What is Earth Hour?
(We have the Australians to thank for its inception.) Thanks mates!
Now, onto My Zero Waste:
I have always been environmentally aware. My parents strived to be earth-friendly and compost, or recycle, and passed that on to us. I have been a long-time gardener, composter, recycler, Freecycler, farmer's market supporter, and strived to leave as little of a footprint as possible. I know I can do more. Granted, I am an American, yet I try to be un-American in that way, so as to not be part of the masses that just consume and discard with no concerns for the long-term effects of that sort of behaviour.
Wednesday evening on my way home from a an office field assignment, I was listening to MPR to a feature called The Story, and was impressed by an interview in which Dick Gordon spoke with Rachelle and Richard Strauss about their attempts to reduce their refuse output to one bin per year.
Yes, you read that right: One Bin Per Year. To learn more visit: My Zero Waste.
They live in the UK, and their waste bins are approximately 100 liters according to Rachelle, which are roughly the same as 22 gallons here. Given that I am pretty much the solitary resident of my home for the past two years, and my weekly garbage output has been greatly reduced due to my kids being out of the house - my weekly pick up is basically one small bag (paper) per week in a 20 gal bin - I was intrigued. (We also have a recycling pick up every other week and that is a 32 gal bin, and almost always full. I also take home and recycle aluminum cans from work and my walks.) On yesterday's walk, I should have brought along an extra large bag or two to pick up all the plastic bottles, not to mention the few glass ones and some misc. garbage. (Maybe on Sunday's walk.) I really hate seeing litter all over the place in spring after the snow melts. But, I digress.
The Strauss' reasoning was that in purchasing consumables of any type, they look at the product and the packaging, and discern whether they really need it or not, and then based on the packaging's recyclability, purchase it or not. Rachelle went on to state that this closer look has caused them to really deeply evaluate their actual need vs. wants, as well as if it will bring them over their goal to limit refuse. Often times she said that they've come to learn that most purchases were unnecessary, and that they also tend to purchase locally, green, and purchase products using less packaging. When asked what their bin contents were comprised of, she answered, "non-recyclable plastics." Such as unmarked plastics, or chip packages, and the occasional broken children's toy. It sounded as if in the UK they don't recycle plastic bags like some/many places here. Anyone?
We used to have bins all around town where you could deposit your plastic bags or similarly weighted plastics for recycling, and in the past 7 years or so, they've all disappeared. Recently though, it's been announced that some new locations are becoming available. I've often wondered why they were removed to begin with as there are local companies who make products such as park benches out of recyclable plastics, and more. *shrugs*
One of Rachelle's most impressive comments was about in noticing how recyclable each product and it's packaging was, was that perhaps in the future we'd all actually end up mining our landfills for the resources we've thrown away, now realising how valuable or reusable they are.
I am not perfect, but strive to be as environmentally conscious as possible, and this semester in school I am in an environmental science course that has really caused me to take another look into my lifestyle and see if there are any more ways in which I can reduce my overall footprint.
A couple of weeks ago, we had a lab to work on that demonstrated to us our actual "earths use" per person - meaning we have one earth, yet at the rate at which we all use it's resources, we are at a national average of approximately 6.5 earths per person, conservatively. Shocking! Our earth and her resources are often times irreplaceable and in consuming it's resources so many times more than our earth can provide, so many resources will become extinct, and we could be toast. (Not to be an alarmist - jus sayin.)
After completing an online survey, it was determined that my use figured out to be 3.4 earths, which was the lowest in my class - (which was also scary as many were 7 earths or more!), but still way over the one earth we have available to us. I've linked the sites here and tomorrow, I am going to study My Zero Waste's site and see what else I can do to reduce my footprint even further.
Another interesting site we studied this week was the Mineral Baby site, which shows how we all used 42,719 lbs per American in 2008, and will use 3.3 million lbs of minerals, metals and fuels in our lifetime.
This post is not to bash Americans, as people all over the world use and abuse our earth's natural resources in many ways, but more of a heads up for the unaware, as I was given.
As I stated earlier on, I try to be as green/environmentally friendly as possible, and learned that I have heaps of room for improvement. I want to help to make others more aware, who were maybe not at all, or who like me thought we were doing good, but have many more opportunities for improvement.
Cheers!
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