What Environmentalists in Ithaca Can Learn From Germany

and What Germany Can Learn From Ithaca

For years I have wanted to write a post that compares sustainability practices in Ithaca, N.Y. to those in Jena, Germany. I’ve been to Jena five or six times since 2018, and whenever I’m there I feel that I am among people who think about their impact on Mother Earth every single day. I love Ithaca: its woods, gorges, waterfalls, and the lake, but I don’t get the same environmental vibe. There is a solid core of environmentalists here, but not everyone has bought in. I wonder, what does Jena know (and subscribe to) that Ithaca doesn’t? This is what I’ve come up with.

Density, Heating Costs and Mass Transit. Mass transit works in Jena because of its dense population. Even though both cities were small towns until the 1800s, the cities grew differently.

Take the apartment building where I stay. There are eight separate apartments in this building. The building is on land that is roughly 1/3 the size of my land. (I live in the Town of Ithaca, not the City, and my lot size is three-quarters of an acre.) Right away, you could say that Jena is 24 times more densely populated than Ithaca. In some areas of Jena, there are no backyards (where I stay does have a back yard), so building density is even greater. But there are also some single houses as you move away from the city center.  

Actual apartment sizes are smaller in Jena. Anna’s apartment is around 960 sf, whereas my house is 1,600 sf – without the basement. The median size for an American house is 2,014 sf, whereas the average German apartment is 990 sf. So most Germans live in a space that is roughly less than half of what an American lives in.    

When we visited Robert’s parents’ apartment in Lobeda, I noticed that every room was small, maybe around 100 sf, even the kitchen. All rooms had windows, which made the apartment seem bigger. Good planning. Robert’s parents have been in their apartment, with minimal rent increases, since 1992, three years after the Berlin Wall fell. In fact there are many apartments in Lobeda because the city was built as “high quality housing for the workers in Jena.” (In other words, high density was planned from the beginning.) These are solid apartments built with windows that don’t leak and high-quality materials.   

Smaller rooms, smaller heating costs. Nearly everyone in New York state right now is complaining about the high costs of gas and electricity. Would you like to cut your heating bills in half? Live in a smaller house. Why do we need such big rooms?  And if you live on the fifth floor, like Robert’s parents, then you pay almost nothing for heat. Yet living on the fifth floor has its drawbacks: his parents are in their 60s, and there is no elevator. Other apartments nearby have constructed exterior elevators, but to do that, requires everyone in the apartment to agree to the extra cost, and you could see why those at the bottom (who are also sharing their heat with those above) would not want to put out for an elevator.

If Ithaca had a population that was 24 times denser, you might not see nearly empty TCAT buses running up and down West Hill. When the bus or tram comes every fifteen minutes, there is no great need for a car, and most people do not own cars. I don’t think we’ll see buses with a frequency of every fifteen minutes in Ithaca in my lifetime. 

I want to add, there have been efforts to increase density Ithaca. In downtown a new building rises twelve stories tall; in Jena, the tallest buildings are five or six stories, except for JenTower, which at 29 floors, is the tallest building in East Germany. Maybe someday Ithaca will catch up?

Car Cost and Impact. How much does owning a car really cost? The average cost of  ownership in the US is around $1,000 per month, according to a New York Times article published on September 22, 2023, (The Rising Costs of Owning a Car - The New York Times (nytimes.com) Cost varies with the car and geographical location. The author suggests that if you live in an urban area, consider giving up your car. Twelve thousand dollars-a-year can be a game changer.  

With fewer cars, there is less road damage. In all the years I’ve been to Germany I’ve seen only one tiny strip of road under construction. I can’t say the same about Ithaca, and I don’t even try to keep track of the number of roads under construction. Still, fewer cars, less air pollution; fewer, smaller parking lots; and almost non-existent traffic jams. I have never seen a traffic jam in Jena (which has double the population of Ithaca), Erfurt, Weimar, or the parts of Frankfurt I have traveled through. The traffic jams in DC and Houston were so debilitating when I lived there in the 80s that I could not wait to leave those cities. Waiting in traffic is a big waste of time (maybe I’m being judgmental here, apologies) but I think people get used to it, just like they get used to having a car.    

Some Germans have cars, but most households have one, not two, and they are not used as frequently. Maybe they look at the twelve grand-a-year (assuming the costs are about the same) and say, Hey, I could go on a nice vacation with that twelve thousand! Twelve thousand dollars is a huge chunk of change. Maybe this is why so many Americans are in debt, and live week-to-week?

When I worked at Cayuga Landscape, and answered phones at six am (until the office staff came in), one of the most common reasons for an absentee (other than the Monday morning hangover) was vehicle breakdown. You can live closer to the work place, but housing in Ithaca, like most desirable locations, has skyrocketed. Most of the landscapers lived outside of Ithaca where their rent was half of Ithaca’s, but still they needed a car. I knew one landscaper, who like me, biked to work. He biked because he’d had two epileptic attacks, and was not allowed to drive a car; so, one reason people bike in Ithaca, but also (like me) they love biking. But there aren’t enough of us. To be fair, the landscaper and I both have electric bikes; his one-way commute was twelve miles, mine was nine.  

Disclosure. Anna and Robert do not have car, but occasionally they borrow one from his parents, who now have two. My 2011 Honda Civic, I use on average, once every few weeks, except if I am going somewhere with Mike. I get around mostly on bike: even in winter, as long as it’s above 25 F and there isn’t a layer of ice or snow on the ground, I bike. It’s less than three miles into town. (I do groceries by bike, and most doctor appointments.) If I walk into town, it takes me about forty-two minutes. And I like walking. Walking into Jena from Anna’s apartment was about thirty-five minutes. We walked several times a week, even with a toddler, although we brought the stroller. I am left with the impression that walking in Jena, even in the snow (similar climate to Ithaca) is not unusual, but it seems to be not as common in Ithaca, unless of course, you have no car.

No car, no elevators, that means everything you buy at the grocery store, you carry home and you carry up. And you have less space to store whatever you manage to get up those three, four or five flights of stairs.    

Recycling. Most Germans separate their waste. I hope Anna or Robert will read this and let me know if there are consequences if you don’t. Jena has car-sized, rounded metal structures or altglasscontainers (old glass container—inventive name!) painted green, brown or white where recycled glass eventually exits the neighborhood. The altglasscontainers have hooks at the tops so that the recycling trucks can pick up them up and dump the glass into the truck’s bed. The structures are strategically placed throughout Jena. Next to the altglasscontainers are textile and electronic recycling. Food scraps are recycled and picked up once- a-week, along with gardening debris, and the usual plastic and paper.

Living in a densely-populated neighborhood makes recycling logistics easier and apparently economical. The only time I ever saw a bottle reclamation center in a grocery store was outside of Frankfurt, in a hotel zone where I stayed the night before my plane left for Detroit.  

The city picks up your garbage – and there isn’t as much because most everything has been sorted. Here we choose our garbage service (and so have multiple trucks running up and down road) and sorting is not exactly encouraged. (Mike and I take ours directly to the waste facility.) Many people in Ithaca believe that it all goes to the landfill. Why recycle? (I don’t know if that’s true. We do recycle.)

Because of where I live, we have a fenced in compost pile where food scraps decompose year-round and end up back on the kale and tomato bed. I regularly cover the food scraps with my neighbor’s oak leaves but I don’t mind if the neighborhood crows come by for a snack. It takes a year or more for everything to degrade. You do have to be aware that if you compost, you may draw the usual fans of the smorgasbord: skunks, racoons, groundhogs, squirrels. Fences are recommended. The City of Ithaca was picking up food scraps, but the program stopped. I know you can bring your food scraps to the Tompkin’s County Solid Waste. And there are many people in the area whose chickens, pigs and goats are also committed food scrap fans.

You can sign up for a Master Composting class at Cornell Extension and compost your own scraps, which I highly recommend; if you’re interested, contact Adam Michaelides by email at acm1@cornell.edu. I’ve heard his classes are very worthwhile, and he’s a nice guy.

Washers and Dryers. I have never seen a dryer in Jena or anywhere else in Europe where I have traveled. (Anna informed me there is one tenant in her building with a dryer— one out of eight.) We didn’t have dryers or washers in the U.S. until the 1950s according to my Mom, Queen Dutt. The washing machine she used back in the old days had two squeeze bars at the top. (I also remember a scrub board in the tank of water beneath the squeeze bars.)  Now, nearly every household has a washing machine and a dryer, although I know two avid environmental cyclists who have neither. Their motto is, “Make love, not exhaust.”  

I have a washing machine and a dryer, but I rarely use the dryer, preferring a drying rack or an outdoor clothesline. Dryer usage accounts for an average of six percent of the household’s energy. Drying clothes this way also reduces wear and tear, especially on the clothes. Another way of looking at it is washing and drying clothes produces about ½ ton of carbon-dioxide per year, or the equivalent of two city taxi rides and a 345-mile plane ride (What's the carbon footprint of … a load of laundry? | Environment | The Guardian.

So maybe you don’t wash your clothes as often. And forget the dryer.

Water temperature is huge: “Ninety percent of a washer’s energy use comes from heating the water.” There are benefits to washing in cooler water: you save on electricity and produce less carbon-dioxide. One source cites a savings of 864 pounds of carbon per year by washing four out of five loads in cold water. You also extend the life of your clothes, and reduce the number of microplastics released by synthetic fibers (Reducing Washer and Dryer Environmental Impacts - Earth911).

Awareness. You can drive yourself nuts looking up statistics on how many tons of carbon and/or carbon dioxide the average American uses every year. I think it’s reasonable to say we are big consumers. Our culture preaches the religion of consumption, but even this, I know, is changing. There are more environmental organizations than ever. The Minimalists (The Minimalists) and Reverend Billy’s the Church of Stop Shopping (Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir - Home (revbilly.com), are uniquely American organizations that deliver their message in unusual, and some would say, hilarious ways.  

Still, I think we are not aware in all the ways that we use energy, or resources. I remember a high school chemistry course where I had my students keep track of their water usage for a day. You use that much water in flushing a stupid toilet? Yes. And Every gallon of water you use has to be cleaned, transported and managed. Then moving water uphill from Cayuga Lake, or from the creeks: that takes energy.

Some people are totally oblivious, some keenly aware. Sophia, a friend of Laurie’s, came over once to dig up some Solomon’s seal and rhubarb, and when I asked if she wanted to come inside to wash her hands, I turned around and saw her at the water barrel, washing her hands. This in itself doesn’t transform the world, but I would say it’s a mindset that trickles down into other arenas of life.

Re-use. This time America is stellar; sorry Anna and Robert, but Jena pales. Ithaca has a fair number of re-use stores for clothes, furniture, record albums, toys, bikes, construction materials, etc. Craigslist does a booming business. Germany does have free shelves and flea markets. Maybe Anna will comment on that.

And Mike, Mr. Re-use, this is where he has something to teach Jena. Mikes goes behind the mall and pulls out pallets (quality pallets— thrown out!) from the dumpsters and uses them for walls, or kindling. Sometimes he reuses the bolts or nails. (He gives me the cardboard for the garden.) Our floors downstairs are made of surplus, one-foot square tiles, and/or four-by-eight sheets of insulative material that once kept the ice on an ice-skating rink cold. Mike had to pay for those, but they weren’t expensive, and everyone needs floors.

Once he bought some old high school bleachers – beautiful yellow pine – and cut the bleachers to size. We sanded, stained, and polyurethaned, transforming those bleachers into beautiful door and window trim for the downstairs apartment.

Window frame, tile, curtain: all re-used.

But. . . perplexed by yet another high gas and electric bill, I asked Mike if he had any ideas. The bill was 100 dollars more than what it should have been. He admitted using the space heater in the bump-out where he set-up a bench to work on electronics. I said we needed to turn off the space heater when he wasn’t there. He disagreed.

The mad professor’s electronic bench. Background: beautiful handmade window trim.

I went online and found the average cost of a space heater for an eight-hour-day was two dollars. I understand there are lots of assumptions, but the two dollars for an eight-hour day seemed reasonable. But if you leave the heater on all day and all night, then your cost triples to six dollars-a-day, and this could be more being that the bump-out has three exposed walls. For one month, that’s an extra 180 dollars.  

It all adds up.