Celebrate Earth Day: Rent an RV!

Most people celebrate Earth Day by exploring ways to reuse, recycle, and restore in order to reduce our impact upon the environment. My family spent Earth Day together doing what many would think is a sacrilege: we rented a 28-foot RV

Granted, we didn’t deliberately plan this ironic scheme to rebel against our well-intentioned neighbors. The RV taught us, though, how the infrastructure of our houses and communities hides just how much waste we produce and how much energy and other resources we use. Spending time in an RV, where we are responsible for monitoring our consumption and waste, lifts up the lid, so to speak, on this equation.

Here’s what we discovered when we rented a Class C RV for a week’s vacation around Nevada and Utah.

·       Weight becomes an issue and requires us to choose what exactly we need to take along. Even the weight of liquid in the tanks affects the RV’s mileage.

·       Water is limited and curtails routine bathing and cooking.

·       Packaging builds up and needs to be disposed of in some way. This isn’t free, however, and the cost is passed on to others.

·       Handling human waste disposal becomes an issue one can’t just flush and forget.

·       Normal use of appliances becomes a complicated choice rather than a mindless routine.

I can hear the “eew’s” and “yucks” now, as well as the clicking of mice everywhere. Obviously this subject is disgusting on many levels, but an RV experience can focus light on this “out of sight out of mind” mentality.

Do the Math, Whether You Want to or Not

Just three of us took this journey around the interior West: my husband, our high-school-aged daughter, and me. Our itinerary started in Truckee, CA, and followed Highway 395 down the eastern Sierra Nevada to Bishop. Then we crossed the desert to Highway 95 and on to Las Vegas. From there, we turned northward again and visited Zion and Bryce National Parks. We returned home by way of the Extraterrestrial Highway through Nevada, camping in Rachel, NV, before closing the loop in Truckee.

That’s approximately 1500 miles. The dealer informed us that the cab-over Class C averaged eight miles per gallon, so we probably burned over 187 gallons of gasoline. We soon discovered that cruising on level highways or climbing mountain roads affected the mileage, as would the weight of the RV and everything in it. Our own bodies added an accumulated weight of over 600 pounds just for starters.

While I don’t want to bore readers, or myself, with tables full of numbers, here are a few to give an idea of how much these liquid weights could swing the mileage:

·       The gross dry vehicle weight is roughly 14,500 pounds. Then you add the liquids.

·       The fuel tank held 55 gallons of gasoline weighing about 6.42 pounds per gallon for a total of 353.1 pounds.

·       The freshwater tank carried 42 gallons weighing eight pounds per gallon: 336 pounds.The wastewater tanks each carried 41 gallons, weighing about 328 pounds each for a total of about 656 pounds.

As you can see, there’s a 20-pound difference between the water tank and the two wastewater tanks. To begin, one is full while the other two are empty, but that changes over time. The amount of gasoline also varies. With those changes, the mileage goes up or down. That eight-miles-per-gallon is, shall we say, fluid.

Hang in there, Dear Reader. Saving the Earth takes a bit of science and math to get it done.

Monitoring the Daily Output

There is a small meter on the wall inside an RV that shows the levels in each of these tanks. We filled or emptied them accordingly along the route. This little exercise in monitoring teaches lessons of resource and waste management that people don’t normally think about when infrastructure is hidden and handled by others.

Water comes out of the wall and goes down the drain, and we forget about it.  What’s more, we don’t have to handle it! When living in an RV, it’s a good idea to keep a box of latex gloves handy. Also, there are apps to tell you where free or cheap dump stations and water supplies are available.

Anyone who watches the van dwellers tour the country will soon sea how this is a daily feature of the nomadic lifestyle.

It’s Just a Small Load

We took a week’s worth of clothes because we didn’t want to spend time and money doing laundry somewhere along the way. It didn’t even dawn on us the amount of water that would use and how that would affect our destination communities.

Since our RV didn’t have laundry appliances, the water systems would not bear this burden. People in our various destinations, however, would have to provide resources and disposal facilities for this common activity.

When we pump quarters into an appliance that, after a while, seems more like a Vegas slot machine, we have to consider the operator’s cost, as well as the community’s infrasture before we complain about exorbitant prices at a tourist laundromat.

A Return to the Past

As our trip progressed, we started to see how much water was required just to wash our faces. Our daughter eventually rebelled against our demand for economy and took a shower in the cramped, kid-sized shower. With only six gallons of heated water available, she made it a quick one. Imagine taking a shower and washing your hair in six gallons of hot water. Perhaps submariners can do it, but it’s not an easy task for a teenage girl.

Thank goodness the RV didn’t have an adult-sized shower or the water usage would have been mind-boggling. I did re-learn the tingling pleasure of an old-fashioned basin-bath: washcloth, bar of soap, and about a quart of water in the sink. This took me back to my childhood when baths were a once- or twice-a-week event. I didn’t come from the generation when whole families gathered around the galvanized tub of stove-heated water, taking their turns until the tub was filled with sludge; but the daily shower wasn’t expected of people either until the 1970’s. Somehow, people managed to bear each other’s company during those aromatic times.

You Want That Heated?

We also had to decide how to live within the limitations of electricity use. Power comes from somewhere, not just that magical little plug in the wall. On an RV, the battery stores a limited amount of energy that must be replaced. Until solar panels became a cheap(er) and more efficient "thing" for RV life, driving the vehicle was how the batteries were recharged. Ah, but driving the RV also uses more gasoline. And if you want to veer twenty-miles off the highway to visit a ghost town or Pueblo ruin, that doubles to forty miles of gas consumption … at over $5/gallon.

It helps that most RVs these days have small solar panels to augment the power, but even that trickle of electricity is limited. That goes also for the little solar panels that can be purchased to charge cell phones, iPods, and other gadgets. A charger can suck up around 6 watts of power just by sitting there, whether it’s recharging a devise or not. In an RV, those watts would soon dim the lights and limit nighttime activities, unless, of course, we fired up the generator. And that kind of noise ruins the serenity for everybody.

The on-board generator is required for the TV and microwave and runs on the propane that also fuels the gas stove. That’s a double whammy in energy supply usage right there.

Once we became aware of the energy generation technology in our RV, we needed to choose how to cook the food: on the gas cook stove or oven, or in the microwave. This is a no-brainer at home.  Zap that cup of coffee and move on. Such spontaneous luxuries are not part of RV living.

We turned on the generator to heat up our dinner one night. As this gas-guzzler roared into use, we cringed at the colossal energy output just to cook a tray of lasagna. But how long does it take to nuke a meal as opposed to heating it up on the stovetop or in the gas oven? As energy-hungry as microwaves are, they take far less time to do the job; thus they are much more efficient. Instead of twenty to thirty minutes of gas heat, which also slips around the pan and into the room on a summer evening, the microwave concentrates its energy upon the food in a small, contained space in a few minutes.

Paper Paper Everywhere!

Another issue that got our attention was the amount of paper waste collected from all the convenience foods. The close confines of an RV emphasized just how much paper, plastic, metal, and other packaging we usually throw away every day.  We couldn’t just stow that garbage bag in a cupboard. As for raw produce waste if you want to avoid paper, do you really want to take up space and attract wildlife with a compost bucket?

The garbage bags swelled larger and larger as each day passed. We thought perhaps we could burn some of this refuse in campfires at some of the parks, but many such places put stern limitations upon igniting anything outside a small covered BBQ. Gone are the days of roasting marshmallows over an open campfire. Or burning your trash in one, for that matter.

A Sanity Check

So, as we parked the RV in our driveway upon our return, we all realized more clearly just how much waste we generate and how much in water and energy resources we use. In our normal home environment, these conveniences are hidden inside the walls and under the ground.

When we have to account for every separate resource, its usage, and the disposal of waste, our impact on the environment on a daily basis becomes overwhelmingly clear.

To my dismay, I've met people who are so unnerved by the infrastructure that makes our lives pleasant and clean, they will place furniture, even pillows incongruently, in front of electrical outlets. "I don't want to be reminded of it," one woman told me, fluttering her lashes to emphasize the value of her point of view.

That's exactly what recognizing our carbon footprint demands of us, though. If we ignore infrastructure, our Earth Day efforts to plant trees or clean up a river channel are diminished.

Of course, this RV vacation took place many years ago. We’ve come a long way in learning to save energy, conserve resources, and redesign packaging to solve so many of these problems. Let’s do a sanity check on our individual living habits.

What do you do with all the packing for all our products, much of which is touted as being recyclable? Is it really? Most plastics quickly make their way to  the ocean when "sold" for reuse in another country.

It's safe to say that milk bottle and water bottle plastics are recyclable for many uses. Many other plastics are not. Tin and aluminum cans are recyclable, but pie plates, foil, metal pans, bowls, and gift boxes are not.

Cardboard, office paper, and newsprint are recyclable. Magazine paper, perhaps. At least when the stack of home delivery boxes becomes a mountain, you'll know there are ways to reuse it, either in your garden for weed control or sending it to a recycle center.

Celebrate Earth Day this year with a trip to your favorite outdoor environment in an RV. Crank up that microwave. See how long you can survive without a TV and other electronic gadgets. It will be a life-changing experience.

Oh, and don’t forget to bring a box of latex gloves.