Yes, I vote, every election. That event where you mark your preferences, if you can find them, then watch your number get counted on TV among the millions of others, make snarky remarks about how you wish the counting was awareness-weighted, then either celebrate or cry depending on the results. That important, yet forlorn, way of expressing an opinion and being counted.
Lately, I’ve been trying to figure out the best ways to vote in a meaningful way on the other 364.25 days. Lots of ideas and none of them are news, but the question is – really – what will matter and what will my family and I sustain? Join the chorus howling at the moon over tax rate legislation? I doubt my notes on it would move the needle, clearly this role is being ably filled. While I do think that tax rates matter and the recently proposed legislation is a terrible step backward, I can’t help but have the feeling that it’s just another bright shiny object that wants to divert all of us. Tax rate this or tax rate that, other factors will eventually save or doom us.
So, how does a pretty much regular, historically non-activist family learn to live democracy and sustainability instead of just thinking about it?
Stuff. Stuff in and stuff out. It’s a river. An amazing quantity and variety of stuff, from anywhere and everywhere, it comes in here, stays a while, then leaves, sometimes of its own accord and sometimes requiring a good push. When we moved across the country in 2005, we (2 so-called adults and one child) had 4.5 tons of stuff, all the way down to the four tubes of toothpaste that for some reason we had. I know the amount because I paid by the ton.
It is the stuff, and intangibles like finance that relate to the stuff, that I think is the heart of the matter. I want to find ways to enjoy more through less stuff. I want to get my stuff from people who do no harm, or maybe even do something net good. When I’m done with it, I want my stuff to go to someone who needs it, or get recycled. I want the pollutant emissions (not just CO2, you know) caused by my family to be as low as possible.
I don’t mind working for it, and I don't even mind paying extra sometimes, but it has to be practical. My family and I still need to keep doing do the good things we do. Okay to smart trips, but not to stopping trips to places we want to go. I hate Kolrabi and I’m not going to eat any of it, even if it does grow locally. We’re still going to heat our home. But we can vote in our way, and we can tell others what we found that works, and encourage them to vote as well.
From a naïve and simplistic expression of good intent, we start. We need to figure out how, and then not be lazy and actually do it.
An obvious place to look is the outbound stuff. We do the typical recycling and we have for years. It’s not like that even counts any more. But, we could do better. I started looking at what was in the trash and the first thing I noticed was how much of the trash was what I call partial paper. You don’t exactly think of it as paper, but there’s lot of paper in it. While of course the box is paper, the packaging inside the box is also some version of paper or cardboard. Often you have to peel away a layer of plastic-like substance. What’s left is paper, and it’s recyclable. Then there’s stuff that’s paper but for some reason you don’t think of recycling it – think used TP rolls. By itself, paper-scarfing reduced our trash volume by about 15%.
The compost heap, about a year old now, is kind of a running joke. Every so often my wife sweetly asks if we will ever get any compost out of it, you know, to grow plants. I say that the plants are growing fine. Meanwhile the veggie scraps go there instead of the trash, it’s a good thing.
The next frontier for us is to figure out plastic better. Bottles, sure, they go in the regular recycle. But why in the world is it limited to bottles? Packaging, the part that is not paper, is plastic. We get insane quantities of it, and it doesn’t qualify for regular recycling. Finally I got the initiative to inquire why, and the answer is that you can drop off pretty much any plastic that is not bottles at the recycle center – but you have to pay. And that just chaps my butt. Pay? To recycle stuff you could throw in the trash for no marginal cost? Grumble grumble. Okay, I am going to bite the bullet and start doing it. A big tip they gave is that since they charge by volume, if you compact the stuff as much as possible, you don’t have to pay much.
A little more convenient because it’s curbside, but also not free, is what in Bellingham they call FoodPlus recycling. The list of pretty much nasty food-related stuff you can put into FoodPlus is pretty amazing. Bite the bullet one more time, we are now signed up.
There is plenty more to do. I see how "trash" may soon be defined as stuff that is too mixed up to qualify for recycling under one of the neat categories. Then the question will become what level of effort is worth it to deconstruct the objects into their recyclable components. Anyway, here is the bottom line goal: Within 90 days, we will put out better than 50% less trash each week than we did before. [I am ignoring the whole donate/reuse/sellcheap cycle, which we are also acting on]
The outgoing stuff is just one part of the story, and probably a lot less significant and much less complicated than the upstream question – obtaining new stuff that does less harm. That’s a totally new topic for us, and a topic for another day. A third leg of the stool is financial choices, which I think I can prove are just as meaningful as, or at least comparable to, choices relating to physical stuff in and stuff out. Again another day.
I hope this measures up as a useful first Kos contribution. If you read this and are inspired to do more of this kind of voting in your home, I hope you’ll let me know. Thanks!