Easy Being Green?
Environmentalism is going mainstream and it has been on my mind a lot lately. I can honestly say that I have been brain-washed. Look, even the mainstream is finding it hard to resist the PR of environmental concern. It has officially become hip.
I used to be proudly unconcerned. Even when selecting which method of diapers to use for my yet-to-be firstborn, I firmly stated that I don’t care what’s best for Mother Earth - convenience was the only thing that mattered.
With the arrival of my child, I started dabbling in the natural family living. It appealed to me on many levels, though not on the help-the-environment level. Turns out, if you want to breastfeed, to cloth diaper, to not (or selectively) vaccinate, to feed your family healthy whole foods, to clothe them in natural clothing, you are bound to inadvertently care for the environment.
There’s also my beloved husband. He has always been a thrifty person. Reduce-reuse-recycle comes naturally to people like that. I was in shock when I moved in with him: the man had the smallest garbage can even for a single person! He absolutely refused to give it up. You know why? Because he didn’t have to buy garbage bags - his bin was small enough for shopping bags.
There was much for me to learn. My excessive ways slowly came to an end and I started learning to appreciate living simply. It came easy: after all, I’ve always hated blatant consumerism and I hate shopping!
We still don’t do much. I am glad, however, for having become concerned. I no longer believe that my efforts would be futile on the global scale. After all, if I fell prey to the PR of environmentalism - I know many others did too. We are not alone anymore. We are mainstream.
Here is what we do:
- Collect all plastic, paper and glass - this may seem like nothing, but our city has no recycle program and we get no support in our efforts. We drive the paper to work, the glass and plastic to another city that has public recycling bins set up
- Breastfeed (yes, this is huge for the environment)
- Eat simple whole foods that mostly come without packaging - nothing processed. Not sure, how good this is for the environment, but I’m hoping somehow it is.
- We buy as little as possible (mostly, food and necessities)
- We try to bring our own bags for shopping (unless we need more “garbage” bags)
- We never buy plastic bags or containers of any kind
- We reuse most plastic containers that come from stores containing food, we re-use all deli plastic bags to pack lunch and other things; we re-use plastic ware
- I take the bus to work
I wish we lived somewhere where we could walk more or ride the bikes - hopefully, one day we will
- We are all about hand-me downs, and I am not talking just about clothes
A lot of it is for our convenience, I admit.
What about you? Where do you stand? What do you do? I would love more easy ideas that are good for us/good for the environment.
I used to be proudly unconcerned. Even when selecting which method of diapers to use for my yet-to-be firstborn, I firmly stated that I don’t care what’s best for Mother Earth - convenience was the only thing that mattered.
With the arrival of my child, I started dabbling in the natural family living. It appealed to me on many levels, though not on the help-the-environment level. Turns out, if you want to breastfeed, to cloth diaper, to not (or selectively) vaccinate, to feed your family healthy whole foods, to clothe them in natural clothing, you are bound to inadvertently care for the environment.
There’s also my beloved husband. He has always been a thrifty person. Reduce-reuse-recycle comes naturally to people like that. I was in shock when I moved in with him: the man had the smallest garbage can even for a single person! He absolutely refused to give it up. You know why? Because he didn’t have to buy garbage bags - his bin was small enough for shopping bags.
There was much for me to learn. My excessive ways slowly came to an end and I started learning to appreciate living simply. It came easy: after all, I’ve always hated blatant consumerism and I hate shopping!
We still don’t do much. I am glad, however, for having become concerned. I no longer believe that my efforts would be futile on the global scale. After all, if I fell prey to the PR of environmentalism - I know many others did too. We are not alone anymore. We are mainstream.
Here is what we do:
- Collect all plastic, paper and glass - this may seem like nothing, but our city has no recycle program and we get no support in our efforts. We drive the paper to work, the glass and plastic to another city that has public recycling bins set up
- Breastfeed (yes, this is huge for the environment)
- Eat simple whole foods that mostly come without packaging - nothing processed. Not sure, how good this is for the environment, but I’m hoping somehow it is.
- We buy as little as possible (mostly, food and necessities)
- We try to bring our own bags for shopping (unless we need more “garbage” bags)
- We never buy plastic bags or containers of any kind
- We reuse most plastic containers that come from stores containing food, we re-use all deli plastic bags to pack lunch and other things; we re-use plastic ware
- I take the bus to work
I wish we lived somewhere where we could walk more or ride the bikes - hopefully, one day we will
- We are all about hand-me downs, and I am not talking just about clothes
A lot of it is for our convenience, I admit.
What about you? Where do you stand? What do you do? I would love more easy ideas that are good for us/good for the environment.