Live Green

This week I collected about two dozen dead batteries from the laundry room and put them into my Whole Foods bag. I am running out of things to recycle. Looking for a bag of something to recycle each week has encouraged me to collect aggressively during the week. I guess I’ll bring in the paper from my husband’s office or the half full bag of plastic.

Inspired by my paper recycling, I set my Whole Foods bag in the kitchen and collected plastic bags for a week. It may be a spring phenomena, but as I drove around I noticed plastic bags everywhere: caught in the grass, on the trees, along the highway divider, billowing and flapping from signposts. Maybe they are always there, but masked by snow in winter and leaves in summer. I was also suddenly aware of the quantity of plastic bags that I could collect in a single week: the zucchini bag, the dry cleaning bag, the shrink wrap around the V8 cans, the empty sandwich bag and so many sources that now went into the Whole Foods bag instead of the kitchen trash bag (also plastic). Can I recycle the frozen spinach bag along with the rest? It is too much to think about. I did dropped off my collection at Whole Foods and attempted to use fewer bags. My garlic, apples and kiwi floated loose through the checkout. I reused my paper bag and was rewarded with a nickel refund. Next week I’ll recycle batteries.

I recycled two things and got a free key ring.

Our curb services accepts bound dry newspaper, but not office paper, so it’s been collecting next to the printer.

I know I could bring my own bags to Whole Foods, but I have not figured out a way to work that into my habits.

Whole Foods also has recycling bins for paper, batteries, plastic bags and more.

So, I put the used paper from the printer in a Whole Foods grocery bag. Dumped the paper at the store, saved the bag and went shopping. When I checked out, with my bag, I was handed a free key ring with a nice clip because I was customer #200 who brought a bag.

I think I’ll recycle my batteries next week.

“Every dollar I spend is a statement about the kind of world I want and the quality of life I value.”

My teenager commented that we should vote wisely since this is our influence on American Politics. I agreed and then explained that we have significant influence on American economics and global contributions every day with every purchase. We increase the trade imbalance with our purchases of clothes and toys from Asia. We support fast food with every stop at McDonald’s or Dunkin Donuts. We cut down the rain forests when we buy cheap furniture made with Brazil hardwood. We use fossil fuels when we buy grapes and berries shipped from Chile to our home in New England.
The quote is from the website “New American Dream” and it sits comfortably within my quest to live green yet not despair confronting size of the problem. We want to live in a world that values raw milk cheese, local organic produce and heirloom vegetables. We consume good leather shoes, crafted quilts, sturdy high quality pots and other goods that are designed to last. We spend our dining dollars at local restaurants and drink tap water instead of bottled water. We occasionally take the kids to movies especially for action films which are better on the big screen and we love Netflix which is the “public transportation” of the DVD market. At Christmas, we encourage the grandparents to buy games and cookbooks from our Amazon with lists instead of going to the mall. Our sturdy old couch will be reupholstered even though that will cost more than a new couch. Our lawn looks a little ratty because we don’t dump pounds of chemicals on it every month, but the weeds and the grass look the same green from a distance.
Here’s another observation. Since adopting this guideline about a year ago, our trash can is never full when we lug it to the road on Sunday night. And our household budget has gone down about 10%. And we seem just as happy, maybe happier.

Another Saturday, another birthday party and another gift to buy. This season is different. I am avoiding the noisy consumer toys in the six year old section of Target and heading to the camping section where they sell hand crank flashlights. Kids love flashlights, but they usually leave them on which means piles of used batteries. For around $12 a party, all my son’s friends are getting a toy which is fun to crank, useful to have around and does not consume batteries. It also built study, fits any size and won’t be outgrown. It is appropriate for boy or girl, and duplication is fine. And they learn about electricity.

My kids consume batteries. I stock large packages of every size in the battery drawer. To keep their gameboys running reliably, they stash batteries in the cars, in their backpacks and in their desks. Then they lose track of the battery status and race to the battery drawer for a fresh pack and dump the dubious batteries in the battery recycling box. In frustration, I bought a universal battery tester from Radio Shack for around $4. When I tested the batteries in the recycling box, I found that almost 1/3 were good batteries! Now my kids actually like testing the batteries; they are empowered to know that they are putting good batteries in their games and empty batteries in the recycling. And they also learn about electricity: sometimes the flashlight does not work because of a bad bulb, or a faulty switch. For safety, we replace the 9V in the smoke detectors every 6 months and now we confidently use the still good batteries in the metronome, which ticks a little quieter.

“Fewer bags is better”, I said to the young cashier at Target. She frowned, puzzled. I explained that my daughter is studying global warming and I was encouraged to use fewer plastic bags. She carefully packed my stuff. Then, with a genuine smile, she reported, “I fit it all into two bags”. I saved one or two bags and she might save dozens per shift.

“Fewer bags is better”, I said to the bagger at Whole Foods as she reached for a new bag for my quart of plain yogurt. She considered, then removed my arugula and bean sprouts from the half packed bag, put the yogurt on the bottom and then put the vegetables back on top. I appreciated her effort and thought to myself that in the future I can put the heavy stuff on the belt first so that packing in fewer bags is easier.

I’ve been saving up the burned out fluorescent bulbs. There is a tiny tiny sign on the package that says “contains mercury, dispose according to local guidelines”. If I’m green enough to use these bulbs, I should also avoid sending them to our local landfill which is near a fresh water marsh and the Long Island Sound. We have a free hazardous waste collection site, but it is only open in summer. A 43T comment mentioned that IKEAs have a bulb collection bin – and yes ours does! They accept both the small bulbs and the long bulbs that they don’t even sell.

Our two year old Megallan 760 Navagator is lovingly called “Megella”. Megalla recently turned off when we went over bumps and since she does not have a battery, she would have to reinitialize which required several minutes. The problem became so bad that the unit was no longer useful. I reviewed the components and concluded that the cradle connector was probably broken. For three days there were two items in my Amazon shopping cart: a replacement cradle for $32 and a Megallan 800 with a battery, MP3 player and up to date maps for $124 (reduced from $800). We also considered the fancier units with larger screens and even better maps for $300. This was a test of my Live Green thing. I bought the cradle. Megalla is navigating once more.
We have been programmed by our consumer society to think that we must replace instead of repair. Especially electronics. We have even come to replace functional equipment. I’ve recently said “NO” to “New Every Two” when my Verizon phone reached 22 months (their version of 2 years). And I’ve repaired my car, adopted ice skates from my neighbor and borrowed party supplies from my boss. And I’ve set the broken cradle in the basement for the next electronics day at the local hazardous waste center.

Today I ran on the YMCA treadmill while my son took a 45 minute swim lesson. The nearest YMCA is 11 miles from home so how can this be ‘Green’? Here is my logic: the local gym or YMCA is the public transportation of the exercise industry. 3 of our neighbors have installed in ground pools in the past 4 years which are used by slightly more than 1 family for slightly more than 1 season per year. The cost in money and carbon of a 22 mile round trip drive nothing compared to the installation and maintenance of a pool for a single family dwelling. I’m a little less sure about the treadmill, but our New England winters prohibit most outdoor fitness and the cost of manufacturing, transporting and eventually disposing personal use fitness equipment must exceed YMCA trips. My daughter’s school passed out “10 ways to be green” that included all of the obvious (turn off the lights when you leave a room, take shorter showers), but the larger consumption habits (buy a house without a pool, use the YMCA treadmill) must be considered her parents.