Advice for Reducing Waste

what advice do i have for those of us who want to reduce their waste?

change your focus. send your kids to camp (my favorite). stop eating. stay home. don’t go anywhere. don’t vacuum (also my favorite). don’t wash anything (another favorite). and certainly, don’t throw anything away! just sit in a big pile and cry.

seriously though. i have been buying much less of everything since i realized how dangerous plastic was and decided to boycott it. i notice how so much of everything i had been buying is in it. wow! plastic rules! plastic is everywhere! and wow! my cupboard has been getting pretty bare.

what i noticed was that my point of view has shifted. i no longer go to the store thinking, what do we want to eat, what do i want to buy, or what would make my family happy? but rather, is it in plastic and can i/we do without it? are there glass or metal container equivalents? what would make my family really miserable?

thusly, i have been able to reduce my waste and plastic consumption a lot. my lovely mate is supportive as he notes that we can easily see the back of the fridge now, on every shelf too. and i clearly see how much it needs to be cleaned. the good part is i seem to be losing weight too.

also, my concentration is being improved by the need to think a head more. i need to remember and prepare more for outings in the real world. do i have my bags with me? do i have any containers that i can use? what route do i need to take to buy locally most efficiently?

the truth is even if i don’t plan on shopping, i might think of something later on, or be distracted enough to just find myself walking around in some market chasing my 3 year old as he drives away from me in his car-cart.

really, it takes focus and dedication. looking at that great free ranged ham and controlling my impulse to buy because i don’t want the plastic, is definitely making me skinnier. spending much more time preparing food than it is to eat it, i realize how difficult life used to be before all these conveniences, and understand better why plastics and the tv dinners were embraced to begin with. sometimes i even want to hug a garbage bag, i mean a good hot dog, but then i want to shower.

boringly, i recognized that it would help the most if i just kept my bags and jars into the car. that means putting them there when they are emptied or washed. but that is me because my planning ahead capacities are limited to making sure my son has a snack and i have directions to where i am going. and since i try to limit my driving as well, i need to try to remember that my shopping will be done during the day while i am otherwise out and about.

changing my focus is changing my lifestyle. i go to the farm for milk and am working on making my own cheese. mozzarella, here i come!

a digression and explanation of my lack of capitals

why I don’t use caps or e. e. cummings and me

this is funny, as i write this, my computer automatically corrects me (caps my i’s and beginning of sentences). usually when i use word i am happy that it will do all this work for me. but now i will have to go back and fix all of these mistakes. you see, when i don’t use this program and i write the old-fashioned way, with a pencil and paper, i don’t use caps. when i email, or write directly onto something like this blog, i don’t use caps. why?

well, it all started back when i was a kid and i was introduced to the idea of democracy, an egalitarian society, one in which everyone is equal. i fell In love with the idea. then i noticed something interesting in our language use. mainly that I, I, I, seem to be so much more important than you, of course also, me. which is quite funny because logically, why should I be honored with caps but not me? because I am the subject and me is the object? is it all really all about me? (stoke the ego, stoke the ego, build up steam, power the I) hmm, that sounds egotistic, selfish, indivdualistic. it also seems so patriarchal, and visually is rather phallic as well. why shouldn’t i honor my subjective self with special caps, an attention getting, grown-up capital letter? it is simple. i do not identify with the I- the artifice of the capital empowers the subject, it elevates the individual who is talking over the ones He is talking to. just as standard english is gender biased, it is also speaker heavy. i do not believe that i am any better, any grander, deserving of any more attention than you or them, he, us, we, or she.... you see, my identity is precious, but it is still just a name, just me, just another i, like so many other i's out there...

janet or job, bob, or bill, rachel or susan or rose. a name is still just a name. i believe we all are equal, well in theory anyway. my title and name is not so special. i will pass on; my essence IS no greater than animated dirt. the I is a false elation of the ego; the I is an artifice to extol my power. on depressed days i might just grasp at that dollop of grandure.

the details of our language choices do count for something. we send messages with, not just our word choices, but the format we choose, the font we choose, and the use or misuse of punctuation. it all tells a story. as an english teacher i had a hard time teaching grammar because it really is superfluous. it really tells, more than anything, how much the writer accepts the rules of society (or at least appears to). so do i reject the rules of society? (apparently). are appearances crucial, or misleading? a false dichotomy or a conflicting reality? a koan or a power play? frivilous or substantial? or just a dance between the writer and the reader?

why do we have caps at the beginning of sentences? i do not necessarily want the emphasis to be at the beginning of every sentence. a period seems strong enough to me. eradicating the period has occured to me, but i don’t want my readers to work so hard at deciphering what i have to say that they have to ferret out their own sentences. (though I might if i were writing poetry.) i still like the cohesiveness of thought constrained to a unit. i will not deconstruct so much that the pieces need to be puzzled back together on such a minute level. not too much, not yet, anyway.

so, in the email world of the younger generation, this probably seems silly. caps? why think about it? who evn nds whle wrds? do u? i fear i am conservative and old school. but still, my point is not convenience, as is the shorthand of a multitasking plugged-in youth, but the political point of equality and poetry. if i were not so confined by the space of the page, or were so inclined, i could with the computer really work this into visual art. that point i have yet to get to. but to simply not give the power of the cap to any words but those that i chose, that is taking some punch from predesigned rules and making them my own.

so really i am saying i am no better than anyone else, yet i draw power from that.

interesting compelling action Artifice

today i feel like i am spitting into the wind. my daughter came home from shopping for camp and school with untold number of plastic bags, a plastic container of leftover salad, a plastic cup of leftover mocha. i enjoyed seeing that at least the cup was #1 pet and recyclable, but cups are not accepted in our recycling center anyway. i saved the bags, washed out the containers and put them in the recycling bin, even though i am not sure they are recyclable and tried to reclaim the power i felt when i was conversing with my dad the day before:

"there is a new technology that allows you to put all your garbage into one machine and everything but the plastic is burned or somehow spit out and plastic building materials can be manufactured."

"yes, but the problem is that these plastics are degraded, the polymers shortened and their life span ends with the construction materials. once the building is no longer used, then the plastic has to go into the landfill. and plastic is just so evil; it shouldn't be used at all."

talking to my father always brings out the fighter in me. in truth it is he that has brought me to this point. i continue knowing that my argument isn't all that strong. there is a point to being able to make something concrete with the garbage.

"look, i know that people aren't going to stop using plastic. i don't even know how i am going to. i just know that it is wrong and the production of it is poisonous, the use of it is generally fleeting, the lifespan in a landfill nearly immortal, and its slow demise and disintegration poisonous as well. just look at what is happening to the oceans. all the garbage that has been and is being dumped and the plastic degrades and attracts oil based poisons and becomes food sized poison pellets floating around the ocean."http://www.good.is/post/transparency-the-great-pacific-garbage-patch/

i take a breath and look at my father's face, "that becomes food for the fish, that eat each other and eventually become food for us. our immune systems will just eventually break down."

he nods in agreement, eyes slightly glazing over. my mother comes into the room, "so you are advocating boycotting plastic?"

" i don't expect people to stop using plastic anytime soon. it is too much a part of the system we live in. but buying plastic is something that i do that i know is wrong. it is something i can grasp and battle with. not buying plastic is the right thing to and it makes me feel strong to make a stand. "

i felt the power of one in me. i am doing this. i am influencing my family. i am following my passion. i am doing the right thing. then today came, and the long string of polymers that hold us together through the legacy of the disposable society feels strangling and inglorious. i tried going to the supermarket to buy dinner sans plastic. i realized i needed to start making my own cheese and butchering my own meat. (i do buy meat that is grass fed and free ranged, but it is packaged in plastic!) now i have to change my source. am i ready for this? man, this really takes conviction. next, i need some cheese making materials.

http://www.good.is/post/picture-show-waste-management/

my critique :

(in a mostly cap free environment)

1. single stream recycling often makes the material too messed up to use and so cuts down on the actual material that can be recycled, especially paper and plastic. but it is more convenient and so people appear to be recycling more because more goes through the process, but more simply goes back to the landfill.

2.how long does it take for plastic to decompose? will everyone find a different answer if you look in different resources. the truth is that anything, even an apple can take hundreds of years to decompose if compressed into and airtight sack and left untouched by the elements. which pretty much describes the landfill environment. plastic, however, is a different story.

it doesn't break down in the normal sense of biodegrade. it's chemical structure doesn't change, it can only get physically smaller and smaller and eventually the plastic pieces are eaten or choke the unfortunate animal trying to eat it. in a landfill where there is no sun to photodegrade it, its life is really inestimable.

to get to the heart of the matter, recycling is a great idea, but in the case of plastic i feel that it legitimizes that which shouldn't even be. according to the EPA, from Elizabeth Royte's Garbage Land, "the production of plastic emits the toxins trichloroethane, acetone, methylene chloride, methyl ethyl ketone, styrene, toluene, ...sulfur oxides, nitrous oxides, methanol, ethylene oxide, and volatice organic compounds. Plastic manufacturers use copious quantities of benzene and vinyl chloride, which are known to cause cancer in humans... In an EPA ranking of the twenty chemicals whose production generates the most total hazardous waste, five of the top six are chemicals comonly used in the plastics industry. "

when you wear polar fleece, the plastic will abrade and eventually particulates will be released into the environment. when our children are swimming with those cute floatation devices, their shrunken skin is particularly vulnerable to the pvc that is being abraided into it. when we eat out of styrofoam or plastic utensiles, styrene is easily leached into our food.

guilty as charged

I am very excited to announce that I have applied to be a board member of HVME, a non-profit organization dedicated to removing reusables from the waste stream. I have decided to do this because I needed some concrete action to follow up on my convictions and rantings. I highly recommend that anyone who needs arts and crafts materials, building materials, and or, anything in between. Really I recommend that you just visit the next time you go by- there are so many cool things. It also is a great resource for teachers. It is located in the trailers behind the New Paltz recycling center.

I am so happy that I went to visit the operation because I realized a few things. The first is that New Paltz recycling center takes electronics- even though you have to pay to have it taken care of (I don’t know how much). The second thing that I realized was that this resource is here (though newly relocated from Stewart Airport) and I have never taken advantage of it. I realized with dismay that I have never used this great resource.

There are so many more ecologically friendly things that I could do and I wonder why I have resistance to doing many of them.

In my defense, and hopefully to inspire, I do drive a hybrid, reuse and recycle when I can. For our remodeling jobs I have chosen bamboo and marmoleum for the flooring, I even get my milk from payne’s farm in New Paltz with glass ball jars. We put in a fuel efficient wood stove this past winter to cut down on our fuel oil use. I almost never throw food scraps away as we have dogs, a goat and chickens.

Yet there always seems so much more to be done. What I can do better: I buy lots of stuff new and don’t always take the time to consult a green buying handbook, or search for good used ones. I also don’t always buy bulk because I don’t think I can use my glass containers at the health food store, but I haven’t even asked. I drive lots, I throw tons of garbage away, and I, I, I, don’t know, but I feel trapped in a lifestyle that forces me to purchase and discard, purchase and discard. Lather, rinse and repeat....

Some of it is me, things I can change just by being more aware of it. For example, at a friend’s house the other day, I found out that rather than recycling, the paper went into a reuse pile so that the other side could be used. This itself was interesting. I didn’t do this, I just recycled. I tried using the other side for stuff, and occasionally do, but was put off of doing this because of, well, fashion, is one way to put it, or perhaps, one could say peer pressure. I never saw anyone else but one friend other of mine that did it, years ago. I didn’t want to be seen as weird or my papers as “dirty.” I do it for notes and art with little ones, but nothing professional.

A huge part of this is social reality. If we all help each other with hints and support for living ecologically correctly, then it will be easier to build a movement. The flip side of this is that there is a social perception problem here. Poor people reuse, rich people buy new. It is a status thing. What are the best ways for changing this? I would love to hear some ideas...

talkin' trash

I have come to realize how paralyzed I’ve felt about not acting politically. How harmed I feel by the helplessness that has ensued because I have not acted on the many convictions that I have. The last eight years has compressed the very air I live in with perfuse and overwhelming sentiments that seemed to oppose all that resonated as good in me: regime change, promoting torture, gutting funds from education and welfare, gutting the effectiveness of the EPA, rolling back of environmental stewardship, support of financial recklessness in the name of economic growth, censorship of scientists, presidential and vice presidential lying to and manipulating the congress and thus we the people. And, to seal the lid on the pressure cooker: no one seemed to care or notice all these things, or notice that these things were, well, evil. The prevailing message was: don’t notice people stealing the very air you breathe or the water you drink or the earth we all depend upon for sustenance. Just keep buying, buying, and buying. People appeared to be only concerned with making a buck, or buying things cheaply and not caring about the consequences of their actions (including me). The power of stuff: cheap, fun goods are a powerful narcotic, not to mention the ability of easy money to spin your head.

I started armchair activism... I sign so many petitions every night, I risk carpel tunnel. But the issues out there are so overwhelming, rather than feeling I am doing something I come away with the feeling that these problems are so much bigger than me, so overwhelming- can I stop world hunger? Congo rape of women and children? Destruction of the rainforest? Clear cutting? Mountaintop removal? Destruction of salmon populations? Bludgeoning of baby seals? Puppy mills? And the list goes on and on. The depravation of humankind seems to know no boundaries. As Mark Twain said, “I am quite sure... I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices, nor caste prejudices, nor creed prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society. All I care to know is that a man is a human being- that is enough for me; he can’t be any worse.”

Alas, with the election of Barack Obama, the political tide seems to have turned. Our efforts at turning our society from one of consumer madness towards some sort of social/environmental responsibly one seems at least possible. From the ashes of my soul rises the phoenix of political will to participate in and initiate change for the better.

How did this happen? I have found a route, a pathway that resonates for me. I need to feel connected to my cause in an everyday tactile sense- I am bothered by so many things, but they seem so far away, so out of touch for me, so overwhelming. Yet everyday, in my own life and in my own actions, I am bothered by how I live. I am saddened and frustrated with making dinner because I have to throw away the plastic containers my “natural” chicken comes in, the plastic bags my frozen veggies come in, the bag the rice comes in, the empty milk container. Then washing and placing my recyclables in a container knowing there is only a small chance that they will indeed be recycled. I go to the bathroom and valuable nutrients for the earth are washed away with now wasted good water. Toilet paper, even if recycled, is bleached using dioxins and created using other toxic chemicals. Dental floss is thrown away. Cabinets full of medicines that cannot be returned. Throw away that old carpet, the old nasty dog chair, throw away those Styrofoam take out containers. Throw away the bags that the dog food was in, throw away the bottle caps, create mounds of recyclables. I find every time I go to the garbage and put something in I feel as though I am desecrating the earth, spitting on our ancestors that worked so hard to bring us here. In the natural world there is no trash. We are what we eat, experience, and been discarded. We like to throw things away because it appears that it then is not us. It “goes away.” But that is not true. The waste never goes away. It gets packed away for future generations to be poisoned by. We are creating dripping time bombs with our disposable lifestyle. We are blinded by the invisibility of the source and final resting place of our stuff....

What can be done? Well, we need to band together. We need to recognize that even though the advertisers, the manufacturers, the financial wheelers and dealers, tell us that buying, buying, buying is what is good for us because it is good for the economy, we need to realize that by buying incessantly without substantial change in manufacturing and waste management practices, we are destroying the world. We must stop this flow of garbage. What can be done? I have ideas, but it cannot be done alone. We must reject this lifestyle and seek out others. Does it have to be about stopping buying? Not necessarily, it has to be about forcing change to the options we are given. A choice between coke and pepsi is no choice at all. I have ideas. Many ideas.

Here are some ramblings my ideas:

We must seek out each other for ideas and support. Boycott bottled water or bottled anything if possible. To put together a coalition or non-profit that will create actions to return the garbage to those that created in and demand accountability. People must be responsible for the garbage they create and it is not the consumers fault. It is not our fault. To live outside the garbage stream is to live outside of society at this point. It is the major corporations that exploit our human frailties, exploit labor, exploit materials, and exploit our desire for ever more and cheaper stuff. The consumer culture was created by the manufacturers for profits; we must see how it is all connected. The destruction of our resources, the creation of more people with less money and less people with more money, the lack of political will. We are mesmerized by our toys. We must fight back against those that would steal our world in exchange for a few trinkets; we are all natives to be exploited by industry. Congress does not have the will to fight it. They are bought. We the people must fight back by returning the trash from whence it came. The new mantra: be responsible for your product.

for a limited time only

i am undertaking this new task- i wish to begin to change the world. tis ambitious, but i am tired of being tired and feeling all tied up and helpless. here is a new tool and political action at our grasp. the following is the beginning of an adventure in which i explore my own ideas about where i have come from and how i come to be where i am now. i reach out and hope to find others interested in sharing my ideals.

When I was in my twenties I had a stint as an activist. The time was the first Gulf War and surgical strikes were all the rage. I was infuriated and horrified that killing could become so antiseptic. But that issue wasn’t the only one that has captivated me. from the time I was little, it was not just the threat of nuclear war, or nuclear meltdown of three mile island but rather the slow poisoning and raping of our planet that has gripped my consciousness and led me to, I would love to say, a whirlwind of actions that have culminated in a dramatic shift in the way the world works today. But alas, you know that my name is relatively unknown and my activist self, after two events was bound up tight.

I recall my partner at the time being way bolder than I and set out to protest the 1^st Gulf War in a huge protest that was to shut down the Brooklyn Bridge. I was busy and nervous, and so I stayed home. I thought he might not return from this particular adventure. However, he did finally return and with the most fantastic story. This part was on the news- they did manage to shut down the bridge and greatly disturb traffic. It was a raucous affair with cars honking, some for and some against the protest. But what was not on the news was this event: a rouge car freaked out and sped into the crowd of protestors. In the ensuing melee, my partner saw someone go over the side of the bridge. This was so disturbing to me that I don’t really remember any more of the particular details. But what was even more disturbing was the fact that I never heard about this painful development from the news. Not only was this particular disappearance was not reported by the news, but the whole event was only a small blip on the media page with hundreds of protesters reduced to a handful of mischievous disrupters of the commute. In fact, all the protests that I have ever attended have been grossly underreported. Most of the time, if it is stated that hundreds protested, it was usually closer to thousands. I was dismayed that the news people decided to only include a tiny blurb about the protest that temporarily shut down the Brooklyn Bridge! And that was true for the TV news and the print media. However, I felt traumatized and abandoned when there was no mention of the protestor who went missing. Up until that time, I had actually believed what I read in the papers and saw on TV was somehow a semi decent representation of what actually happened out there. Now I was mortified that the representation clearly only vaguely approximated reality.

The other event was one where I attended a meeting for organizing a march in NYC, around the same time. The city had been cagy about giving protest permits. The official places to protest were very circumscribed, say a corner of one block. And we wanted to make more of an impression. At this meeting there was a guy who looked different from the rest, and had never been to a meeting before. He had really short hair, but was wearing a fireman’s shirt, thus explaining the cop-like short hair. We talked about our plans for our various actions but the leaders were cagy about discussing what we were really going to do, (ideas that had been developed in different sub-committees). I didn’t really get it. So when this short-haired guy asked about our protest route, I told him what it was. I was glared at by the group leader. I thought he was being prejudiced against the short-haired guy. Well, we went to the march and were arrested right off the bat, at the appointed starting place because, well, we had a mole... guess who? Man, did I feel stupid.

These things should have been simply learning experiences, but my soul was more fragile. It was hard to swallow that simply letting your opinion be known by marching and protesting, you were viewed of as enemies of the state and people would actively try to stop you. It was really frightening. I became more involved in my personal life and let my political self languish in the prison of my fear.