Going Green

It is that time of year in our community where we have heavy trash pick-up days. A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook that she is amazed at all the people who come by in pickup trucks scouting out other people's trash to glean items that have been deemed trash. Her post got me thinking. Have we ever stopped to wonder where all that "heavy trash" goes? I know that I certainly haven't. Just last weekend they came to my house and hauled away an old console TV and 2 broken microwaves. Did I worry about what they were going to do with them? No. I was just glad to get rid of them because they were taking up space in my house and garage. They were trash to me. However, an old saying came to my mind when I read my friend's post: "One man's trash is another man's treasure." If people can find use for my "trash", then isn't that a better solution than handing it off to the city to deal with?

Growing up we always used to poke fun at what we dubbed "tree huggers". I saw them as radical and liberal. But as I've gotten older, I am finding myself agreeing more and more with those who are worried about what our carbon footprint will be. I am realizing that caring for the environment is not just for tree-hugging liberals. Don't misunderstand me, it is not that I never cared for it before, I was just too busy and self-absorbed in my own pursuits to pay attention to it.

My generation has such a throw-away mentality. When something breaks, we throw it away and buy a new one. In some respects, we can blame manufacturers for this dilemma. There are many products that have become less expensive to replace that to repair. One example of this is the printer industry. Many printer manufacturers have made the cost of their ink cartridges so expensive that, oftentimes, it is just as cheap to buy a new printer as it is to replace the ink cartridge. Another example is the razor industry. The cost of buying replacement blades is so high that it is more economical to use a coupon and buy a new razor that comes with an extra blade than to buy replacement blades for the one you already have. Our family has experienced both of these situations. Manufacturer's have intentionally designed their products to be this way so they can sell more product. They control the supply of replacement parts with patents and then charge exorbitant prices for the parts.

While it is easy to blame manufacturers for our growing waste problem, there are steps we (as consumers) can take to ease the growing problem of waste. Now, if you are like I used to be you probably don't stay awake at night worrying about where your trash is going and whether we will run out of places to put it someday. I am becoming more "green" the older I get. The reduce, reuse, recycle mantra is becoming part of my lifestyle. I pay my trash company to haul away and process my recyclables. I use cloth bags for my groceries. I have glass water bottles that I wash and use over and over for water on the go. There are many other ways I am trying to be less wasteful.

Why do I do it? The answer is simple. It all boils down to stewardship. We were given this earth and all of the resources we have. It doesn't belong to us. It belongs to the creator. He has given it to us to use and manage. I Chronicles 29:11 says everything in heaven and earth belongs to God. I want to be a good steward of the resources I have been given so they will be there to sustain life in the future.

Even with all of the changes I am making in my lifestyle, I know there are still more things I can be doing to be a better steward. It is becoming increasingly easier to recycle. However, I need to pay more attention to reducing and reusing. My parents' and grandparents' generation understood this better than my own. My mother-in-law reuses plastic packaging instead of buying expensive containers such as Rubbermaid and Tupperware. I could cite many examples of reusing that I have witnessed. Some are more sanitary than others.

I would submit that we could add a fourth item to the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" slogan: "Repair". How many items do we throw away out of convenience. We've adopted the "Replace" mentality. Who has time to figure out how to fix things, right? In some cases, this is true. Some items require more knowledge than we have to repair them on our own and hiring someone with that knowledge set costs too much. Or perhaps the part to replace it costs too much as I mentioned earlier. However, if we take a little time and elbow grease, there are many items we throw out that could be repaired.

For example, I have a sliding screen door off of my kitchen that has been replaced 3 times since we have owned our home. They always end up getting torn up and coming off the tracks. Eventually they get thrown out and a new one is purchased. Recently, while my father-in-law was visiting he saw the broken down screen with it's loose screening and inability to stay on the track and slide properly and figured out a better design for it. With four L brackets and some effort, my screen door was re-screened and made new and improved. It slides on the track like no other one we have had. And to think I had written it off as destined for the trash heap!

There are still extremes out there that I poke fun at. A couple of years ago Sheryl Crow made this statement:

"Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required."

While I applaud her efforts to make people more aware of our environment, I would be a little leery about shaking her hand, if you know what I mean. As I said earlier, some solutions are more sanitary than others.

I look forward to hearing your feedback on this topic.