But honestly, it's harder than most think. I mean imagine changing your whole lifestyle to always think about reducing, reusing, and recycling. I can barely return people's phone calls, emails, or text; remember people's birthdays; what party I'm going to this weekend; what I wore last week; or where I put my keys last. Now I have to add reducing my consumption of energy or water; how much garbage I produce; don't buy styrofoam or take to go food that uses styrofoam; ask for paper not plastic; or don't go to Starbucks today and make my own coffee at home. (Thank you for my Keurig again my Keith.) You know speaking of that Keurig, that thing makes waste that other coffee makers don't do. Them K-cups are plastic, although small. Hmm... I wonder if they have K-cups that's Green? I have to check on that! See, I'm all ready messing up and didn't even consider that till now.
But little by little, I'm turning off the lights around the house, where I'm not in. Using the most of day light and leaving the blinds open till it's practically completely dark to turn on the lights. Closing the blinds if its too hot instead of turning on the fan. Or turning off the TV, when I'm on my computer.
A great thing that I've been doing is recycling my clothes. I mean I like Vintage things and shop at Thrift stores anyways; that I've been selling my clothes to Crossroads and use the credit to buy things from them. There's really great finds in there that I wouldn't even find unless I'm searching all over the web; then I'll be paying for delivery and that's Gas from the delivery truck that has to climb my hill. (Tips for Sustainable Wear: http://www.eartheasy.com/wear_tips.htm)
Do you ever wonder where all your things come from? For example where the clothes or the vegetable from your food came from? How much energy did it take just to make your one piece of clothing or salad you just ate?
For example I read in an article: Issues In a Nutshell "On the Hawaiian island of Maui is a sugar museum. It is next door to a sugar processing plant, and surrounded by acres of sugarcane growing....
The sugarcane growing on that acreage is processed in the plant across the street, but only to the 'raw sugar' stage. It is then shipped to the C & H Sugar Refinery in Contra Costa County, not far from San Francisco. C & H stands for "California and Hawaii." Here, it is refined into the white sugar that is such a ubiquitous part of our American diet. But that's not the end of its journey: the sugar is then shipped cross-country to New York, where it is packaged into little individual paper packages of sugar to go on tabletops, which are then distributed all across the country, including Hawaii.
So if you drive a mile away from that sugarcane field and sit in a cafe, the sugar packets on your table have traveled about 10,000 miles: to California, to New York, and back again to Hawaii, instead of the one mile you have."
Isn't that crazy?!? 10,000 miles before you can actually use your packet of sugar!! That's a lot of GAS and that's A LOT of Energy!! The article even claims that sometimes an apple that came from New Zealand is cheaper at the store than an apple grown locally at Sebastopol. Why is that? Is it really cheaper if we really think about it in a bigger picture?
| Average distances from farm to market | ||
| Terminal Market | Ferry Plaza Farmers Market | |
| Apples | 1,555 miles | 105 miles |
| Tomatoes | 1,369 miles | 117 miles |
| Grapes | 2,143 miles | 151 miles |
| Beans | 766 miles | 101 miles |
| Peaches | 1,674 miles | 184 miles |
| Winter Squash | 781 miles | 98 miles |
| Greens | 889 miles | 99 miles |
| Lettuce | 2,055 miles | 102 miles |
Acording to: How Far Did Your Food Travel to Reach Your Plate?
Every year, nearly 270 million pounds of grapes arrive in California, most of them shipped from Chile to the Port of Los Angeles. Their 5,900 mile journey in cargo ships and trucks releases 7,000 tons of global warming pollution each year, and enough air pollution to cause dozens of asthma attacks and hundreds of missed school days in California. – from the NRDC
See, if I can just take more energy trying to think differently, see bigger pictures, maybe I can totally change my "wasteful" lifestyle. Realizing that the smallest things I can change and consider can and will have a big impact in this Earth. Now imagine if everyone in the world can try to do what I'm doing now. WOW, the change we would have!! Hahaha!! Small steps, Joanne. Small steps...
