I'm torn. Maybe it’s the hype in the media, maybe it’s the guilt I feel from the fact that my profession requires me to hawk some pretty eco-unfriendly items. Whatever it is, I have the overwhelming urge to be GREEN!
The problem is, it’s a thread that just can’t be pulled—much like deciding that you want to get more organized (See Taxi Driver quote).
Sure, you buy a few closet organizers (and I don’t care where you go to procure said organizers, you eventually get the feeling that you’re just throwing money at your problem—“I’m buying more stuff just to house my existing stuff.”). Then guiltily, you return home to begin the clean out, realizing that said organizers don’t hold nearly what you thought (possible waste of money), and besides, it pains you too much get rid of that t-shirt/over coat/broken guitar. And then, after a few hours of this fruitless exercise you declare, “I’m not an organized person! So what?” And you go on your merry way.
Point here is that there are a million ways to be more green. All of them valid, but way too confusing for the average gal to sort thru, and as Al Gore pointed out, way too important to shrug off. To illustrate my point, I've listed a few that I’ve contemplated:
1. Give up driving
2. Replace my light bulbs
3. Argh! The vampire power sucking!
4. Recycle our magazines
5. Recycle our bottles and cans
6. Use earth-friendly cleaners and detergents
7. Actually remember to take the bags from the car inside the grocery
8. Assuage guilt by investing money in terra pass or what not to offset carbon emissions
9. Join a CSA so that I’m purchasing food from a local farm
10. One word: Compost
11. Quit using the nice TP
So you can see where the confusion sets in. All of these are noble ideas, but I have no idea of their earth-saving effectiveness, and I'm not sure I can even do them with enough regularity to make a difference.
Let's start at the top. I really can’t give up driving. I mean, I can cut down on it, but I looked into taking the bus to work, and you’d not believe this… I’d have to switch busses making a 15 minute commute turn into something more like 45 minutes. I'm not a morning person. Enough said. Let's hope that I can manage to bike it a few times when the weather gets nicer.
I could begin with the light bulb replacement, but even that seems a little silly since I have plenty of non-eco-friendly bulbs on hand, which means I would be sending those to a landfill so that I could go buy new ones? Hmmmm…
OK, I don’t know about you, but this vampire power sucking thing has me totally confused. I think it would be a great idea to get one of those power strips for the TV center, the computer area, and the phone/iPod recharging station, but really, all of my appliances!?!? Between the blender, the toaster, the microwave… I’d have a counter top full of power cords! Maybe I’ll just unplug them when not in use.
Numbers four and five are pretty reasonable. It’s more a matter of remembering what days are recycle days and then actually taking the recycling out to the curb. The more difficult part is finding recycling bins that can be carried down the stairs without causing tremendous back strain.
Six is pretty easy, as I have a Whole Foods in the neighborhood and can get green cleaning supplies there.
Seven is much harder. No matter what I do, I can NOT remember to get the bags in hand before I go inside the grocery store. But, at least I have a dozen canvas bags in the trunk of my car!
Eight smacks of the same condition I spoke of in the getting organized ordeal. Maybe I don’t totally understand, but I just think throwing money at it doesn’t really help the Mutha Ship.
I find the entire thought of joining a CSA wildly romantic. I’ll get all of my veggies, straight from the farm, and I’ll be helping a local farmer and reducing my carbon footprint in one fell swoop. The thing is, I’m sure I’ll tire of my 35 pounds of kale long before I can eat it, and since number ten is highly unlikely to take root at my house, I’ll just be dumping a bunch of great food in the trash. Yuck.
Composting. Let’s first talk about my skills as a gardener. I begin every spring with the very best intentions. By July, I lose interest, and discover how expensive H20 is on Green Mountain, and then I abandon the whole endeavor, leaving me with what we affectionately refer to as, “The Garden of Death.”
And that brings me to my final idea, the nice TP. I want to think that I can let it go, but I’m not terribly convinced.
So where does that leave me? Well, I’m going to try to start recycling, at least all of the junk mail and magazines that enter into our house. And, I think I’ll devise some sort of note to place in the car to help me remember the canvas bags at the grocery. And as light bulbs die out, I’ll replace with environmently-friendly choices.
But here is my really BIG idea! If we all really want to reduce our carbon footprint, one of the keys seems to be QUIT BUYING THINGS! I’m so tired of picking up magazines—and BTW Plenty (the quintessential green magazine) is even guilty of this—and reading about green products. Cases in point, Plenty’s green gift guide lists a bunch of gifts that are marginally green (you know, made with recycled paper, or soy ink.); this month’s issue of Domino Magazine provided many helpful tips but the glossy spreads were saved for items like “green” place mats. Oprah, Better Homes & gardens, they all do it—they go to write the “Green” article and then it just boils down to stuff you can buy to be green. So it’s like, throw out those other great placemats you have and buy these NEW, Shiny “Green” Placemats… Is it just me or is this faulty logic?
The thing is, if we all took stock of how much of the “Stuff” we really needed, and either bought existing “Stuff” (i.e. from Good Will or other such place, and BTW—vintage is pretty damn cool) I think we’d really start to make a difference in our carbon footprint.
Not to mention the number of containers we wouldn’t need to buy from the Container Store. See I told you, it’s one long thread, and when you begin to pull on it….
