dishes. Do you let the water run? All these things are the basic stuff. Or watering your lawn after sundown where there's less sun evaporation.

Kousha Navidar: Neil, thank you so much for that. Echoing Katie, what you were just saying about being mindful about waste, and it's not just wasting water. The first two tips in your list have to do with food waste. Why is food waste such an important issue with sustainability?

Katie Okamoto: Food waste is actually a huge source of carbon-- or not carbon emissions, but greenhouse gas emissions. We often talk about that in terms of carbon. Globally, food waste accounts for almost 10% of greenhouse gas emissions. To put that in some context, aviation flying, that accounts for about 2%. That's bigger. In the United States, about a third of our food goes to waste, which ends up emitting methane, which is an extremely potent greenhouse gas.

Some ways that we can reduce food waste in our own homes are actually like win-wins because they can help save money. One of my favorite tools for this is the freezer. That's something that we already have, and we also already have our food waste. If you can utilize that as a tool to prolong your leftovers and the life of your raw ingredients, it's such a great tool for cooking quickly during the week.

I keep my bread in the freezer. You can keep your extra strawberries that you bought at the farmer's market and can't eat fast enough. Herbs are an excellent thing. Those are the things that I find wilt the fastest. If you can keep a dedicated container in your freezer for those things, that's such a powerful tool that we all have, and that's, again, a habit. Other things you can do are things that take some practice and planning, so shopping with a list, it's boring, but it helps. [chuckles]

Checking in your fridge before you go to the supermarket. Or if you know you're going to go shopping after work, looking in the morning if you have a second. Sometimes I'll even put on my shopping list, "Don't buy eggs," because I have them, and I'll forget. [chuckles] When you're at that supermarket checking the sell-by date on the perishable items, it seems like a obvious thing, but it can really help you avoid that thing that goes bad and you end up tossing without eating.

I also have this practice that I do of trying to eat in reverse order of heartiness, which may or may not work for you. If I have lettuce and cabbage, I'll try to eat the lettuce first because the cabbage will last for an eternity in my fridge. Eating the bananas and the strawberries before the apples because apples also last for an eternity in the fridge. There's all kinds of things you can think about to try to reduce your food waste.

There's even a book by Tamar Adler that I want to plug with no ulterior motive, but it's called The Everlasting Meal Cookbook, and it has so much inspiration for creatively repurposing things that you would normally throw out, even the leftover Cheetos and the leftover takeout. Just to put that out there as a resource for people.

Kousha Navidar: I know that a lot of people, myself included, are sometimes overzealous with their produce, and a week later they find the zucchini that's about to go bad, and they're like, "I'm not sure what to do about that." It sounds like some of those tips could really be helpful. The freezer one especially, I think, resonates with me. Listeners, we're talking to Katie Okamoto, who's the sustainability editor at Wirecutter.

To help celebrate this Earth Day, we're taking your calls and talking about how to live a greener life more sustainably and how you can make, as Katie talks about lifestyle changes, not huge changes, but just little things that can over time make big differences. Give us a call, send us a text. We're at 212-433-9692 to talk to us about what you're doing, and questions for Katie. We're going to dive into more calls. We're going to talk about more tips right after a quick break. We'll be right back.

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This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar. Hey, everyone. Happy Earth Day. We're here with Katie Okamoto, who's the sustainability editor at Wirecutter. We're talking about how to live a greener more sustainable life. We're taking tips, talking to Katie about best practices, and we're taking your calls. If you want to call us, if you want to text us with your tips or your questions, we're at 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC.

Katie, we got a text that I think is perfect to set up laundry, and it reads, "Hey, Americans. How's about using a clothes line if you can? You have all this sun, but still all my neighbors here in Eastchester use the drier." Katie, air drying seems to be a big way of decreasing carbon footprint. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Katie Okamoto: Totally. With your laundry, it's really about reducing the energy usage. Just to go back to the wash cycle part of that washing in colder water and choosing detergents that are effective in cold water, that's a great way you can actually reduce your energy expenditure from your washing machine by almost 90% by some estimates just by doing that. The dryer similarly is a heater.

I think line drying is excellent. The choice to invest in a drying rack or a line that doesn't drive you wild with frustration because of some kind of design flaw, that can change everything. It doesn't mean you have to be air drying everything, but air drying does both reduce energy use and it prolongs the life of your clothing. That can also reduce your waste and your carbon footprint over a lifetime if your clothes don't need to be replaced as often.

Yes, I am a big fan of air drying when you can. If you don't want to be air drying absolutely everything, sometimes it's not practical for bulkier items, you can use your dryer with a little bit more strategy. Rather than tossing everything in, you can remove the things that can be air dried and the stuff that is more absorbent and bulkier. Try to group those things together so that you're more efficiently using that energy.

Kousha Navidar: If you're in New York City and you've got limited space, is air drying still an option, or should you just focus on cold water that gives you enough bang for your buck? Or any tips on how to air dry if you don't have the space?

Katie Okamoto: That's such a good question, and also want to say I used to live in New York City, and I used to have to do my laundry out of my apartment building, and so of course I didn't want to be lugging wet stuff back down the block. This is one of those tips where you have to decide if this is right for you. I currently live in a really small apartment, and I actually do have the space for a drying rack for part of my load. I don't do all of it, but I do the "delicates" and certain fabrics, like linen, that are fast drying. You might be surprised at how possible it is.

Again, I think what really helps is having a drying rack rather than trying to find spaces around your apartment. Like any of these sustainability tips, it's not about perfection. It's about figuring out which of these are habits that I can implement that work for me, and then I can build on it from there. Even committing to one area is a great way to start this habit.

It's very easy, I think, sometimes to get burned out on taking measures that reduce your environmental impact if you're taking a more perfectionist approach. Decide if that's the one for you. Even doing a cooler heating cycle. I know that's a strange thing to say, but a cooler drying cycle, putting it on the low temperature, that can also make a huge change.

Kousha Navidar: We're talking to Katie Okamoto, who's the sustainability editor at Wirecutter. This is All Of It. Hey, happy Earth Day. We're taking your calls about how to live more sustainably, more green. If you want to give us a call or a text, give us a shout. 212-433-9692. Katie, I see we have Brie in Brooklyn on the phone. Hey, Bree. Welcome to the show.

Brie: Hey, thanks for having me. First of all, thanks for all of the tips. They're all really awesome. Just for that past caller, there are several refillable stations stores in New York, but there's also bar shampoo and powder shampoo which you can get on Amazon even though that's not a great place to get it, but yes. The reason for my call is I really don't understand when there are these sustainability shows, why the main focus is not about animal agriculture.

Animal agriculture makes up for the majority of greenhouse gases, and it's literally the number one thing any person can do to help reduce their carbon footprint. The amount of grazing land that it takes to grow livestock and the water is just not comparable to taking a cool shower or putting things on a drying rack. Those are all great ideas, but the main issue is animal agriculture.

I don't understand why that doesn't get talked about all the time. Over 80% of the rainforest has been deforested for grazing land. Again, all that land that we use to grow crops, all the water, the months and months that it takes to feed one cow that you're going to then slaughter, and then eat that one cow, you could feed so many more people by just eating the crops directly.

Kousha Navidar: Bree, thank you so much for that. I think it's a crucial thing to talk about when we think about where our advocacy, where our lifestyle changes, as you say Katie, could go the furthest, and you hear Brie say that. How do you respond to that and what are some ways that you can adjust your lifestyle habits to address what Brie's talking about there?

Katie Okamoto: Totally. It's a great point. It's why at the beginning I said that the three things you can do that will go the furthest are reducing your amount of flying, amount of driving, and reducing the amount of meat and dairy that you eat. Again, doing even small things in those areas will outpace buying a more "sustainable product." I think that for many people diet is something that's highly personal and cultural.

I think the best advice I can really give here is to think about your meat and dairy consumption with more mindfulness. You may find that if you don't want to give up meat entirely, reducing it how much you eat during a week, thinking about it more as a garnish. I know that's also strange, but there are ways to just become more aware of that is step number one. We have a plethora of recipes that are available to us online now.

The information is out there if you're looking for great ideas for dinners and alternate ingredients. That is something that I think everybody can take on to the extent that feels good to them. For some people going completely vegan or vegetarian is the answer. I think that is completely true that that has incredibly high impact when you are an individual.

Kousha Navidar: To baton on that, it sounds like of the three things that you had mentioned, decreasing meat consumption, decreasing dairy consumption goes a long way over time, it sounds like you're saying.

Katie Okamoto: Exactly. Yes.

Kousha Navidar: Brie, I want to say thank you again so much for calling and making sure that we got to that point. It is a very important one. We've got Judith in Montclair, New Jersey as well. Hey, Judith. Welcome to the show.

Judith: Hi. Thank you for having me, and thank you for talking about this important subject. I want to thank Brie for raising the issue of animal agriculture because I think that's so important. I'm glad it's been emphasized. I also just want to remind that I've heard that composting makes a big difference in terms of what we can individually do, in particular regarding climate change.

That now many neighborhoods in New York City, if not all, I know I'm calling from Montclair, but I live in New York too, but they have composting. It's easier than it seems. You just make a space in your freezer and start freezing your scraps until you have a chance to bring it to your composter and to the collection, wherever it is in your building. If your building does it, that's a really great and I think important thing to do.

I also just want to mention because there was an earlier caller who talked about recycling and little plastic bottles. I think even though recycling may not be the best answer, and it's always good to use reusable, but New York recycles almost all hard plastic but not tubes. I'm always trying to search for alternatives to use instead of anything that comes in a tube, which just goes into the big garbage never, never land. Last of all, I think it's also, as Katie mentioned, important to conserve water, but I'm always a little unclear about that. I know she lives in California, and is that as big an issue here in the East Coast as it is [unintelligible 00:23:41]

Kousha Navidar: Judith, thank you so much. I'm going to stop you just for time. You brought up so much good important perspective there, especially on the composting bit. I want to dial in on that a little bit. Katie, I saw you nodding your head while Judith was talking about composting. Why is it important? Also if you're in a New York City tiny apartment and your building maybe doesn't yet do composting, what's the next best thing you can do?

Katie Okamoto: Composting is tying back to what I said earlier about reducing the amount of food waste that goes into landfills where it can end up emitting methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas. Composting actually takes that step and changes it and makes it into an organic material that captures that. Yes, in New York City, I believe that there is a change happening in how the compost is going on.

There's curbside composting that's getting rolled out across the city, but also I think community composting might be changing a little bit. Regardless, it can be challenging when you're in a small apartment. I will say that if you live near a farmer's market or a community garden, oftentimes those are places where you can drop off food waste. The catch is that you'll have to collect it over the week, or it may even two weeks if you're out of town on that day.

As the caller said, the freezer is your friend in this instance as well. If you can get a dedicated bag or a receptacle that fits in your freezer, that's a great way to store your scraps. Another thing you can do is, again, trying to just reduce the food waste in the beginning so that you have less to collect. I really want listeners to understand that you don't have to buy something special for this. There are compost bins for your countertop that are specifically designed for collecting food scraps that have odor filters on them.

Those are great, but you also can just think about how do I cook? Keeping a bowl next to you on the counter is what I do because I like to chop, and then just scrape it into the bowl, and then I can take that into the bin. You don't need really special equipment for this. It might seem a little daunting at first, but that's a quick thing that you can do. Unfortunately, not everyone has a municipal pickup available for them, but I do think that's changing.

Kousha Navidar: Listeners, I just want to point out, we're getting a lot of texts from you saying thanks for these tips, so I just want to say we see you. Thank you so much for listening. Also, some more suggestions I want to point out that are coming out through text right now. One person says, "In terms of drying, you can put the drying rack in your bathtub," which I think is a wonderful idea too to save space in case you don't already put clothes that you need to wear in the bathtub for whatever reason.

We've also got somebody here who says, "I've used eggs to replace a sustainable portion of my protein consumption." Katie, how does that sit with you using eggs? Is there any difference between that versus other chicken products or other meat products in general?

Katie Okamoto: I don't know the exact numbers on poultry versus livestock in the sense of cows and other ruminants. Ruminants are the farters of the animal world. They're the cows, they're the sheep. Those are the ones that are the biggest methane emitters, and they also use the most land. While I don't have any numbers to compare, my sense is that chicken is a more sustainable animal for agriculture.

Kousha Navidar: As we're looking to wrap up here, I just want to say, first, to everyone that is listening and sending us their messages, thank you so much. Obviously, our phones are full. Didn't have time to get to everyone. If you'd like to talk to us more, you can send us your tips, just hit us up on Instagram or on X. We're @allofitwnyc. We'd love to see what you think about.

Also just thanks for talking to us. Katie, we've got just under about 40 seconds left. I just want you to reiterate one more point. It sounds like what you're talking about here is moderation versus quitting stuff cold turkey. Do you feel like that is the last thing you'd like to leave listeners understanding for how to live a more sustainable life?

Katie Okamoto: Yes, I would say that for some people, cold turkey works, but for the vast majority of us perfectionism can actually get in the way of effective sustainable, meaning keeping it going, habits. Starting with the things that you're like, you know what, I can do that, then maybe you build on it. Yes, I think thinking about yourself as an individual versus comparing yourself to some kind of sustainability image is the way to go. Building on that lifestyle over time and consistency are more important.

Kousha Navidar: Thank you so much. We've been talking to Katie Okamoto, who's the sustainability editor at Wirecutter. Katie, thank you so much for coming on and for your tips. We really appreciate it.

Katie Okamoto: Thank you so much for having me.

 

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