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How to live a greener life |
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Written by Karen Klages, MCT
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Monday, 16 July 2007 |
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She called herself a "garbologist" and she marched into my condo one cold day last November wearing serious scruffy clothes and hauling one serious portable scale that could determine, with mighty accuracy, the precise weight of a banana peel.
Or a tin can. Or a pile of junk mail.
This was my day for trash talking, when I strew an entire week's worth of my garbage (carefully saved and bagged by day) across the floor of my balcony and a straight-talking, no-nonsense Lydia Kuyawa-Dow jumped in with her trusty scale.
She also probed the depths of my refrigerator and kitchen cupboards, examining the contents and saying things like "Do you reuse your Baggies?" and "Where is your bin for (recycling) plastics? It should be right here by your trash."
Kuyawa-Dow is a waste/recycling consultant. Her visit to my place was the unofficial kickoff to my Year of Living the Green Life — or at least a greener one.
Back in the fall, my coworkers and I deemed this a year of trying to be better Earthlings. Each of us took a particular area of eco-conscious living and is attempting to make it a reality at home.
Waste reduction was my focus. My mission: Cut the amount of trash that comes out of my household.
That being: an average of 1.6 pounds a day, 11.22 pounds a week (not counting 18.36 pounds of newspapers, which I recycle, and myriad catalogs; more on the catalogs later).
Kuyawa-Dow came up with those figures after sorting my trash by category out there on the balcony and weighing it dutifully. And she assured me I'm within the norm of (and even better than) my "demographic."
That being: working professionals who live alone and don't spend a lot of time at home.
CALL US 2-POUNDERS
Our ilk can produce 2 to 2½ pounds of trash a day, says Kuyawa-Dow, who is a partner at Solid Waste Solutions Corp. in Evanston, Ill., and who normally consults with companies and corporations. She did my personal waste analysis for a small fee and in a nod to our "Living the Green Life" series. The average American family, she went on to say, can produce 4 to 6 pounds of trash a day.
But here's the kicker: I could cut my waste stream by a whopping 48 percent, she told me, and do it mainly through better recycling on my part.
What really stirred my curiosity, though, was something she said off the cuff in a conversation that started about garbage and wound its way to one of those musings on how fast and exhausting life has become.
"We're living better," said Kuyawa-Dow, "but we're living harder." Harder on ourselves. Harder on the planet.
And with that, something clicked in my head.
This was no longer just about garbage, about besting my 1.6 pounds a day and introducing myself to the recycling cans in the basement of my building. This also was about excess, about the better/harder irony.
To really cut my waste stream, I needed to change my view of garbage. I needed to consider the excess factor. Does my rubbish hold clues to excesses in my lifestyle that don't belong in a green(er) life?
DISPOSABLE SOCIETY
I started by going through my cabinets and identifying all single-use items. Things I use and toss. Things that muck up the environment. And things that keep me running back to the store for more and more.
I already had had my first epiphany along these lines.
Months earlier, I replaced my dry Swiffer mop (for my hardwood floors) with a dry mop that has a removable, machine-washable microfiber head. I bought three extra heads — and my ticket to what felt like a little bit of freedom.
I no longer shop for disposable Swiffer wipes. I don't have to haul them home. I don't have to worry about them being made from a non-woven polymer that doesn't readily biodegrade.
They had become an inconvenient convenience item in my life and a waste stream I no longer wanted to own up to.
I had similar feelings now about plastic water bottles (the disposable kind) and paper towels. I went through them with amazing speed, which kept me tethered to yet another shopping habit and yet another waste stream.
My greener solutions: a Brita water pitcher and several reusable plastic water bottles.
And: a color-coded system of kitchen cloths. The green wet rag and green dry towel are used for dishes. The yellow ones are used on counters and surfaces. I now allow myself only one roll of paper towels a week in the kitchen, which, for me, is progress.
Of course, none of this is earth-shattering stuff. But landfills are made of piles of minutia. Paper towels, tissues, napkins are a big deal, Kuyawa-Dow tells me.
"What we're finding — well not finding, it's just a fact — is that dry waste, which is your non-food items, doesn't biodegrade" in a landfill or "it will take a long time," she says. "You've got it next to a plastic bottle which is next to a license plate which is next to a coat which is next to. ... It's not all paper in its own little paper cell."
THE LIVING IS GREENER
I don't use paper napkins; cloth ones are greener.
I don't wipe the bathroom mirror with paper towels anymore, either. I switched to a cotton rag (or a microfiber cloth) and find it works better. I use another cotton rag (old, but not threadbare, cotton T-shirts work great) to wipe down the bathroom sink and counter on a daily basis, as well. All of these rags dry nicely under the sink, draped over the bottles of cleaning sprays I keep down there. I change the rags every few days.
And I use a nice, fluffy washcloth (under the soap dish) to sop up water from the counter. That gets changed daily.
It's all about systems, I discovered. If I thought about being green, I could be green.
I already had a good system in place for curbing my tendency to overbuy things like soap and toothpaste when a good sale made them irresistible.
I lined my linen closet with clear plastic storage boxes and pretty wicker baskets (aesthetics are important to me, even in closets). There is a box or basket to hold dental items, lotions and hair potions, soap, toilet paper, etc. The system allows me to see what I have in reserve and keeps it (and me) contained.
ON ANOTHER MATTER
I didn't have a good system for recycling, though.
My newspaper was the only thing I recycled faithfully — in the recycling bin right next to the garbage chute on my floor in the building. And that's largely because I (thought I) didn't have room for collecting anything else.
Like many condo/apartment dwellers, I don't have my own private garage, private basement or other stashing places.
There wasn't room under my kitchen sink (or anywhere else) for a recycling center. And the thought of having recycling bins lined up in my pretty kitchen depressed me.
My solution: I bought another small, plastic trash bin (identical to my garbage bin; sized for a single person) and squeezed it next to the garbage bin under the kitchen sink. Plastic, metal and glass recyclables go there.
And: I scattered several attractive wicker/rattan pots of various sizes in empty corners of my condo. They look pretty. And they're where I (discreetly) collect other recyclables (magazines, batteries, printer cartridges) until I'm ready to take them to their next life.
I take my aluminum/plastic/glass waste (from the bin under the kitchen sink) down to the basement, to the two big recycling cans provided there — which was always easy enough to do; it was the darn logistics of collecting the stuff that un-greened me.
Walgreens takes back the spent batteries.
Staples, Office Depot and OfficeMax take back ink and toner cartridges — and hand you a $3 store coupon for your effort. (At Office Depot, you can choose instead to get a free ream of recycled paper or to donate that $3 to charity.)
Magazines get passed to family and friends.
And much of my organic/food trash now gets sent down the garbage disposal (an appliance I previously feared) in an act of quasi-recycling.
Kuyawa-Dow said it's greener to feed the disposal than to encapsulate my food waste in a plastic garbage bag and send it to the landfill. Sent down the disposal and into the sewer line, she says, organic waste gets treated by the sanitary district and eventually turned into fertilizer.
As for my junk mail, empty cereal boxes, shoe boxes, tissue boxes, soap boxes, wrapping paper and assorted other "paper fiber" (as it's called): I recycle it with my newspaper, contrary to what I (thought I) understood the paper recycling bins in my building to be all about. Those bins had been labeled "newspapers only." It was Kuyawa-Dow who raised an eyebrow and suggested I (and anyone who's unsure of exactly what can be recycled) call the local waste hauler for clarification. In this case, that label was just plain wrong; a lot more could be recycled along with the newspapers.
Including catalogs.
I recently tossed 58 pounds of catalogs into the paper recycling bin. I had been saving them since last fall, to put an actual number to the menace.
MADNESS AND ADDICTIONS
To stop the madness: "You don't just call them and say, `Take me off your list.' You have to call and say `Take me off your list and don't give my name out to anybody,'" said Sadhu Johnston, commissioner of Chicago's Department of Environment, in an interview last year for another green story.
I told Johnston about my waste-cutting year ahead and along with the tip for shaking catalogers, he said this about starting down the path toward a greener existence: "Just wait," he said. "You will get addicted to it. You won't be able to stop."
And while I haven't started composting my food trash indoors with worms (like Johnston) or buying recyclable toothbrushes (like Johnston), there is an exciting gamesmanship to my new less waste life.
I take delight in challenging myself to reuse, recycle, conserve.
I saved a tree this past holiday season by (temporarily) repurposing my large Norfolk pine. I dressed my houseplant (which stands more than 5 feet tall in a decorative metal urn) in tiny, shiny ornaments and dark purple velvet blossoms and had myself a lovely little Christmas tree. No hassle. No waste.
Similarly, I'm plumbing the depths of my closet for "redoables" — clothes that I still like and would wear if the hemlines were changed. I have taken a handful of older skirts to my dry cleaner/seamstress, had significant inches lopped off and got myself a "new" wardrobe for about $60.
THE COST OF GREEN
Not all my green changes have been cost-cutters.
I switched to organic milk in a glass bottle, in spite of its pricier tag. Aside from being hormone-free, I actually drink all of it before it sours in my fridge (it tastes better to me). And I like the idea of taking back the glass container to its source.
I am now playing with liquid laundry detergent, keeping a score card on "all small & mighty" detergent, which comes in a much smaller bottle (less packaging) and claims to be three times as concentrated as regular detergent. It's about $2 a bottle more than my usual brand. I am testing to see if it goes that much farther.
Am I addicted?
I prefer the words lightened and enlightened. I feel both. | Only registered users can write comments.
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