It's Not Easy Being Green

Kermit was right, and probably didn't even know just HOW right on so many levels.

I've always considered myself an environmentalist. Maybe it comes from having parents who were older and grew up in the 30s when nobody threw anything out because you might have to use your food money to replace it. Maybe it's from being a 70s era kid who grew up seeing those green, white and yellow striped ecology stickers and patches everywhere. Maybe it's a reaction to Reagan and both Bushes. Who knows.

My first rude awakening came in the 90s when I was working on Capitol Hill and attended a Congressional Research Service seminar on the environment. My first handout was entitled "Make Your Environment Dirtier: Recycle More"

WTF? This is a seminar put out by a supposedly nonpartisan organization?

I never had a chance to look into why we were getting this tripe, or complain about the swagger and bias of the CRS staffer who gave the seminar. I wanted to but time is time. Fast forward to a few days later when I'm rinsing out the recyclables. And rinsing, and rinsing. Then finally giving up and letting the jar soak. And wondering if this CRS dude had a point.

A few years later in Grad school economics class I was handed an article about how low flush toilets actually generated more water than the "conventional" kind. Again, I figured what innovation comes from economists? They tend to want the status quo. But I started seeing they were right about alot of these so called "low flush" toilets. I now use the "old" bathroom at work and avoid the other where I have to flush the "low flush" toilet several times.

The latest is the proliferation of books on how to live a green lifestyle and many have great ideas on how to do it, like using natural materials to clean around the house and how to find products that have been tested on people, not animals, but that are safe for the whole family.

But you might want to consider buying a used copy, or if you want to buy new and support your local bookstore, how about buying it and circulating it amongst friends? If you have old, not eco friendly cleaners around the house, use them up then get or make new ones. Instead of organic cotton baby clothes, maybe buying some new with tags off of Ebay. If you have old jewelry that's broken and not resellable, donate the bits and pieces to a crafty friend or take on a new hobby and get some fun new accessories nobody else will have.

We don't need to stop buying stuff and enjoying new stuff completely. How fun would life be? How good would that be for our crummy economy? We can reuse more though, or share what we don't need single items of for ourselves. And rethink what we buy for kids, they really don't need all that stuff.

Really. My eldest got a secondhand play kitchen set for Christmas a few years ago and we finally got rid of it because it had become completely worn out. Instead of getting her alot of little things, I have this in mind for her birthday.

Having fun, and buying less but better...priceless.