The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [175]
2. Reduce your waste. Even though household waste is a fraction of the volume of industrial waste, it’s a no-brainer to do what we can to reduce it. It’s easy, it conserves resources, and each bag of trash prevented from being dumped in a landfill or, even worse, burned in an incinerator, is a good thing. Here are some places to start:
Avoid single-use bottles, plastic bags, coffee cups, cans: these items, designed to be used for seconds, are grossly wasteful and easy to virtually eliminate with a modicum of advance planning. Don’t beat yourself up when you are in a jam and have to use one, but try to make it the exception.
Compost: Get a separate bin in your kitchen for food scraps and compost these in a municipal composting program or use any number of home composting techniques. It’s easy, it keeps organics out of the landfill, it prevents your kitchen garbage bag from stinking, and it provides a great natural fertilizer for soil (thus avoiding nasty chemical fertilizers) for gardens and house plants. There are many composting guides for rural, suburban, and urban settings available online. I personally prefer composting with worms—see www.wormwoman.com to learn how.
3. Go organic in your food, your garden, your cleaning products. Pesticides and toxic chemicals have no place in our food, our yards, and our homes. Remember, pesticides are designed to kill; that’s what they are for. They’re linked to a wide range of health problems from cancer to neurological and reproductive problems, and they’re building up in our environment and bodies. Avoid chlorine bleach and use nontoxic cleaners. The fancy-packaged ones cost more, and cheap and easy substitutes can be made from inexpensive ingredients like vinegar, baking soda, and lemon juice. How hard is that? If you don’t know how to make homemade nontoxic cleaners, ask your grandma or visit one of the many websites with recipes. My favorite is Women’s Voices for the Earth: www.womenandenvironment.org/campaignsandprograms/SafeCleaning/recipes.
4. Power down: Drive less. Fly less. Get a clothesline. Get a bike. Turn down the heat and put on a sweater. Do a home energy audit to find energy leaks and fix them. No explanation needed here, I hope.
5. Unplug your TV: Why sit and stare at a box beaming messages indoctrinating us into consumer culture for hours a day when there are so many more enjoyable alternatives available? I realized this a few years ago, when at the end of TV Turnoff Week (a national program in which kids pledge to resist TV for a week), my daughter turned to me and said, “I had so much fun this week. I wish every week was TV Turnoff Week.” And so it was.
6. Invest in the economy you want: When you’re shopping, investing, choosing a bank, paying someone who helped you around the house—really doing anything with your money—think about whether your hard-earned dollars are supporting the kind of economy you want or the one you want to escape from. Buying locally produced, union made, or fair trade certified are all good things to consider. And remember, buying secondhand, or not buying at all, is often the best option.
At School, Work, Church
Of course, all those individual and householder action ideas apply to any setting in which you spend part of your days, such as school, work, or church. In these places, you have the automatic benefit of already being part of a group, which means your potential influence and impact is magnitudes greater. Some additional ideas for greening these settings are:
Get your institution to adopt a sustainability policy that confirms its commitment to environmental and social sustainability. Ensure the policy is visibly supported. Include it in outreach material, orientation packets for new students, new members, or new hires, and other publications so that it becomes part of the institution’s culture. Then, reach out to other organizations in your sector and invite them to join you. For guidance in working with K–12 schools, contact the Green Schools Initiative at greenschools.net; for working with faith-based institutions,