Being Green

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

(snip)

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment f
or future generations."


(snip)

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were truely recycled.

(snip)

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

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There's several other pertinent examples in the piece. Just enjoyed it, myself, as it brought back a ton of memories of a somewhat simpler time.

First thing I did when I bought my house (nearly fifty years ago) was put in an organic garden. Working that garden keeps me fit and healthy. I don't own a microwave or any of the new super-duper kitchen appliances.

I still mow my lawn with a reel mower, and edge with a human powered edger.

I've never used pesticides or herbicides.

I reuse or recycle everything possible.

When I have to drive, it's in a 23 year old car that gets better mpg than most new ones.

I still use a clothesline for a good deal of my laundry.

I do, however, have indoor plumbing.

It touched base with me in several ways also. I wonder why we (as a society) don't return to some of those much more efficient practices.

my daughter has started her own organic garden, and has been requesting info on other "old timer" ways. This summer she put in her own clothesline (she loves the way her sheets smell after drying in the sun). So, I believe there is some hope.

the car-heavy suburbs as soon as they could. The kind of lifestyle my grandmothers lived to provide for their families is completely alienated from what I do. My great-grandmothers would think I was an idiot if I didn't use my washing machine and instead taught my 9-year-old how to use a wringer. I think there is a lot of discussion to be had about living this kind of lifestyle by necessity and having the privilege to choose this kind of lifestyle.

...as a rebuke to the misguided, snotty, "green" people of his generation. I suppose it's his excuse for refusing to believe in global warming or the importance of placing ecological considerations at the center of our society's decisions, but to me, it makes a point that is unnecessary. Most committed environmentalists are well aware that people in the past were much more frugal with their resources, as a matter of necessity. Many of us actively seek the knowledge and skills of older people as we try to reduce our resource use.

However, I also know several superficially "green" people who think that compact fluorescent bulbs and reusable shopping bags and priuses are going to get us out of the situation we're in, when the reality is they don't even scratch the surface of the fundamental reorganization our society needs to undergo to get to something that is sane, rather than suicidal...so perhaps this story could be useful to them.

... well ok, but I don't have any radical right wing friends, so perhaps I simply saw it from a different perspective. I do understand where you are coming from, however. Thanks for your thoughts.

It indicts the people who believe in doing nothing as much as it indicts the people who have a superficial understanding of what needs to be done. But to him, it was just a swipe at us contemptible environmentalists.

He served well in the military and was generally a decent guy in high school...and he has never gotten directly political with me at all...so I maintain a facebook friendship with him. But I don't understand his politics at all...

broke, and also designed not to break quickly. Repair shops were businesses that could support people.

I started to notice the move to things that *couldn't* be repaired/couldn't be repaired any cheaper than buying a new one in the 70s, as well as the move to disposables (razors, etc.).

Along with an increase in the amount of home garbage, higher volume of absolute junk in thrift stores, higher volume of clothing people had/threw away, etc. More packaging as well (I remember buying things that were actually packed in shredded newspapers from *stores*).

Gives the appearance of having more, but so much of it is just low-quality crap.

But lots of low-quality crap v. fewer high-quality, repairable goods is a more profitable business model.

This is why I don't give much creedence to talk of 'the environment' from the folks on high: THEY are primarily responsible for design of this wasteful economy.