My second internship during college, one of my projects was to plan activities for Earth Day. 1990 marked the 20th anniversary of the “first” Earth Day (please refrain from calculating my age), and there was a massive international grassroots effort to raise awareness of recycling and environmental education. I was directing educational programs for a congregation in South Bend, IN, and trying to organize a day of activities for children, youth and families. It was actually my first encounter with the idea of recycling and the first opportunity to practice recycling beyond saving aluminum cans for occasional drives.
Planning that event and my time in college shifted my own personal behavior and the culture of my family. With the birth of my second child last month, my household is now up to three adults, two children in diapers, and frequent visits from my sister’s fiancé. Yesterday I called the city about upsizing to the larger trash can size. I am fairly proud that we do enough recycling in our household to minimize our trash significantly. Most of the credit goes to my mother who in her lifetime has gone from never hearing the word recycling to taking biweekly trips to the bins. My two year old loves to help put things in our containers and she was delighted to see one of the flatbed trucks pick up the huge blue bins over by Kroger. She will grow up with a completely different culture about using less and reusing.
There are some hard choices and some easy choices for me—as green has become trendier it becomes more convenient. Do you toss the peanut butter jar or recycle it? It takes a lot of water and some good soap to get the jar clean enough. It is easy to reuse the “backsides” of paper in the office, as long as you don’t distribute something confidential by accident. At least the kids have plenty of coloring paper when they visit. Diapers were a big conversation in my house. Disposable diapers are creating material for the land fill, but others say it takes as much detergents to clean cloth that it’s a toss-up. I tried cloth and to be honest baby clothes didn’t fit too well over them and it didn’t work for my family. I wish we had a diaper service in Lynchburg. I get much less junk mail and catalogues than I used to and I get electronic bills whenever possible. I pay bills and even my church pledge online. (The church still gives me envelopes every year, but I am working with them!) I confess that I am still bad about bottled water. I am joining my first CSA this summer since I have new friends who run an organic farm in Pamplin (check out Frog Bottom Farm if you get a chance—it would be a great place for an internship). I replaced my water heater last year and did some looking into a solar unit. I would have had to do massive renovations to use one, but the units are available and you can research them, so the culture is shifting even if I couldn’t make it work. There are so many small changes I could still make.
So, as we near Earth Day this year, I want to encourage you to do the trendy green things like recycling and carrying your own mug. Take your own shopping bags to the store. Maybe this year you can take on one more small habit or maybe this year you will start to transform your family’s or your individual culture about “things” and what you really need. I am carrying my reusable water bottle with me today.
Blessings,
Stephanie