Waste Not, Want Not
Or not? We, as humans, are very wasteful creatures (or most of us are, anyway). I am feeling a little wasteful right now, myself. Allergies have taken a firm , nasty grip on me today (I actually had to wait on writing this post because I couldn’t see straight out of my right eye, thanks to allergy… goo?), and my tissue usage has skyrocketed. Although I’m trying my best to use as little as possible, it’s pretty difficult. I’ve even shoved tissues up my nose to stop the continuous flow without the use of a new tissue every 30 seconds! Too much info? ;)
I’m a pretty cynical person to begin with; I have a tendency toward negativity, which is a big reason why I try not to watch the news very often (it seems every time I turn it on, it gives me another reason to want to lock myself in a closet!). Since starting this site, I’ve become more critical of the actions I see people taking. A couple of weeks ago, I opened up the dumpster to find a prime example of waste that, to put it nicely, pissed me off. I don’t see enough people making use of reusable bags here, which is one thing, but when someone takes a reusable shopping bag (a very large, nice looking, high quality one, might I add), and uses it as a garbage bag? That really makes my blood boil.
I’m not perfect. My showers are too long, and I spend too much time on my laptop, but I am trying. I came across a site that I wanted to share that gave me the motivation for this post, Every Single Little Thing. I believe it is written by the same person who writes PassionateGreen, a site I love. Sarah wrote a post that she titled Water Love, which is on the same basis as this: waste.
We would be amazed at what we could do if we had no choice. If there were limits to the length of a shower, we would find a way to get everything done in that time. If electricity was limited we would make more use of candles during the evening hours, and actually spend time talking and playing with our families. If we had to, we could make do.
It’s true. I learned forced limitation two summers ago, when we lost power from a bad storm for a few days. A pipe burst and we couldn’t drink from our tap due to risk of contamination. This, unfortunately, meant we had to buy bottled water, but it taught me to drink water that had been sitting for awhile instead of pouring it down the sink, which is what I used to do. If I didn’t, not only would I dehydrate from the extreme heat (we are on the 3rd floor of our condos and it was well into the upper 90s/low 100s), but I might run out of water. We went without the television, computers, and all other electronics for days, and we didn’t die!
It doesn’t take much to change. Start out with something small: make less food for dinner so you don’t waste any, turn the faucet OFF when brushing your teeth and set a timer for your shower, turn the TV off when you aren’t watching it and the lights off when you walk out of the room, and for the love of cookies, DON’T USE YOUR REUSABLE SHOPPING BAGS AS GARBAGE BAGS!!! We don’t want to be in a Futurama situation where we have to shoot our garbage into space!
And on a final note, I have to quote the title of another of Sarah’s posts, “Yes, One Person Can Change the World.”
Wow what a great post! ;-) I totally empathize with the statement, “Every time I turn it [the news] on, it gives me another reason to want to lock myself in a closet!” I hear ya. It’s horrifying.
So when you found this shopping bag in the dumpster, was it covered in nasty stuff? Was there any way to take it out and salvage it? Just curious! :-)
Great post, my sentiments exactly! I don’t think people realize what they can do without. I think it’s going to take something monumental to wake people up to that fact.
Okay, I know you’re not supposed to comment on blogs, all “ooo I like your blog design”.
But…
I have to. OMGosh.. I really love this blog. I can’t get over it. Everytime I come here I scroll to the bottom trying to figure out where to get it, and obviously it’s not getable… LOL.
But so yeah, just wanted to say that, ’cause I’ve been dying to say it, even though it’s against comment rules or whatever.
You make some good points. It really is important to monitor our usage of things like energy, water, recyclables and non-recyclables.
That being said, even though we can make a little bit of a difference, it’s a little bit of a jump to say that we should completely avoid certain aspects of life. Whilst it is possible to go back to a world of no electricity and we’d survive, it’d be difficult. 90% of us in the advanced world have grown up with internet, computers, television. Even our grandparents have grown up with an incredible amount of technology. Yes, whilst we COULD survive with candles and fire, It’s not exactly going to be the easiest thing in the world, nor very successful for some.
:)
What an excellent post. I try my hardest not to be wasteful. I try to find a new purpose or way to re-use everything before tossing it out. I’ve also got my whole family recycling now! : ]
Nice article! I enjoyed the Futurama reference!
passionategreen, I thought about grabbing it from the dumpster, lol. That would have required climbing into the dumpster, though, because it was too far back to reach it… and I’m a bit of a germophobe!
Kim, I agree. We take too many things in life for granted.
Penny, lol! Thanks for the compliments! It’s funny, every time I visit your site I think the same thing! The first time I visited I fell in love with the design and go a little jealous :) Yeah, I designed it, which is why there’s no link for where to download it (and probably why I keep getting jealous of everyone else’s designs, you are your own worst critic!).
Sarah, I am in no way saying we should go back to no electricity, etc., but what would happen if we were forced to do so?
Alcohol Recovery, glad to hear it!
Car Rental, Futurama: one of the greatest shows known to man!
Kim great post…..to discover why we are so wasteful checkout the story of stuff on you tube, It was a real eye opener for me!
Super blog!
You have the points here, Stefanie…
Since the global warming matter becoming more and more seriously day after day, the human beings need to learn to cherish the materials and reduce the pollutions to the lowest.
However, it’s gonna take time and hope the Earth still can hold on…
Thanks for posting. It’s nice to know that we are all not perfect all of the time, all we can do is try our best and try to keep improving. I slip up at times at well.
I agree with you. I took up the practice of walking the mile and a half to campus every day not only to cut back on fuel use, but also to get myself the exercise I need after working all day at a desk. We should always be thinking of ways to keep our lives simple so that we don’t need to consume as much! The consumer mentality is exactly what will lead us to a Futurama world.
Wilson, there are people who think that the earth does not need our help to hold on… I think this is completely false. Maybe if we didn’t have such an impact to begin with, she wouldn’t need our help, but we cause so many problems that they aren’t just going to go away on their own.
Organically, I think I slip up more than I like to admit, but I’m improving day by day.
organic skin care, the Futurama world in this episode is actually one of greater eco-friendliness. They recycle everything and everything is recycled (“And that sandwich your eating is made out of old, discarded sandwiches. Nothing just gets thrown away.”). Garbage doesn’t exist. In the episode, a giant ball of New York City garbage had been sent into space in the 21st century because they had nowhere to put it. It’s now the year 3000, and the garbage ball is hurtling back towards earth, and the only way to stop it is to shoot another garbage ball into space to bounce the first one into the sun, so New New York has to create a lot of garbage (just like 20th/21st century people). After the second ball is shot into space and the first is bounced into the sun, they start to wonder about the second ball coming back to earth, but decide it doesn’t matter since they won’t be around when it happens. Conversation from the end of the episode:
Leela: Should we really be celebrating? I mean, what if the second ball of garbage returns to Earth like the first one did?
Fry: Who cares? That won’t be for hundreds of years.
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: Exactly. It’s none of our concern.
Fry: That’s the twentieth century spirit.
wow the thing i cant believe about durin your power outage is not being able to use the tv, but being able to function without fans in that heat!
I think we can try as hard as we like to be green and eco friendly , but in todays world there is only so much we can do as we have come to rely on nice long showers, and watching our favourite tv shows.