There are a variety of reasons to stop consuming disposable goods, ranging from the environmental concerns to long-term health issues. And at the end of this post, I'll suggest some solutions, at least with your food and beverage choices, to keep from getting (or buying) unnecessary stuff and throwing it away.
But to start, I'll describe a typical modern scene. At a recent event I went to, breakfast burritos were served, wrapped in 3 layers of foil. I picked up my foil-covered burrito, filled my steel cup with coffee, and watched. People picked up their foil-wrapped burritos, put them on paper plates, picked up 2-3 paper napkins each, filled up paper cups with coffee, covered the cups with plastic lids, and proceeded to eat their burritos with plastic utensils. All of it, even the foil (recylable!) went in the trash. No one said word one about it.
How did we end up becoming so comfortable with disposable goods? Why do people insist on walking around town with their paper coffee cups from Starbucks, when a good steel or even plastic cup can be purchased AT STARBUCK'S for $10-20? That paper cup, cardboard sleeve, and plastic lid all end up in the trash, more often than not, even though the cardboard sleeve at least is recyclable. Well, here is one clue from Life Magazine:
What about plastic bottles (picture from a cool photo-essay in the Atlantic)? No, that's not a dead body, but whatever "Siesta" is in Chinese, because sorting through the world's imported plastic bottles is hard work:
And here is one consequence (picture from another site), which is floating piles of crap in the ocean:
And here is another, more poignant, consequence of our waste-filled lives: dead animals. That's a dead Albatross chick, which died on the remote Pacific island of Midway from ingesting a bunch of bottle caps and such, in case you were wondering:
And from the NOAA's less alarmist take: "Regardless of the exact size, mass, and location of these areas of concentration, man-made litter and debris do not belong in our oceans or waterways."
"But," you say indignantly, "I live in a landlocked state! Surely the stuff I throw in the trash goes to a landfill and will never end up in a waterway."
To that I say, have you ever stood near a landfill on a windy day and watched what happens to the trash that can be carried in the wind? Have you ever walked down a city street and seen how much trash lines the gutters? Have you ever walked up or down a drainage, wash, or arroyo (like the one behind my house) and viewed the disposable refuse? The bottles and caps and trash go down the drainage, into the river, and to the ocean. That stuff will never go away in our lifetimes. In fact, as a result of one sampling effort, it was found that there is more plastic debris than plankton in the ocean (by mass, not by numbers of particles), a boggling concept. And the plastics degrade into smaller and smaller particles that can be eaten by ocean organisms, thus entering the food chain. The plasticizers and monomers are dissolved in the water as well.
"But," you say cynically, "Why should I care? What difference can one person make? It doesn't matter if I recycle or consume less, Bob or Joe don't care and don't recycle."
To that I say, everyone makes a difference every day. If one person makes a difference, and tells his or her friends, or gives reusable gifts (I bought my bandmates steel cups so we didn't have to drink our backstage bourbon out of disposable plastic Solo cups), that influences people then chances are, logic will prevail. We don't have to do big things to make a change in the world. We just have to catalyze changes. If I didn't learn anything else from Chemistry, I learned that in a catalytic chemical reaction, the catalyst is added in much smaller amounts (typically less than 0.1% of the atoms are catalyst) than the rest of the materials, yet the catalyst is what enables the molecular transformation of the bulk material. I'm hoping this article will be such a catalyst for folks who are either uninformed or indifferent.
So, off the high horse, and on to something practical: what are some changes you can make to consume and dispose of less disposable crap?
- Use durable goods. Get and use a steel coffee cup ($10-20). Use a re-usable water bottle ($5-10). Take re-usable plates and cups to picnics and out camping (we bought ours at a yard sale for a couple bucks). Use cloth napkins. Use old rags, holey t-shirts, etc. instead of paper towels. Use a handkerchief instead of Kleenex for your boogers. Take your own cloth bags to the store (not just the grocery store, but hardware store, clothing store, etc.) or re-use your plastic bags. Cook on cast iron. While quality products cost more, you'll save money in the long run because you won't have to replace them nearly as often.
- Buy less stuff. Think long and hard about your purchases--not just if it's a good deal, but also if it will last and what it's fate will be when you're done with it. The Holidays (not just Thanksgiving & Christmas) encourage us to consume stuff we don't need. Avoid the big-box chains at any time of year because, chances are, you'll come out with more than you intended to buy. Make cards and gifts. Make Halloween costumes (my son was a convincing Jedi knight with a hand-me-down Karate gi, a $2 thrift store belt, a lightsaber we made out of a part of a broken shovel handle, and a robe my wife made). Don't go grocery shopping while hungry. Here's another take: If you have a roof over your head, drink clean water, eat enough food, can clothe yourself, and have access to decent medical care, you have everything you need. Everything else is a luxury. Electronics are especially problematic,
unless you just don't care about other, less privileged people.
- Buy second-hand. In a previous post, I went through dressing well on a budget and how to alter that not-quite-perfect $4 shirt. I'm learning about altering and mending pants and jackets. Bottom line: buying used requires fewer resources and less energy. I've never owned, or plan to own, a new car. I have bought and sold quite a bit of used music gear and outdoor gear. Half of my wardrobe is from thrift stores, and I patch and repair much of my clothing. I have mostly old and re-purposed furniture. I live in a house that was built in 1968. Bottom line: buying new stuff is about image, not need.
- Buy local. I'm glad to say that there has been a lot of press in my town about buying local, and there are a lot of good reasons to do so. More money stays in the community, for starters, and you help out your neighbors and friends instead of a nameless, faceless corporation. If you can shop a place that is both a local business AND local manufacturer, then it's a win-win due to the cost of shipping goods. It saves you gas money. I know a lot of people who drive 30 miles to Wal-Mart or Target to save money, but they don't consider the fuel (or environmental) costs.
- Recycle. If the thing you want comes in a container that can't be recycled, well, don't buy it. Write to the manufacturer regarding your concerns. Chances are, you'll find that they're heartless corporations and you could do better locally, OR by buying in bulk. We buy bulk and put these products into our own reused bags or jars. Glass is infinitely recyclable, if there's willpower (i.e., a market). I don't know what to say to people who still don't recycle. It's available curbside in my County, for Christ's sake. Colorado has been recycling for 30 years, Oregon for even longer. Where there's a will, there's a way. Recent case-in-point: I was at a party recently and there was no provision to recycle cans, even though they were serving beverages in cans. I ended up taking a bag of empty cans home and put them in my own recycle bin.
- Think long and hard about throwing stuff away. Look at everything you buy with the perspective that it has a finite lifetime. Dispose of things properly--our county transfer station has containers for used motor oil, household chemicals, paint, electronics, metal, and yard waste (brush, grass clippings, leaves, etc.). There is a very short list of stuff that should go to the landfill. And know where your trash goes. If you live on a coast, make sure they're not still dumping it out in the ocean. If they are, write to your policy makers. To get an idea of how much stuff you throw away, save it for a week. We went through a recent experiment in our house where we saved plastic bottle caps for an art project, and ended up with more caps than we could comfortably store on the shelves above the dryer. Hmm...
- Fix your stuff. I patch my clothing until it falls apart. Take care of your car. With a little effort and research, you can probably fix your toaster, or coffee maker. We fixed a broken vaporizer simply by cleaning the electrodes. My wife replaced the shattered screen on her iPad. In my mind, there's no reason to replace something (or throw it away!) if it still works or you can fix it. Google it. Chances are, someone else had the same problem and came up with a solution. If not, put a little effort into it, and there's your $Million idea.
The most specific books we've read on the subject of lowering human impact (on the planet and on each other!!!) are:
- The Zero Waste Home by Bea Johnson. Instead of simply reduce, reuse, recycle, her mantra is "REFUSE, REFUSE, REFUSE, then reduce, reuse, rot, recycle." She keeps a blog.
- The Good Life Lab by Wendy Tremayne. She and her partner (Mikey Sklar) have embarked on an experiment where they buy very few new goods and instead rely of things they can grow or find in the industrial waste stream (things like burning restaurant grease in their cars, building shops out of shipping containers, and shopping exclusively at thrift stores and yard sales). Their schtick is to become creators, not consumers. They blog as well.
These practices that we have made as part of our lives have reduced our waste stream volume significantly. We are at the point where we maybe fill our curbside trashcan once every couple months, and that's if we've harvested a lot of noxious weeds and don't want them in the community compost. We have actually considered cancelling our trash service, but keep it for the curbside recycling pick-up.
I hope this is either old hat for you, or that it is food for thought. Let me know if you want to discuss this further, or if you have any other ideas. We are always looking for new things to try on our journey to zero waste.
Thanks for reading, and have a great week!
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