accumulating small changes
Today, I'm joining in Blog Action Day, whose focus this year is on the broad and complex topic of the environment.
I'm not one of those people who has always been hip to the issues of environmentalism. Oh, sure, I had a phase in high school where I became a vegetarian and protested animal cruelty in debate class, but I can't claim any title like "lifelong activist". In fact, I have a confession to make: up until January, I didn't even bother recycling.
A trip to the desert sparked my conversion and I am happy to say that our household has adopted a number of changes that I'm proud of. My husband calls me the "recycling Nazi" because of my diligence in recycling and reusing all that we can. I buy and eat local and/or organic food often. I carry a compact extra cloth bag with me when I'm running errands to avoid using plastic. My daughter and I both use reusable cups for trips to Starbucks. I've gradually switched out the cleaners in our house to more natural, eco-friendly options. We stopped buying bottled water. I hang laundry to dry on the line when weather permits. I try hard to carpool and combine errands when possible to reduce carbon emissions.
There are two points that I'd like to make, however, about these changes. One is that they are, individually, small. It hasn't been hard to make them because I started with one change and it led to another. Once I started recycling, a process that required me to sort by hand, I started paying attention to packaging when I was buying the grocery store. That, in turn, led me to pay more attention to the food we were consuming. Then I noticed the number of plastic bags that came home with in just a single shopping trip. And so on. I haven't done anything radical, I've just done things that made sense. Once I started down the path, one thing led to another.
The other point I'd like to make is that I'm not doing all I can, and there are limits to what I'm willing to do to make our lifestyle more green. Sometimes organic is too expensive. I could join a CSA, but haven't. I could compost, but don't. I could have a whole stack of canvas or cloth bags for the grocery store (which I'm working on, but not there yet). We use a lot of Method cleaning products because they work and they're easily accessible at Target. If I had to buy everything at a health food store, I'd balk. I don't have a bike. I rarely walk. I still drive a small SUV.
There are many others -- including some of the contributors to this site -- who are ahead of me on this issue. I applaud them. I admire their tenacity. I find it amazing that they use glass straws to avoid plastic. But I'm not there yet. I might not ever be.
I am, however, doing something. I'm hopeful that if we all do a little more something, we can make a difference.
What are you doing? What makes you take action? What prevents you from making change?
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