Green Minded Wallet

So when I got back from my Christmas trip back east, I noticed that one of the ceiling tiles in my bedroom was soaked and sagging ominously. I promptly called my landlord and after a few phone calls I learned that I was in a queue as a small backlog had occurred due to the holidays. When I called back a few days later, I mentioned that I had also noticed a little drip in my bathroom sink and one in the kitchen sink as well. A few days later when the maintenance service man finished I ended up with quite a few new ceiling tiles, a new bathroom faucet, a new bathroom showerhead, and a repaired kitchen sink. It turns out that there were a few cracks in the aged bathroom appliances that caused them to run extra water, but I was just so used to them that I didn’t really pay it much attention. Anyway, they’re fixed now so I should be able to save a bit more water in the bathroom. It did make me feel a bit ashamed of the fact that I’m always looking for more painstaking ways to conserve but there were some really simple problems that could have been solved earlier with a simple phone call.

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While I enjoy conserving resources, especially in the kitchen where a lot of daily waste happens, I have discovered a “downside”: it takes a lot longer to fill a trash bag. In fact I don’t even buy trash bags anymore, I normally just use plastic store bags (I have two neighbors that hand me a stack of plastic bags every few weeks that I generally use for dog walking but also for trash). The problem is that since I create so little waste, I often forget how long it has been since the trash went out. What normally happens is that I notice the smell of vegetable products composting when I go to wash dishes and then remember that it has likely been far too long since the trash went out. I suppose of all the problems to have this isn’t a big one. I’ve wanted to start my own compost for a while but I’m not quite sure if I could find a setup that would work in my current digs; since I don’t cook meat, most of my food waste would like end up there and that would reduce my waste production even further. We’ll see.

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I came across an article the other day about a town in Tennessee called Orme that has been severely impacted by the drought in the southeast. Things are so bad in Orme that they are out of water. Seriously. They have trucks bringing in thousands of gallons from Alabama, and the water is rationed out from between 6-9 pm each night. Now I realize that there are places in this world where this happens all the time, but I’m not familiar with other places in America where this is taking place. As much as I believe in conversation and try to conserve water and other resources, there’s no way that my current lifestyle wouldn’t be impacted by only having access to water for a set three hours a day. Want to wash your face with warm water in the morning? Not going to happen. Want to go for a morning run and then take a shower? Sorry. I hope you’ve set aside enough water to brush your teeth. And I don’t even want to know how this is affecting the sanitation systems. But I can tell you that reading stories like this one really does help you to appreciate what you have and how many little things in life we take for granted.

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Perhaps it’s just me, but I feel like lately (in the past few months or so), I’ve noticed a lot more ‘Going Green’ articles and tips coming from very mainstream sources, i.e. grocery store magazines, news network homepages, etc. However, I can’t help but feeling like they are just recycling the same old suggestions: switch your light bulbs, get a reusable grocery bag, walk for short trips, etc. I wonder if it’s a bit like dieting and budgeting where people keep looking for new things when the basic information is still the same but no one is listening to it: burn more calories than you consume, spend less than you earn. Still, I feel like I’m seeing articles about how to ‘get green’ crop up in places where I don’t recall seeing them this time last year, or even in the early part of this year. I’m not sure where the impetus is coming from; though I know that the weather patterns have caused many people to wonder about climate change, and all the news about the ice caps probably adds to that as well. However, I don’t here a lot of people talking about the environment that I didn’t hear talking about it before. Perhaps it’s the circles that I run in: many of my friends have been environmentally conscious long before ‘being green’ was a buzz term. These articles could also be proliferating because people can see real changes in their health, budgets, and other areas of their life from doing more environmentally friendly things like eating local produce, walking to the library, and only doing full loads of laundry. As I mentioned before, I don’t mind if people want to implement small changes, so long as they realize that there are both small and big changes we can make and put those into perspective in order to make lasting lifestyle changes, versus having some sort of diet-fad style environmental movement. Also, since I like to not just complain about things but offer solutions, I thought I would list of couple of easy things to do, that I haven’t seen on every list out there (though they are probably on a few).

• Cut up your old t-shirts, towels, washcloths, or any other soft fabric you may have an use them as rags

• Pay attention to open and closed blinds and windows in your domicile to maximize heating and cooling efficiency

• Instead of chucking your old stuff to the curb, offer it up on freecycle: you never know how your old broken furniture could fit into someone’s art project

• Don’t print out the full on-line directions )which seem to need to use three-pages to tell you how to get anywhere). Instead, write the directions down on a piece of paper (preferably scrap); this will save you both paper and ink

I’m sure there are others; do you have any to recommend?

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There seems to be a lot of buzz lately about simple things you can do to “go green”: things like changing your light bulbs to CFLs or unplugging your appliances. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against these things per se, it’s just that I consider these to be small changes worth implementing after big changes. When people seek personal finance advice most websites, books, blogs, etc. generally suggest that you get your basic finances in order, before you start worrying about major investing. Most people aren’t going to advise you to learn more about REITs, or decide if index mutual funds or ETFs are your best bet, if they realize that you are carrying $10,000 in credit card debt.

Well, personally I feel the same way about environmental conservation. Why worry about whether or not your computer and microwave are completely shut-down at night, if your four TVs are constantly running through out the day. And if you’re commuting 50 miles a day in a car that gets 20 mph, does it really matter what kind of light bulbs you use? Maybe it does; I mean it will make a difference to the overall picture and it might give you some small savings. But I think that sometimes we delude ourselves into thinking that we’re getting ahead when really we’re just falling behind at a slower rate. It doesn’t work in personal finance, and I don’t think that it will work in environmental conservation. Small changes can be good first steps as bigger changes, like downsizing your living quarters or moving to a more fuel efficient vehicle, can take time. However, if you’re serious about decreasing your environmental footprint, perhaps there are bigger inroads that you can make: perhaps your have more TVs in your house than people, or you drive around town for every little thing. Just like debt reduction and personal financial management don’t happen over night, neither does environmental conservation. I know that we can’t always do everything, and frankly it probably wouldn’t be worth it to most of us even if we could. I just think that it’s good to keep a bit of perspective.

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Last year I was having a conservation with someone at my job (back in the days when I held full-time employment), and he mentioned that his wife would buy them all new socks and underwear every six months or so and chuck all the old ones. At the time I was rather disturbed: it seemed like an incredible economic and environmental waste to simply chuck clothes, regardless of condition, away twice a year. However, the other night as I was washing some clothes in the sink, I thought that perhaps they had a point. While I certainly can’t imagine buying all new socks and underwear every six months, sometimes I think about all the time, water, and chemicals necessary to satisfactorily scrub a couple of small items every couple of weeks and I have to wonder at a what point is it no longer really worth it. Another place where I have this issue is with the re-use of little plastic bags. I’ve tried a time or two to reuse them, but for the most part it seems more trouble than it’s worth. To get them clean enough that I would feel comfortable putting food in them requires a great deal of water and soap, and at a certain point I’m not sure if it’s worth it for one little bag. For the bag problem, I try to find alternative food storage options, perhaps other more permanent containers that are easier to clean. However, that isn’t really an option when it comes to socks and underwear (at least not in my mind). I don’t really think that there’s one right answer when it comes to disposal versus continual reuse; certainly some approaches are more wasteful than others, but in the end there is probably a gradient depending on personal use and tastes.

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