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lynnvinc
Guest
I hope people are paying attention.
If waste could be reduced, then a host of problems could be mitigated, including environmental problems and world hunger, etc.
One thing we have to look at aside from our own household and individual waste habits is the “wasteberg,” the much much larger amount of waste that happens “upstream” in the process of extracting resources, processing, manufacturing, shipping and selling of various products. Which makes “reduce” all the more important as a first principle, followed by “reuse” and “recycle.”
Finally, reducing waste not only helps prevent harms to other people and others of Gods creation, but saves us money.
Here’s something I just came across today: “Plastic Bags Litter Seafloor” – A new survey reveals that trash from our activities on land litters the bottom of the ocean, from shallow to deep. See scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=plastic-bags-litter-seafloor-13-06-09&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Solution: take reusable bags when shopping. Since I often forget, I keep a few scrunched down plastic bags in my purse, as well as my “ChicoBag” (made out of ? nylon or some strong fabric). I also keep some reusuable bags with other bags inside in the car backseat (which I then often forget to take into the store).
Reducing waste is actually more difficult that it seems.
If waste could be reduced, then a host of problems could be mitigated, including environmental problems and world hunger, etc.
One thing we have to look at aside from our own household and individual waste habits is the “wasteberg,” the much much larger amount of waste that happens “upstream” in the process of extracting resources, processing, manufacturing, shipping and selling of various products. Which makes “reduce” all the more important as a first principle, followed by “reuse” and “recycle.”
Finally, reducing waste not only helps prevent harms to other people and others of Gods creation, but saves us money.
Here’s something I just came across today: “Plastic Bags Litter Seafloor” – A new survey reveals that trash from our activities on land litters the bottom of the ocean, from shallow to deep. See scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=plastic-bags-litter-seafloor-13-06-09&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Solution: take reusable bags when shopping. Since I often forget, I keep a few scrunched down plastic bags in my purse, as well as my “ChicoBag” (made out of ? nylon or some strong fabric). I also keep some reusuable bags with other bags inside in the car backseat (which I then often forget to take into the store).
Reducing waste is actually more difficult that it seems.
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manualman
Guest
We certainly do have a disposable culture, don’t we? Fast food alone makes an unbelievable amount of trash. And landfills will be there for centuries once filled. What a fine use of otherwise productive land, eh?
Rather than doing feel-good things like consuming the same way everybody else does but bringing your own shopping bags, I encourage people to try to alter the disposable mindset. Weed whacker broke? Yeah the new ignition part is $60 when a brand new tool is just $100, but if it’s in otherwise good shape why junk the old one? If it’s beyond hope, perhaps find a guy who rehabs them on Craigslist, buy a working one from him and give him the old one for spare parts.
An awful lot of things that we assume we need to buy new can be had much cheaper on the used market. And with the internet, it’s never been easier to find what you need used. If you’re handy and can repair things yourself, it’s an even better way to save money and reduce our culture’s waste.
Same goes for cars. Which is better: leasing a new Prius for three years (with associated disinterested maintenance) or maintaining your old Corolla in pristine condition so it lasts 20 years reliably? The latter, hands down. Yet it’s not what you see parked at “green” conferences, is it? (In fairness, you actually do, but you see a lot more “consumer green” (i.e. Prius) vehicles there than you do in the general population).
In the end, conserving isn’t trendy or sexy. It means making do with what you have when you can. Poverty is probably really good practice for this!
Rather than doing feel-good things like consuming the same way everybody else does but bringing your own shopping bags, I encourage people to try to alter the disposable mindset. Weed whacker broke? Yeah the new ignition part is $60 when a brand new tool is just $100, but if it’s in otherwise good shape why junk the old one? If it’s beyond hope, perhaps find a guy who rehabs them on Craigslist, buy a working one from him and give him the old one for spare parts.
An awful lot of things that we assume we need to buy new can be had much cheaper on the used market. And with the internet, it’s never been easier to find what you need used. If you’re handy and can repair things yourself, it’s an even better way to save money and reduce our culture’s waste.
Same goes for cars. Which is better: leasing a new Prius for three years (with associated disinterested maintenance) or maintaining your old Corolla in pristine condition so it lasts 20 years reliably? The latter, hands down. Yet it’s not what you see parked at “green” conferences, is it? (In fairness, you actually do, but you see a lot more “consumer green” (i.e. Prius) vehicles there than you do in the general population).
In the end, conserving isn’t trendy or sexy. It means making do with what you have when you can. Poverty is probably really good practice for this!
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lynnvinc
Guest
You have excellent points. We need to fix and repair. I felt so bad when our printer went out and I called to have it repaired, and they said it would cost $150, strongly suggesting I buy a new one at $70 that is more advanced than the broken one. (We did the latter, but still have the old one, waiting to be recycled).
But my husband insisted on fixing the weed-whacker, which he did; and I’m ashamed to say I told him to get a new one…since the broken on had been in the garage for 6 months unrepaired, and we really really needed it. Also, repairing things is a wonderful way to feel good about oneself. I think men especially need that opportunity.
RE cars, we did wait until our 1998 Taurus clonker was leaking all over, and would cost us double or triple its worth to repair – then sold it to a guy who can repair it himself. I had been waiting for decades for my electric car (something we could plug into our wind (soon to include solar) power, so not a Prius), getting by with used cars that someone drives for the first 80,000 miles, then we drive the next 40,000 miles or so, then get another old car.
This time, however, we sprung for a Chevy Volt, as our last car. We thought it was a splurg – hubby even got the Bose sound system and I got the rearview camera and crash alert – but come to find out we are saving a lot of money on running it, and it will pay for the difference btw the car he wanted (another Taurus) within 6.5 years, and go on to save, even tho we only drive about 6,000 miles a year.
However, for those with time, there are EV clubs across America that help people do conversions. I had thought of joining the Fox Valley EV Assoc that meets at College of DuPage some 20 years ago, but never had the time. They did, however, let me drive a 1976 Corolla converted to an EV around the quad during a campus Earth Day in 1992 – it was like stepping on a sewing machine peddal
. What they do is either buy a used car with the engine blown, or sell the good engine, then do the conversion. Apparently it is not too hard. When I asked if a lady could do it, they told me that a postal worker in their club who had never held a screwdriver in his life had made a successful conversion.The best part of EVs is the maintenance is very low and cheap – which is the main reason the auto companies were against them – so that’s another way to reduce waste
However, it is still good to take one’s own bags shopping and other small things – the little way of environmental healing – offering it up to God and His kingdom.
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Country_Gal
Guest
I agree it’s a big problem. A big cause is a lack of time. No one has the time to be frugal anymore. It’s all rush, rush, rush, and I think that makes us more wasteful.
I think we had less waste when women were homemakers and families lived on one income. Women cooked from scratch instead of stopping for fast food on the way home from work.
I think we had less waste when women were homemakers and families lived on one income. Women cooked from scratch instead of stopping for fast food on the way home from work.
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lynnvinc
Guest
You are so extremely right. In fact our economic indicator, GDP, misses this – so they say we are better off today than 50 or 60 years ago, which is true, but we don’t really feel we are as better off as they say.
I remember my mother would stitch nearly all our clothes and even knitted socks for dad. And grandma put up guava jam from the 2 guava trees in the back, and she saved string and was very frugal. Other women had vegetable gardens and made complete meals, while we tend to rely more heavily on ready-made meals (in lots of packaging) or eating out. Housewives would do all the housework, so the husbands would then have time to build that extra room for the new baby, etc., instead of wash the dishes and vacume. Or time to repair the car, rather than take it into the repair shop.
However none of this non-paid work (productivity) gets figured into the GDP, since the GDP only includes products and services involving financial transactions.
So the upshot is we really are working more and longer hours and harder, for not that much more stuff. Of course there is more junk to buy that didn’t even exist back then, so part of that extra work is for that extra junk. But part of it is that we’ve shifted more and more to a “monetized” economy (where paid work counts, but not unpaid work), and the GDP calculation hides the good amount of productivity back in the less monetized days of the 50s and before.
So working harder at paid work and having all that extra money, throwaways and waste become expedient and easy.
The distinction between housewife and working woman is really a hoot, and goes along with this false sense of greatly increased productivity in current times the GDP somewhat falsely indicates.
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Country_Gal
Guest
Excellent points, Lynn. So true what you say about the GNP and unpaid work being ignored.
I don’t think families are better off today. There is a higher level of societal expectations and is literally driving women into the workforce and making it difficult economically to have more than 2 or 3 children. Instead of playing simple games with neighbor kids, parents are expected enroll in in supervised activities, pay for those activities, and drive them there. All this extracting time and money from hard pressed families. Mom gets no exercise, and everyone gets junkfood on the way home before there’s a meltdown in the car. The car is littered with wrappers and leftovers, and everyone arrives home stressed and tired, turns on the TV, the video games, the computers and gets fatter.
I don’t think families are better off today. There is a higher level of societal expectations and is literally driving women into the workforce and making it difficult economically to have more than 2 or 3 children. Instead of playing simple games with neighbor kids, parents are expected enroll in in supervised activities, pay for those activities, and drive them there. All this extracting time and money from hard pressed families. Mom gets no exercise, and everyone gets junkfood on the way home before there’s a meltdown in the car. The car is littered with wrappers and leftovers, and everyone arrives home stressed and tired, turns on the TV, the video games, the computers and gets fatter.
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lynnvinc
Guest
That well describes the situation.
We are “better off” only in regards to the plethora of material things we have now that they didn’t have back then (certainly not better off spiritually or in many other ways).
I even remember making a lot of my own toys (I was born in 1947), and was amazed at the amount of toys on the market and toys my brothers (b. 1953 & 1956) had some 6 to 9 years later. It was already starting back then (things taking over our lives). One can question whether it is better for kids to make their own toys and amusements, or get them ready-made.
We are working harder now, partly for all the new necessities, like computers, etc., and partly bec the middle class and lower are not really richer in terms of purchasing power, but they “need” a lot more tody. It’s sort of like stuff is our boss. And the housewife has become “supermom” – doing the housework AND outside work.
Plus this desire for more and more has increased the crime problems, so now things have to be packaged in theft-proof packing, and people have to drive their kids to school, probably contributing to health problems at the school and for the kids (one would not want to breathe in the air where 25 cars engines are running).
I remember walking at least a mile to kindergarden with a group of neighbor kids. I remember one day taking a “short-cut” home (actually long-cut, and we got a bit lost) thru a rich neighborhood up the hill. The houses were huge, 2-story, with huge garages. We kids guessed this must be where the giants live. We finally got enough courage to look into a window on a garage…and it was just a regular-sized housewife working on some project.
Nowadays the middle class lives in those rich people’s houses, and when I saw our 2-bedroom first house after 50 years, it seems so extremely tiny. Maybe that’s where the dwarfs live.
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Country_Gal
Guest
How very true! The average square footage of homes has increased in the last 50 years. All that wastes resources, requires two incomes, and those houses are a mess because of how little time people have to spend in them, with the family members always on the way somewhere else, and no full time homemaker around.
I just bought a nice country place on 2 acres. The house was built in 1940, is 1600 sq ft, and has (shocker) only one bathroom.
All the bedrooms are roomy, living room huge, bathroom huge. When that house was built, children routinely shared rooms, and indoor plumbing was relatively newer. I think they added on the attached garage at a later date.
My point being, our society has raised the standard of living to an unsustainable level. Our lifestyle is based on consumption. Middle class families are such consumers, giving iPhones to kids, buying them cars, the list goes on and on,
I just bought a nice country place on 2 acres. The house was built in 1940, is 1600 sq ft, and has (shocker) only one bathroom.
All the bedrooms are roomy, living room huge, bathroom huge. When that house was built, children routinely shared rooms, and indoor plumbing was relatively newer. I think they added on the attached garage at a later date.My point being, our society has raised the standard of living to an unsustainable level. Our lifestyle is based on consumption. Middle class families are such consumers, giving iPhones to kids, buying them cars, the list goes on and on,
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lynnvinc
Guest
I have started a new thread based on this thread of the Pope condemning the “culture of waste” – “Any suggestions for Pope Francis’s Waste Not Club?” at forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=795929
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Captain_America
Guest
Country Gal: in my book, your comments get five stars.
E
epan
Guest
This pope is like a waves of sweet fresh air. I hope that this is the radical sea change that it appears to be. I would bet that he would know how to handle the challenging issues which perplexed his predecessor.
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Country_Gal
Guest
I’m glad someone around here appreciates my thoughts. I was starting to feel like a stranger in a strange land.Country Gal: in my book, your comments get five stars.
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