Sustainability Project

http://www.converse.edu/news-article/2013/08/artist-turns-consumer-waste-fine-art

I’m inspired this rainy December morning by a lady in London who has decided to go a year without buying anything except groceries for food and paying her housing and utility bills. She is giving up her coffee out, meals out, motorized transportation, tickets to events, vacations, and “trips to the cinema”. I’d love to track her year to see how she is doing throughout. I hope she will be reporting periodically on the process. Nonetheless, her article has fertilized many micro-ideas in my brain.

In light of the Paris climate action talks, and the season of consumerism, I’d like to do an experiment. While Ms. McGagh’s project seems to be more about saving money, I would like to do a similar project geared towards reducing wasteful consumption. This world is chock full of STUFF! Honestly I don’t think the world needs to produce all of this stuff at the rate that is does. To get a perspective on the sheer amount of stuff in the world, take a look at Chris Jordan’s photographs. In an effort to evoke emotion towards mass consumption and invite people to connect with the issue, photographer, Chris Jordan, snaps profound photos that illustrate mass consumption in America. These are really thought provoking and lend to the activity of changing one's thought process towards consumption. The items in his photos represent only a very small portion of items in the world. Also, these photos represent the organized disposal of things. Many things get disposed of in quite disorganized ways, such as ending up the massive ocean gyres I wrote about previously.

My project entails reducing the amount of things my family and I consume. I’d like to learn and teach ways that anyone can help reduce needless mass manufacturing of gizmos and doodads. I figure there is enough stuff in the world as well as my own community that we can purchase or otherwise obtain needed items second hand. Perhaps we can make more things ourselves, repair rather than replace, or simply do without. I realize the holiday season is an ambitious time to start this type of endeavor but what better time to really get in there, get your hands dirty, and learn some stuff about this than a time that promotes excessive consumption? Over the next year I foresee some challenges to this operation. Holiday gift giving for one. Second, we may be facing a PCS move this coming summer and we all know that these moves frequently require purchasing of new items to fit into the new place. And third, anyone with children knows that kids frequently need things like clothing and items for school, sports, and other activities. Kids also want a lot of things. So I hope to manage these events as they occur and let you all know how it’s going. I’ll start with a few guiding principles:

1. Reduce what we have. It’s true that we donated at least half of our belongings 2 and a half years ago when we moved into a much smaller house than we came from, but I still see things around the house that we really could do without. I have a perpetual paper bag in the kitchen shelf that is dedicated to items to be donated. As the bag fills up it goes to the Goodwill bin at Safeway around the corner. The goal is to reduce the occurrence of fill ups because we are purchasing less stuff and making what we do have and use last longer.
2. Use what we have. Even with the minimization of belongings during our last PCS move we still have a large shelf full of unused items in the basement storage room that we lovingly refer to as the “dungeon.” It’s time to decide how these wonderful items can gain a new, more useful life. Decorative items can be gifted. (sorry, but, yes I do occasionally regift. I also enjoy and appreciate a regift that I can use. It’s a great way to minimize consumption and save money. It really is the thought that counts!) Glass jars can be turned into food storage containers, drinking glasses, or useful items.
3. Recycle. In that dungeon, we have several old and very outdated electronic devices. These need to be recycled responsibly. (This will be another blog post.) Plastic, paper, metals, food scraps, and yard waste can all be recycled as well.
4. If an item is needed, seek first to obtain it second hand. There are several ways to go about doing this. Borrow, thrift shops, hand-me-downs, etc. You get the idea.
5. Keep an open dialog about waste management in our home, our community, and the world.

The idea is to get in the habit of thinking environmentally and fitting this thought process into our current lifestyle. I’m not out to live a life deprived of modern, first world, western culture amenities. For example I still think the best way to show people you are thinking about them during the holidays is to send cards via snail mail. I may change the way I obtain the card to be more environmentally friendly but mailing it will require the use of fossil fuels. (hopefully not for long! also, another post. Stay tuned!) I hope that one outcome of this type of lifestyle will be more money in our pockets and bank accounts to spend on activities, experiences, education, and worthwhile causes.

Next Post: “A More Sustainable Holiday”