Mamarati

So, I need to write about this more, because it’s been pretty consuming for a long time. And off and on throughout my life since the first time I heard about dolphins swimming into six-pack rings as a child or watched the commercial of the Native American dude crying about the litter. I grew up in Oklahoma… Trail of Tears, y’all. Making Indians cry is not farkin’ cool.

Living more green. And stuff. Not just green, because that’s the fun, crazy buzzword of the day. But other stuff, too. Stuff that may or may not be green or good for the planet, depending on how you look at it. Stuff that people who know me say is just part of me being a hippie. But I was born in the ’70s, so technically no. But yeah, OK, a little bit.

Part of all this for me is not just doing things. Or just thinking about things. Or just always avoiding things. Or just always choosing things over other things. Or feeling guilty about doing one thing over the other thing. Or realizing that the way I’ve been doing things is quite possibly all wrong. It’s about all of that, sure, but it’s more than that. And I think that there’s a side of it that you miss when you read TreeHugger or watch An Inconvenient Truth. And there’s a side of it that you miss when you’re briefly contemplating “paper or plastic” at the grocery store.

And it’s that part that I want to talk about. Because for some people, it’s not a struggle. At all. But those people are different than me. And they live different lives and have different dispositions and they are not me. I applaud anyone who lives a perfect, green life and does so without a struggle. But I’m not talking to you people. And I don’t want to hear any of your condescending comments about the various shades of green that exist in my life. And I do not want you to compare what you do to what I do.

I’m not that worried about it, though. Because there’s not anyone out there who lives that kind of life, though many will pretend that they do.

The crazy thing to me is that, on the scale of green, if you put me somewhere on it along with all the people that I know personally or meet on a daily basis or live in my neighborhood or my city or my state… I’m pretty green. Take Austin out of the state and I think I’d be very high on the scale. But there are so many days when I don’t feel green at all. This is where the struggle comes in. The struggle of knowing. Knowing I could be doing more and being too tired / poor / lazy / whatever to do it. The struggle of knowing that there are a lot more steps required before I can do some certain thing I want to do.

Meanwhile, just how green am I considered to be according to Internet memes?

National Geographic’s Eco-IQ test

#1 Yes, we recycle. The test says “very few municipal recycling programs accept plastics other than those labeled #1 and #2.” I guess I’m lucky. My city takes a whole slew of things, including plastics 1 through 7 and every color of glass, too.

#2 Yes, we switched to CFLs. Though, this was not without some resistance. I didn’t really care that much about it and really hadn’t thought much about it. Then our friend David talked about how his dad was nuts for the CFLs and about how good they are for the planet. I believe actual statistics were used. This is funny to me, because while he certainly doesn’t drive a Hummer or melt ice caps, David is not a card-carrying hippie. I would say he sparked (ha) this conversation on several occasions and my boyfriend kept up the argument that he didn’t like the way the light looked. I hadn’t researched it so couldn’t say. Then, we’re at the store and boyfriend wants to try the CFLs. I think we bought one pack that day. And we tried it in the closet and the back room. Woooooo. Like it was some big trauma or something. Now I think we have them in every socket that will take a bulb except for three spots.

Spot #1 is Jacob’s room. This is going to take a fixture change. The antique hangy down glass bowl and chain contraption doesn’t allow enough room for the bulb.

Spot #2 is in this square stained glass lamp that has variable light settings. I guess the CFLs don’t work so well with that.

Spot #3 is in our bedroom where there is a dimmer thing on the ceiling fan lights. We never really use those lights anyway. We just use the lamps which have CFLs.

I know that there are CFLs that dim, because boyfriend will look for them on just about every shopping trip to anywhere with a lightbulb aisle. They never have the ones we need. I have no idea why he has not just bought them online, though I imagine it has something to do with money. (This is another struggle we are frequently met with. Being green is not always cheap. And we are not always rich. In fact, we never are. This reminds me — I can’t remember which sensibility the CFLs appealed to first — cheaper electricity or not killing the planet so much?)

#3 This question is tricky — “If you drink takeout coffee or tea, do you bring your own mug or use a disposable cup from the cafe?” I guess the “if” part applies. Takeout coffee is a rarity these days. We’re almost completely off of it except when on vacation. At any rate, regarding this, one thing I do every single day is get up while boyfriend is in the shower and make him coffee to take to work. (Mental note to self — Write about “Acts of Service“) And he takes it in a cup that he brings home every day after work to be washed and used again. And despite the fact that this cup sucks so incredibly bad, we do not buy a new one. We just keep using the same cup. Over. Over. Over again.

#4 Yes, I use the dishwasher instead of doing dishes by hand. At least most of the time. And thank goodness. I’m a horrible dish washer and always let the water run so long when I’m rinsing. Bad. I mean, I can run out a whole tank of hot water on a day’s dishes doing it by hand. WTH? Not so with the dishwasher.

#5 Green Cleaners. This is one of my worst areas, quite easily. Although, I would say that most of the cleaners I use are very simple. I don’t use a lot of compound cleaners that have lots of ingredients like 409 or whathaveyou. I use very diluted bleach and water once in a while. I use a hot warm washcloth (sometimes soapy, sometimes not) and some elbow grease for most things. I don’t use aerosol stuff like scrubbing bubbles or Easy-off. I use Ajax or Comet on the toilet and really, I have no idea how green either of those are. I use Murphy’s Oil Soap on the floors and furniture. We use Windex.

I try to stay away from anything that has a strong smell or perfumes. Jacob and I are allergic to lots of things and more and more these days I find myself itching and wonder if it’s laundry. My boyfriend is getting more and more annoyed by things that smell. Thinking that buying a “green” cleaner can be deceptive in this area for me since I’m allergic to coconut and many “natural” cleaners are made from coconut. Not all of them cause me problems, but some do. Now, finding that my son is allergic to corn of all damn things, I’m wondering what that means in regard to cleaners. We were using Bio-Kleen for a while, but it faded our clothes in just a few washes and left this residue all over everything. I think it was making me itch as well. We used the Whole Foods 365 powdered detergent and it did the same thing. We used Ecover liquid for a while, but I don’t remember why we stopped using it. I think it was making me itch. Now we’re using dye-free / perfume-free / sensitive skin Tide and so far no problems. It says it contains no phosphates, but I know that labels can be deceptive. (Like when foods say they are “natural” and that means exactly jack and squat.) I use Eco-Select biodegradable dryer sheets that contain no perfumes or dyes and they are made of paper. (Not recyclable, but compostable paper.) So far, I really like these. I just found them a few months ago.

In the bath, we use things that may not be green, but they are free of parabens and most other chemicals. I use Dr. Bronner’s for my body and use Aussie Cleanse and Mend on my hair. This is the combination that seems to be causing me the least amount of itching lately. (Give it time.) I don’t know what my boyfriend is using right now. He’s always changing it and looking for the most paraben-free and other chemical-free stuff. He reacts to all that (both mentally and physically - haha), especially deodorant. We both use Naturally Fresh Deodorant. I could write a whole entry about that stuff and the difference it has made in both our lives. And I am so not kidding. It’s the best deodorant I’ve ever used. Simple and amazing, that stuff.

#6 We use tap water. Sort of. We were using Ozarka Spring Water in giant 2.5 gallon containers. Not the little bottles, because we were trying to go for less packaging. The problem is this… we didn’t want to use bottled water, but our tap water tastes pretty bad. I don’t like water all that much and I certainly didn’t like this water. Most of the spring and summer, there is this algae that gets in the water and makes it smell so bad. Last year when we had less rain and the lakes were low, it was so bad I could hardly brush my teeth with it. So, we used the Ozarka. My boyfriend was doing more and more reading about it and struggling with what he was finding, though. Less about packaging, because we recycle it, and more about transportation costs. It’s bottled nearby, which makes it somewhat better, but again, he was struggling.

In the end, we bought a filtration system that is small and effective (under the sink) and while I’m concerned about the footprint of the filter, I’m less concerned about it than all the packaging of the Ozarka. I need to do more research about the filter before its year is up… although it looks like there might be a recycling program for it and if not, I can at least compost the carbon. More to come on that…

#7 Aerators on faucets. Not at all. We have an older house (a greener choice in itself) that didn’t have the aforementioned dishwasher or room for one under a counter. So we opted to get a roll around version that hooks up to the sink. This type of dishwasher has to have full power and a special converter nozzle thingymajig that hooks on to the faucet.

In the bathroom, there is the shower. I should let my boyfriend (or any other human being who has been a guest in our home) talk about the shower as I can take it or leave it. It is not aerated or low-flow or any other such modified thing. It is pure, unadulterated, old school power. We have to warn people to guard their genitals with this thing. Ouch. I struggle with this one in my mind. My boyfriend doesn’t struggle with it at all. Or he might struggle with it very quietly. All that probably disappears about 9am when he gets in the shower for what he describes as the best part of his day. I believe that once I manage to figure out how to recycle the grey water on the plants / compost pile (maybe using the old pond pump?) then I will not worry about this as much. Especially since, according to this test, aerators will only “cut water consumption by up to 6 percent.”

#8 “When you go shopping, which should you choose? Paper or Plastic?” says the test. Neither, here. For a long time, I used my own string bags. Then I tried to make a habit of only shopping for things that I could carry out. That helped me control waste, too. Then I fell back into using the plastic bags when my son was small, as I used the bags for things like containing his diapers when we were out so they could be washed later at home. I would also use them for smaller waste baskets. Then they started to pile up and one day I woke up and had an entire closet full of them. I passed the problem on by using those bags to pack and give away a ton of things to Goodwill. For a while I was just throwing them away. Ugh. Ugh.

Recently, I got sick of that particular struggle. Finally. Again. Now we use the big blue reusable IKEA bags when we go to the store. I bought 6 of them for .59 each and they are giant and should last a good long while. It’s not the best solution, but it’s the best solution for me right now.

I do ask for paper bags when school starts, though, to cover textbooks.

#9 “How do you get to work?” says the test. This is an interesting one and maybe it will demonstrate a little bit of how the hippie process works around our house. I work at home. I do this for several reasons. I like working at home. I like having a flexible schedule so I can spend time with my son and my boyfriend. I need time for school (which is also done completely from home). I HATE DRIVING. And more than that I HATE PARKING. Part of hating driving has to do with using all the gas and putting out all the emissions and such. Also it has to do with hating traffic and wishing we had better public transportation. Part of hating parking has to do with hating parking lots (which could be greener spaces if we all drove less and had better public transportation). That’s some of my rationale. I’ve had a couple of jobs that required a lot of driving. Both of them lasted about 2 months. I have moved more than once to be closer to jobs. Most of my jobs have been from home or within 5 miles of my house. Two jobs that I am considering when I’m done with school are less than 5 miles from the house.

When we bought this house, a huge factor had to do with how close it was to my boyfriend’s work. It takes him about 5-10 minutes to get to work on a road that isn’t congested and he chooses to go to work at a time when traffic is low. If public transportation were available, I have no doubt that he’d take it. You may hear about how our city made it to the #5 spot of worst traffic in the nation and most time spent in your car in traffic, but that’s not what we do every day and it’s very much on purpose.

#10 I do not think we purchase renewable energy. I will have to ask boyfriend about this… I know that we both strongly desire a solar system that will power our house and put electricity back into the grid, but that’s expensive stuff. We talk about it frequently, however. And dream.

And now, another meme — It’s UK-based, but I adapted.

Your energy score is 27% - the average is 2%

Your water score is 49% - the average is 3%

Your rubbish & shopping score is 58% - the average is 3%

Your transport score is 68% - the average is 3%

So, that makes me feel pretty green, no?

And then there’s my Ecological Footprint…

Food = 4.7 acres

Mobility = 0.2 acres

Shelter = 2.5 acres

Goods / Services =1.7 acres

Total Footprint = 9 acres

In comparison, the average ecological footprint in your country is 24 acres per person.

Worldwide, there exist 4.5 biologically productive acres per person.

If everyone lived like you, we would need 2.1 planets.

So, I’m not doing as well as I think. So, I struggle on. And I should talk about it more. Because it’s a lot of my life. It’s a lot of our life.