Environmental Talk

“We don’t need another hero ….”

Washington Post personal financial columnist Michelle Singletary just announced her winners for the 2007 Penny Pincher of the Year Awards.

You’ll be happy to know that the top three entrants all made the cut based on environmentally friendly actions they sent in.

The third place prize of $25 (hey, that’s a lot to a penny pincher) was awarded to Amy Haden of Scottsville, Virginia. Amy put “buckets next to the coffee makers in her building so she can collect coffee grounds and food waste.”

By taking this one small step Amy was able to take about 50 pounds of solid waste a week back to her home for composting, but was reportedly at a loss for why fellow employees no longer wanted to car pool with her to work.

After factoring in the cash prize she won for the contest, Amy figures she’ll break even based on the additional costs of disinfecting and Febreezing her car on a regular basis.

But this is America. No one’s interested in who took third place. Let’s get to the grand prize winner. May I have the envelope, please ….

The winner … of the 2007 Penny Pincher of the Year Award … and the recipient of a check for $100… made from recyclable paper is …

Tom Sponheim, come on down …

Here’s how Tom won this year’s top honors:

…Sponheim took it upon himself to visit restrooms in some of the older coffee shops in the area - those likely to be equipped with outdated five-gallon toilets, as opposed to new water-saving models. Then he’d flush them to see if they really needed all the water they were using. If not, he adjusted the level of water in the tank so that each flush was a little less drain on the system.

“I tried to go to places with a lot of traffic,” he said. “I created a spreadsheet with the estimated water savings for each restaurant estimating the number of times a day the toilet would be flushed and number of ounces saved on each flush. My calculations showed that my three or four hours of work would result in a savings of about 500,000 liters a year of water.”

There was talk that Starbucks would honor Tom with a coupon for a free venti caramel macchiato, but hopes were quickly dashed when it was found attendance figures at the local chain had dropped with most people citing their discomfort with “that creepy toilet dude who’s always messing around in the men’s room.”

Fame has it’s price, however. Doctors are still trying to figure out the nature of the rash that Tom has developed between his wrist and elbow.

Still, Tom maintains the satisfaction he got from jerry-rigging random toilets and keeping a spreadsheet on his efforts was worth the trade-off of being celibate for the next 50 years.

There is a silver (ceramic?) lining to this story.

As a reward for his selfless civic actions, Tom also earned an all-expenses-paid trip to Minneapolis to meet with Senator Larry Craig.

global warming, climate change, penny pincher, Michelle Singletary, Washington Post, Larry Craig, strange rashes, Starbucks, venti caramel macchiato