I am volunteering for the local rodeo this year (its my first time) and I’m pretty excited. Last night, while helping others build a fence around what will be a parking lot, someone brought us over a case of bottled water (it helped, it was almost 90 degrees). I looked over and saw a small trailer with at least 4-5 cubic feet of bottles on it (this is a big rodeo). I opened mine, sat down and started reading the label. The label pointed out some nice design changes they call “eco-shape”, which include a bottle made from lighter plastic for easy recycling, a smaller label that uses less trees to make the paper, and a smaller cap that uses less plastic as well. They tout all these as being “good for the environment”
And they are, in a sense. Yes, using less paper and plastic is a good thing for the environment. It will help our resources last longer, less pollution, blah, blah, blah. The problems that I have with this are:
- They are not getting to the root of the problem
- People are buying it
The root of the problem is…
Consumption. Plain and simple. Instead of carrying around a water bottle (to save money or for your health), they want you to buy theirs. It”s ok though, because they’ve done all they can to minimize the impact of the bottle, except ask you to get a re-fillable bottle that will end up in a landfill once every 3-5 years (just a guess) instead of after a few uses (at the most). To get people to stop thinking about the fact that you’re still wasting things, they just design/sell eco-friendly bottles that you can still throw away. Everyone wins! You get your water from a bottle and they get your money.
However, in typical american fashion, the real issue (using a crap-ton) of resources is more or less ignored, but some short and medium term issues are brought up (and resolved). For the short and medium term, it’s still ok to buy and drink the water bottle and it’s actually good for the environment because it’s made with less plastic. So instead of using a crap-ton of resources, we are now using .94 of a crap-ton of resources (which according to the ICUWOM – the International Committee for Unstandardized Weights and Odd Measures – a sister institute of the ICWM is exactly 1 butt-load), and consumption can now resume its break-neck pace unabated because we are considering the environment when buying this water — Just look at the package — it says its good!
Everyday, we (the american consumer) fall for this nonsense. We go on thinking that we are doing right by the environment as we guzzle water from 1 time use bottles that are made from thinner, more earth friendly plastic so it’s ok. It’s not. According to the Food and Water Watch we are using 47 million gallons of oil to produce this plastic, and 1.5 million tons of waste. Couple this with the fact that 2 of the largest bottled waters (Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani) are just filtered municipal water, we are putting a lot of resources into making (and moving) this bottle of water. Despite all this, we still gravitate towards the bottled water company that claims to be better for the Earth.
Unfortunately,
And this is really the rub, is that basically anything that you buy that says “we are a green product” is most likely not true. Consuming anything (the way the current system works) is inherently not green. Buying something means you are trading your resources (your time, in the form of cash) for the resources of something else. There is not really a way for this to be friendly for either party unless it is held in check. Consuming the stuff is bad for your wallet (many some go into credit card or other types of high interest debt for it) and you’re depleting the resources used to make it.
The best way to ensure that resources will be there in the future (aka sustainable) is to not use too many of them in the first place.
Getting to the root of the problem — We want our water in a bottle, but we want that bottle to be environmentally friendly. Even though arrowhead spent time/money engineering a bottle with thinner plastic and a smaller cap and are now calling it “green” it’s still not as green as buying a water bottle.
They are missing the point. You cant consume a crap-ton of stuff and still be green. You cant spend in a frivolous manner and stay out of debt. You can’t TV watch your way to good health. All of these things are common goals of mine, and a lot of others. Many times, we find our that our habits don’t line up with our goals.
They are in an inherent battle with each other. Which will you choose?
When I started this blog, I had intentions of writing about money, health and sustainability, trying to point out that the spot where they all intersect occurs more often than you would think. I tried to keep to that at the beginning, but I found it to be very difficult. When I started posting with more frequency about 2 months ago, I had been trying to keep 4 posts going up a week, with finances on Monday [typically stories from lessons I pick up at the school of hard knocks], the environment/green topics on Wednesday, and health on Fridays, with a link round-up Thursday. I’ve had some posts on health recently, but nothing substantial. The same thing goes with the environmental and green topics. I have not had much time to relate any strategies to this to my life (as it is now) so it’s difficult for me to write about. The same goes for finance [thankfully] I havent made many mistakes lately, so I cant tell you a story about how my stupidity cost me a bundle like it did here.
Well, I guess it’s time for me to come clean on all these topics, and I’ll start with the environmental side of things. As I alluded to in the post on recently about the importance of a warranty, I drive a lot. It’s because of my job situation and it depends on the day, but at a minimum, it’s around 100 miles. If I go to my second job after my first job (which I do about 2-3 times during the work week, and I’m doing to pay down my debt) it’s slightly over 150 miles per day. Along with this, I go to my second job 1 day on the weekend, which is another 100 mile commute. All told, I typically put at least 700 miles on my car in a week, and sometimes more than that. This is obviously not what I had envisioned when I started this blog a year ago, nor is it what I imagined my post-college lifestyle would be like. Far from it, in fact. I had nice visions in my head of living less than 5 miles from my office no matter what city I ended up moving to and walking or biking to work. I came extremely close to accomplishing that, but unfortunately it came apart at the seams before it could even get started.
Once that happened, reality set in. I had (thankfully) been saving up cash to make a move to somewhere, possibly across the country. I ended up planning to have the money for a security deposit in an expensive market and to cover moving costs. I ended up not needing of this but I did need the money to live off of for a while. All told, my savings came out to about 3 months worth of expenses. Living off of that money wasn’t fun, and the account was draining fast. I realized I needed some income in the worst way. I tried to find employment near my home (or in my city, or state) but that didn’t happen soon enough, so I found myself accepting a position where I’d be driving at least 100 miles a day. Reality came by and smacked my dreams of walking to work into the future. At the time, it didnt really bother me. I needed an income, and I needed one bad, and was not really in the position to be picky when I was a few months away from eating alpo. Now that I’m not in that position (financially) anymore, not being able to walk (or bike, or drive less than an hour) to work bothers me a bit.
Along with that, I dont really feel like I’ve been practicing being sustainable very well lately. Sure, I’ve gotten much better at bringing reusable bags to the grocery store, but I still forget them every time I purchase something at Wal-Mart or Target. This doesn’t really make me feel any better about bringing them to the store, save for the fact that I usually punish myself for forgetting reusable bags by making myself carry out whatever I purchase, sans bag. I haven’t been tending to my compost pile regularly enough, but it is still not going strong as I think it could. I think it’s got something to do with the nature of it “set it and forget it” more than any action that I’ve taken recently.
These are alright, but I constantly feel like I could be doing more. More waste could get composted, I could be driving less (much less), and I could remember bags more often. However, it seems like doing some of the things I want to do more of would short circuit progress to my other goals. I cant drive less because I need two jobs to become debt free (for now). I’m using 100% of my second income to pay off debt and fund my savings account/E fund for now, and I don’t want to give that up. Its difficult for me to remember to bring bags to go non-food shopping with because I actively try not to buy things when I’m in a store. That, combined with my “punishment” for myself seems to do a perfectly fine job of keeping me from buying things. As far as the compost goes, I’m not really sure why I keep forgetting to put stuff in the bin. Much of the yard waste goes in there, but almost none of the food waste. I had a bucket to keep in the kitchen for food waste, but the dog chewed it up. A lot of the things in the kitchen have to do with ease right now. It’s much easier for me to toss it in the garbage than walk it outside to the bin.
But all of this begs the question, How can I work towards my goals in a meaningful way that doesn’t compromise my other goals? Do you readers have something like a goal priority list, where maybe your #1 goal is to be debt free, then your #2 goal is to lose 24 lbs? I know that focusing on 1 thing can help you accomplish your goal quickly, but it’s not a race (right?).
How do you all handle your goals?
