Have you ever fished someone else's spent soda can out of the garbage so you could throw it in the recycling (usually a well-marked container resting just inches from the trash can)? Have you picked up a newspaper from the train seat next to you to toss it in the paper recycling bin so it wouldn't end up in the trash? Do you ever heave a sigh at the check out counter when everyone around you is hoisting plastic shopping bags back into their cart as you fuss with your fold-up fabric bags?
Lately I have felt like even if I and 10,000 of my neighbors decided to boycott ALL single-use disposable nonsense and packed our own fabric napkins in our work bags and car glove compartments and vowed to never buy another sulfate for as long as we lived, it still won't really make any difference.
We (and I'm including myself in this) love our stuff too much. We love plastic and all the nifty things that come in plastic. We don't think about the petroleum that goes into the manufacturing, transporting, and disposal of all that great stuff. We can't afford the space, time, or money to really grow or make our own food. Our spirits are so dulled to the impact our consuming has on the rest of the world, and even our own hearts, that we don't know where to start to make change.
Les and I were talking this weekend about tipping points, and how we expect that it will take an oil crisis or a painful food shortage or a full-out economic disaster before most of us are really forced to feel the pinch and face up to our apathy. Cute purses would have to pretty much cease to exist before I could really REALLY be inclined to shun them all together. Chocolate will have to creep up to $30 a pound or something before I would really consider giving it up or wondering WHY it has become so expensive (spoiler alert: we may be headed for a world-wide chocolate shortage caused by anything from political unrest in Africa to climate change to, humorously, Obamacare, depending on what you read... Really, google it).
My big "try not to think about it too much or your head will explode" conundrum this past week is this: Even if I don't personally buy soda in 20 oz plastic bottles any more, and I'm not the one putting the bottles into the recycling bin, SOMEONE is still going to buy that soda. The bottles are still being produced, shipped, and sold, and often trashed. MY not buying them may be better for my health and lessen my personal recycling burden, but my personal reduction does not equate an ACTUAL reduction in diet cokes in the world. If anything, I'm increasing the likelihood that more diet cokes will end up in the garbage rather than the recycling. So, how does my personal high-horse of reducing actually impact demand? It doesn't really prevent anything from being made for me. Rest assured, the soda producers are still making plenty of diet cokes for me and the rest of the world whether I actually drink them or not.
So how many canvas grocery bags, compost heaps, and farmers' markets does it take to change the world? And how do you keep your chin up when it feels like so many people don't give a hoot? What is the critical mass to start turning the tide? Are our personal efforts really benefiting anyone? I feel like this is another gray issue that could keep me up at night.
Oh Jill - I know your head may explode I think that too sometimes - but ant and the grasshopper! Little by little. As Fred would tell you "Reduce Reuse Recycle" It's the first R for a reason and it will start to chip away - a la' IKEA & Aldi with no bags. It's a crazy little rabbit hole you start down when trying to be more mindful on these issues. Ed Begely Jr. compared it to mountain climbing and that you acclimate every time you make a change, and I found that very encouraging that I didn't have to do everything all at once, and I also found it as a way to then promote others in my life that it is possible to do it & still have a comfortable life.
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