Many of us come from the generation whose mantra it has been Reduce-Reuse-Recycle.
The true fact of the matter is only 40% of people recycle and of them only 15% recycle up to 30% of their waste. We are a culture of more, better and new so we certainly do not Reuse. Reduce – yea right we just love all that pretty packaging and the newest, latest, and greatest models and styles. We are a throw away & trash creating culture.
Most of us are very unaware of what we throw away and how often we trash things. My new favorite book is “Gorgeously Green” by Sophie Uliano. In this book Sophie covers all the basics of recycling and going green but Sophie does for Green what “Skinny Bitch” by Freedman & Barnouin did for Vegans. She made being green accessible, fun, and wrote in a language that just spoke to me (“Skinny Bitch” went over board in the language dept.).
Plan a Saturday trip, pack a lunch and take a drive to your local landfill – and by all means take the kids. Get up as close as you can, get out and take few deep breaths (with a paper mask on of course : ). Eat your lunch and when you are finished take notice of all the trash you just created and look at where it will go-your kids will get it, possibly forever!
In “Gorgeously Green” she dedicates a lot of time in the book to trash. She suggests you weigh your trash for a week and sort it – before you make all the changes. What an eye opener this was for me. I was good at recycling (sometimes), I was always aware of the packaging of the products I brought into my home, I bought organic when ever I had the choice. But…..I had no idea of the amount of plastic that came out of my home. Plastic-plastic everywhere, in everything, with everything, wrapping up everything, bagging everything – everyday- more – more plastic! Not to mention all the different kinds of plastics from #1-#7 and of course all the no number plastics. All that lovely little plastic is toxic in so many ways – to different foods- to different cooking methods.
The paper is not any better it’s bad for different reasons. Don’t’ assume just because you buy products with recycled packaging that you are doing a service to Mother Earth. Unless you close the loop it doesn’t work. Don’t assume that things will get to the right place, only a small percentage of plastic bottles actually get recycled. All the rest go to a landfill, a hundred years has been set as the standard number that it takes to breakdown a water bottle.
It is an “Inconvient Truth” we must Reduce-Reuse-Recycle today, it must become part of our children’s natural make-up. The only way for our children to learn is through example and action, seeing then naturally doing. The change is not that hard. Go to your nearest bookstore and see if Sophie inspires you as much as she did me. She encourages us all to make changes by deed, by word and by pen.
Treat your trash as if it is your finest laundry, sort it, rinse it & look at it. When you sort your trash and rinse it try to figure out what it is made of, if you are not sure then make better choices at your next purchase. Go out and buy those grocery totes and let them ride in the passenger seat of your cart until they become part of your shopping routine. Stop buying those water bottles- she suggests a metal bottle. Set up 3 to 4 trash cans in a convenient place and give your kids the money if they do the recycling.
Believe it or not just taking the time to slow down and notice what is in your hand before you throw it away will change so many things. The simple awareness is really all that is necessary and it is about so much more than trash. It is all our responsibility to reduce our footprint and not leave the work to our children who have not been prepared for the task.
Next month “The Yoga of Cleaning”