No impact

I watched an interesting documentary this weekend, called "No Impact Man."  If you subscribe to Netflix, you can watch it on your computer. You can also read Colin Beavan's blog here.

In a nutshell, Manhattan writer Colin Beavan, doing research for a book, decides to eliminate his personal impact on the environment for one year, dragging his wife and two-year-old daughter along for the ride. It means buying only local food, turning off the electricity, no television, no elevators, no cars, busses, or airplanes, no toxic cleaning products, no material consumption, and no garbage.

It is a fascinating look at how much we take for granted in our lifestyles that are out of step with about 75% of the people on this planet.  How much stuff do we actually need, and what is each of us personally willing to change to lessen our impact on the environment?  Do we even know what choices are available to us, or do we just go with the flow?


Obviously, most people are not going to wake up one morning and begin a radical lifestyle change.  Change is painful and undertaken in painfully slow baby steps. Even when that change is extremely beneficial--like exercise. It hurts when you start. You have to force yourself to keep doing it until you get the rust out and start to believe that maybe those muscles really do work after all. Eventually, you feel so great that you wonder why you didn't start doing this years ago.


I realize that I am still a neophyte in my quest for sustainability. We are enjoying the local food choices available to us, but do I really want to give up coffee and chocolate?  I can reduce my electricity use, but would I ever voluntarily turn it off altogether? I got over my retail addiction years ago, and enjoy treasure hunting for secondhand whatever-I-need at thrift stores, garage sales, ebay, craigslist.  (And I am finding that what I "need" at this point in my life is actually very little.) We recycle lots, but still...we are sending too much to the landfill.

Landfills are bad. Why are they bad? Well, all that garbage packed tightly together in a sealed space takes an awfully long time to decompose, so we can't make it disappear fast enough for the rate at which we are producing it.  And while it is decomposing, it emits a lot of methane gas, which has a much more harmful impact on the environment than carbon dioxide.  (Plus, a lot of the stuff we are putting into those landfills, like plastics, will not decompose in many lifetimes.)


So how do we make less garbage?  

First of all, by bringing less of it into our households to begin with. How much packaging does an item need?  At one end, this is a design problem on the part of the producer. At the other, it is a consumer choice. How do we send a message to the producers that we don't want all that packaging? Don't buy it.  Choose to buy things that are minimally packaged--unwrapped produce, items packaged in paper, which can be composted--or things which can be dispensed into reusable containers (items from bulk bins).  Say no to plastic bags--carry your own reusable bags.


Recycling is important, but there's too much plastic in the system and it doesn't recycle very well and ultimately ends up as garbage--so avoid buying it in the first place. 


Compost food scraps: if done correctly (google it,  it's not rocket science) there is no unpleasant odor and you end up with rich fertilizer for your garden (or your neighbor's), much better than going to Home Depot and buying it in a bag from somewhere else. 


Before you even consider throwing something out, consider how it might be reused or repurposed, either by yourself or by somebody else.  Jobs can actually be created when trash is reconsidered  as resource--whether for recycling, crafting, or secondhand use. Buffalo ReUse has built a business around green demolition and resale of building materials.  Broken items can be repaired. Things that are unwanted might be just what someone else is looking for. Give them the opportunity to make that decision before you send it off to the landfill.


So many little things we can do and most of it isn't even painful.