Money woes can do strange things to people.
And right now, we've all got money woes.
If you don't have a job, or you lost your home, you've got bigger fish to fry than trying to make sure you cut your water usage.
If you, like me, just need to start trimming the bottom line -- lest you become an statistic of this economy -- you're probably having a tough time justifying some of your green purchases.
Basically, when everything costs so much, it's hard to drive to Whole Foods instead of Wal-Mart.
True confession: I just ate a $1 Banquet frozen meal from Wal-Mart with an ingredient list that includes sodium phosphate dihydrate, polysorbate 80 and Yellow #6. It's been a long fall from my organic soup.
These are choices I shouldn't be making, but I'm finding it tough to pony up an extra $1 for the recycled toilet paper when the bargain, tree-slashing kind is so cheap. I mean, I'm just flushing it down the toilet anyway, right?
Well, that's no reason to flush the future away, too.
This is temporary. The economy will improve. The Great Depression is called that because we're not still in it. If it was still going on, it'd be called the Horrible Status Quo or Painful Reality Check.
So what's a greenie to do when it's this foul?
Take comfort in lists.
The silver lining of the crap economy
People won't rush to buy Hummers for a very long time, even with gas prices going down. This might finally be what automakers need to say, "Wait, you weren't kidding about wanting hybrids?"
- People are reusing and reducing, and that's always good for Mother Earth. No one is rushing to throw out usable items that they could sell, the samee items they used to kick to the curb without thought. Now, those items will stay out of the landfill and finish out their useful life in, well, use.
- Convenience food is going to lose its convenience. It's not convenient if the snack costs $6, no matter how quick it was to grab it. This means people will be buying the products with less packaging (aka landfill filler) and, potentially, consume fewer chemicals.
- Gardens are going to be looking pretty sweet come spring. Yup, that's an organic, virtually free food source if you choose to do it. Even when the economy improves, a lot of these people will keep up their gardens. Now, that's a victory garden.
There are a bunch more reasons this isn't that terrible. Feel free to list them by tacking them on to this entry as comments.
What you - the already converted - should do
- Keep on keeping on. Keep up the green stuff that you can do on your budget. If you can't buy as much organic food, choose organics for the stuff that really matters -- like fruits with skins you consume. If you can't afford to buy all recycled paper products, try to buy as much as possible, or look to brands that use some recycled content. Just don't give up.
- Up the ante on the free stuff. Volunteer with the park district's Prairie people, up recycling efforts at your home and office, try to rely on (cheap!) homecooked meals that use fewer chemicals that store-bought and restaurant-made dinners. And donate blood. It's the best free way you can give and keeps real, local blood in our hospitals. Yup, real and local, and as natural as you can get. Blood is a green issue, too.
- Cut where you can. My husband was raised to believe that if it ain't Oberweis, it ain't milk. Turns out he LOVES Jewel's organic store brand milk, too. But neither is cheap. I can justify whichever is cheaper (organic vs. local), but I have more trouble when they're both so expensive. My husband's solution: If the good stuff costs twice as much, we'll buy milk half as often. If you've every seen the man chug milk after mowing the lawn with our manual mower, you know this is a sacrifice. But it means our dollars -- the few we still have to spend -- are going to the right places.
There's plenty more where that came from, too. Hit comment below to tell me where I missed the mark or what I forgot to add.
If you find yourself hating something you have to do because of money issues, find the green lining. It's going to be hard, this situation we're in, but I don't want the environment to fall by the wayside because we have something "bigger" to worry about. What's bigger than the earth and our futures? While you can, while the money's there, hold on. The society that comes out of this will likely be wiser and greener.
Julie Todd is the night editor at The Herald News in Joliet. She and her
husband are looking to cut the chemicals and get back to basics -- minus the
granola and hemp clothing. They live in a home they bought last year in
Plainfield, where they're making changes to create their own little patch of
utopia.
I try to help the planet, I swear! We recycle. A ton! So we called Waste Management (our refuse company) to find out about a larger recycling container and was told by waste management that it is our community that is not allowing them to offer us larger recycling bins for our garbage pickup.
Romeoville has the larger recycle bins. Channahon is the king of recycling in Will County, but Joliet will not give in on the larger recycling bins.
We paid for the large garbage bin when Joliet required it. We can no longer afford it (and we no longer choose to afford it) because we only put one or two bags a week in it (for a family of 4) since we recycle almost everything. We are starting to research composting to get rid of the 'organic' waste and then what? I have to pay WM for a HUGE garbage can for a very small amount of garbage and I can't have a larger recycle bin because our city says so. That seems backwards.
We have two small children and the 2.5 year old tells people which bag which garbage goes into. I would like to show my daughter how to make a difference in her neighborhood. Can you help?
Diana,
I live in Channahon, and unless I am mistaken, we can't get the larger bins either. At the end of the week, we have a ton of recycling, so we got permission from the older, single ladies on our block to use their cans as well. A better solution is a bigger can, but this helps...