Would You Dump Your Refrigerator?
March 18, 2009 by Jennifer
The New York Times recently ran an interesting piece; Trashing the Fridge. The article (not surprisingly) focuses on individuals who have decided to save energy by dumping their fridge. Folks in the piece note that “The refrigerator is unnecessary, as long as one is careful about shopping choices and food storage.”
One of the families covered in this article get around fridge use by keeping a small freezer in the basement along with a cooler upstairs. They keep the cooler cold with “Two-liter soda bottles full of frozen water, which are rotated to the freezer when they melt.” This family’s fridge is sitting empty and unplugged in their kitchen.
There are some pros to this practice. For example, my favorite anti-fridge quote in the articles is…
“Refrigerator lust is one of the things driving huge energy-use increases in the developing world,” wrote the blogger “Greenpa” on his “Little Blog in the Big Woods” two years ago. “A great deal of what’s in your fridge absolutely does NOT need to be there.”
I agree. Having a fridge can likely lead to over consumption and a general lack of consideration toward purchases. People buy a ton of junk that’s unnecessary, although you don’t need to dump your fridge to be smarter, greener consumer. The fridge also uses about a sixth of all energy in a typical household, making it by far the largest energy hog appliance in most homes.
On the flip side:
Refrigerators have gotten much better over the last two decades. Basic models now use about 60% less electricity than the fridges from 20 years ago while ENERGY STAR qualified refrigerator models use at least 20% less energy than required by current federal standards and 40% less energy than the conventional models sold in 2001.
Additionally, the fridge is obviously very convenient. No fridge, in my opinion, could lead to impulse buys (you’d need to make more frequent trips to the store) and along those same lines, it would waste time. I don’t have extra time to run out every other day for a smaller container of milk.
Lastly, there are plenty of ways to save energy that don’t require giving up your fridge.
- With some basic maintenance your fridge can be more energy efficient.
- You could have more family activities over electrical activities.
- You could plant windbreakers.
- Try some solar lighting.
- Turn off lights when you leave the room and unplug items when they’re not in use.
- And so much more – placing all the energy drain blame on one appliance is silly.
DON’T FORGET: If you do give up your fridge or trade up to a newer, more energy efficient model, you should recycle your old refrigerator.
What do you think – could you live without a fridge? Personally, I’ve lived with a super small, energy efficient fridge for years, because a large one seems unnecessary for my family, but to have none at all seems excessive.
[image via stock.xchng]
We have a dorm-size fridge with a tiny freezer inside. It works for our family of five.
That said, there are days when things are pretty cramped and leftovers get tossed because there’s nowhere to put them. (I try to make favorites on the days right after we go grocery shopping. lol)
No, I couldn’t. I don’t want to shop every day, or even every other day. We go once a week, we live in a rural area, so we make our food run inbetween church and starbucks. I live with a cooler when we go camping, but I don’t feel we have all of the variety of foods that we like.
I got rid of my fridge a month ago, inspired by the NYT article. It’s brilliant! A local recycling program (Seattle) bought my old fridge for $30. Then I bought a tiny tiny freezer for the basement. I have an igloo cooler in the kitchen, which I keep cool with the abovementioned 2-litre bottles. I’ve been meaning to get rid of my fridge for years, after visiting friends in Europe who all get along fine with very little refrigeration, but it took me a long time to convince my husband to cooperate.
I haven’t had any spoiled food so far. In fact I have a lot less spoiled food now than when I had a fridge, because food no longer gets pushed to the back of the shelf and forgotten – I’m mindful about every single item in my little Igloo.
I go shopping maybe every 3 or 4 days, which I did anyway when I had a fridge… only now I’m much more mindful about what I’ll eat and when. I still cook several meals-worth of food at a time and freeze the leftovers, so I have plenty of food when I don’t want to shop.
There’s plenty of room in the Igloo for veggies, milk, cheese, condiments… I was surprised how much I stuff I had in the refrigerator that didn’t really need refrigerating.
Why did I get rid of the fridge?
-to encourage mindfullness in my family about overconsumption and about eating and preparing fresh, wholesome, seasonal and local foods.
-to gain some more counter space in my tiny city-sized kitchen – this has been the best part!
-to do my small part to waste less electricity (although I did get a new freezer, it uses a lot less energy than the fridge did.)
-to possibly save a little money on the utilities (although this was my last consideration.)
Wow – thanks for sharing your story. It’s way interesting to hear from someone who actually ditched the fridge! I love the mindfulness point you make – we over consume so much here. That may be the best reason to try fridgeless living; beyond the money savings and so on.