Being green...........

Presentation link
Last week I added the link from my presentation to the previous post for those who never got to listen, click here.  

In follow up to that presentation, I wanted to expand on a couple of points that came up for discussion................

Recycling vs truly cyclic
While recycling is far better than doing nothing, it is not the answer.  What we should be doing is looking at how the waste can be designed out of the system.  So when looking for solutions to problems that create waste think about options that could be implemented that design waste out of the system. 

Bio/degradable plastic bags
With regards to my comment on these that I forgot to continue the discussion on, relating to biodegradable plastic bags, unfortunately they are basically a just another problem.

Unfortunately they appeal to people that are trying to improve the environment, but they in fact cause as much of a problem, if not more.  If you must choose to use plastic bags, it is far better to use plastic ones that are recyclable like the supermarket bags than biodegradable plastic bags.  As per a previous post, with the biodegradable bags,  they have simply  added a polymer to them that makes them weaker and break into small pieces when exposed to sunlight.  The small pieces then get into waterways and into the food chain.  They can't be recycled so can't go that way and they also are no good in landfill because it is dark - they just stay like any other plastic.  Of course the best option is something that was sourced from a sustainable source, is reusable many times and  then fully biodegradable at the end of its life - cotton, hemp and paper may fall into this category, but check out the origins of the bag first.  

The really disappointing thing is that people choose them becasue they genuinely think they are better and want to do the right thing and someone up the food chain is making a lot of money about of praying on this.

Challenge
Whenever you are in a shop that offers you a biodegradable plastic bag, decline it and take the time to educate them why you are declining.  If they hear it enough times, someone will feed that information up the chain.  

Food for thought
To end this blog, I got this email from a colleague the other day and it is so true, I thought it was worth sharing:

Being Green

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.
The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.



Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.

But too bad we didn't do the green thing back then.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building.

We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room.. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.. 


Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn.. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Food for thought isn't it...............

Kind Regards
Francesca