"If it's yellow, let it mellow."

The NYT has a cute (tho sort of long) video on SEED house, the sustainability house at Oberlin College in Ohio.

The residents of the house, which opened last fall, are trying to reduce their ecological footprint in ways that the average homeowner can do easily: low-flow faucets, composting, using fluorescent lightbulbs.

"It's not superficially that different from a normal house," says resident Lucas Brown. "We don't want to scare a lot of people away by being too ridiculously green."

Like most college students, they're not about abstaining from things.

One of them says while it would be great if they could all take short, cold showers all the time, they realize that's not realistic. Instead, they put a bucket under the faucet while they're waiting for the water to warm up and reuse it. They also keep a bucket under the bathroom sink for the excess water from toothbrushing, face washing, etc. and pour it in the toilet tank.

(They also have a flushing policy — one that will sound sort of familiar to any of my female coworkers, tho very different! — but I'll let you check out the video for that.)

ps. There's also a companion story. I'm just a sucker for video.