The Magic Pfand

Viel Gruβes, loyal readers! I write to you from the far away land of Germany, where recycling is the norm and not the exception. Well. More or less.

Most German cities, and the majority of the small towns, have a unique waste management system when compared to our own American- well, let’s call them attempts at waste management. Germans recycle everything. In fact, not only do they recycle everything, but they get money back for it. Allow me to explain.

When you buy a bottle of soda in Germany, more likely than not it has a pfand attached to the price- meaning instead of 1,25 the soda costs 1,50. When you finish the soda, you take the bottle back to the store and you receive 25 cents in return. This doesn’t sound so awesome if you are lazy and never take your bottles back, but if you are an intrepid scavenger you not only can take your own bottles back but can find bottles with a pfand all over- in the trash, lying in the street, given away for free on street corners- and you can make five euros in only a few minutes. Because, of course, even though recycling is ridiculously easy here, still not everyone does it.

However, it’s certainly in your best interest. In major cities, you simply sort your trash into a variety of bins in your house- one for paper, one for food waste, one for packaging (plastic), and one for everything else (restmüll). This is of course after you’ve recycled all your bottles and cans. You are charged for how much restmüll you put out- everything else is taken for free. So in the interest of saving money, everyone automatically separates their garbage. It’s not a big deal. It’s not an amazing magical environment saving program. It’s just the way things are.

It’s fascinating, coming from America where I have to try really hard to recycle, to watch people unthinkingly sort their trash. When I found myself at the train station with a piece of cardboard and only an unmarked trash can in sight, I thought, aha! At last I have found a place in Germany where I can’t recycle, and prepared to stick the cardboard in my bag for later. But as I did so, my German friend took the cardboard from my hands and put it in the bin. “But it’s recyclable!” I cried. “I know,” she said, “they’ll sort it when they empty it.”

I thought she was kidding.

But no, it’s true, even public all-in-one waste bins are, by law, sorted into recyclables and other waste before anything is thrown away. And since almost everything can be recycled, almost nothing is thrown away.

In this vein, there is generally less stuff produced that would be thrown away in the first place. You don’t get a plastic bag unless you pay for it. It is perfectly common to see people walking down the street with reusable grocery bags (usually filled with pfand bottles)- and also note that I said “walking.” Everyone walks here. Or bikes. Or takes the bus. There are cars on the road, certainly. Small ones. But with petrol at a ridiculously high rate (and parking spots being nonexistent), there’s no sense in driving unless you’re going a long way and don’t feel like taking the train (I can’t imagine why, I love taking the train- all you have to do is sit down and go to sleep and someone else drives) or have a lot of stuff to haul. But I digress.

The one thing that boggles my mind is that, with all this emphasis on recycling and not wasting, things are wrapped that would never appear in plastic in the U.S. Vegetables, for example. Most people put their vegetables in plastic bags in the U.S. anyway, for ease of carrying, but here vegetables are almost always wrapped in shrink wrap on a little tray. And ridiculously small amounts of vegetables. Like a handful of arugula. Or, and I kid you not, seven slices of cheese. In one package. The concept of buying in bulk has not really occurred to Germans, who shop on a regular basis (sometimes every day!). So we’ve got that going for us, at least.

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Walking Tour

For your reading enjoyment, a poem I wrote back in college about the things found on trash pickups. Back in Savannah, GA we did a pick up every month, mostly on the barrier islands, reachable only by boat. This barely even touches on the weird things we've found while picking up trash.


Walking Tour

rusted bicycle, dragged up from the depths
ball basketball three Frisbees
toothbrush hat alligator one faded doll arm
the front half of Percy, cartoon dog
devoid of color and meaning and happy meals
wiffle ball bat tires crab, living in can (cut open to let out)
artificial flower, white, nearly imperceptible amongst real ones
bottlecaps cigarette butts bits of glass nails
two dollars
unopened can of beer, once, one of Coke
shoe shoe cowboy boot
box of empty gelatin capsules
beer can beer can beer can beer can
busted screenless tv full of interesting parts
dried black rose (put into Arbor Mist bottle)
beer bottle beer bottle beer bottle beer bottle
two pairs of underwear, same day- child’s
inflatable raft fishing poles tampons
neon strips- lightless- from cruise ships
the boat of Cuban refugees, unsinkable
crab traps coconuts conch shells
raccoon tracks
the biggest horseshoe crab shell ever seen (kept)
bits and bits and bits of Styrofoam
(will be here in 500 years)
the card to the door of the Econo Hotel
dry eyed withered stare
(avoid dead animals)
infinite straws plastic bags pieces of plastic bags
always a condom
ants
shark skull
palm frond rose
McDonalds Burger King Wendy’s Krystal
blow up kids pool another toothbrush
st patricks day windsock, half buried
buoys boatseats refrigerator Steamvac
Doritos Lays Cheetos Funyuns
cigarette packs filters butts lighters
pillow roofing siding nails car parts tires tires
the decaying body of a man
half a bottle of chardonnay

Home.

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Take That, Recycling

Thanks to the kick ass team of recyclers here at Washington College, I am proud to present you with the final totals of recycling collected in spring semester (from the end of January to this very day).

The five best interns a recycler could ask for managed to amass a grand total of:
5,249.9 lbs of mixed paper
11,389.2 lbs of bottles and cans
4,200 lbs of cardboard

These are astonishing numbers, let me tell you. Especially when you consider as of this time last year we were... well, we weren't really recycling much at all. Let's be honest.

I cannot thank these dedicated students more for their amazing hard work, especially in whole heartedly committing to a program in its fledging year... and especially for pulling together an extra 2700 lbs of recycling by challenging the sororities to a competition- an unheard of number considering it was collected in only 4 weeks. One day I'll post on here about the amount of work that goes into recycling- it's definitely a candidate for Dirty Jobs.

For now, let's just say the Recycling Fairy strikes again!

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Green Girl Talk

The revised text of the lecture, back for your edification.

All right. We’re here to talk about periods. Who hates getting their period? Who was told by their mother the first time they got their period that it was a curse, that it would be the bane of your existence, that you now had to suffer for the rest of your life, or until you got pregnant or menopause, those blessings of female existence.
But wait. This lecture is supposed to be about the environment! What does this have to do with it? Well, a lot. For one, if you aren’t even comfortable talking about your period, you’re going to have a problem with most of the alternatives I’m going to outline. The reason we even ended up with the products most women use today is that women were uncomfortable with their bodies, uncomfortable with talking about them, and uncomfortable with finding out the facts. Not to mention, willing to let themselves suffer when it came to their periods. We expect it to suck, and therefore it does.




So let’s talk “feminine hygiene.” Disposables have only been widespread since the 1930s. The only way they became popular was that they allowed women to drop money in a jar on the counter without speaking to the clerk. Kotex introduced the equivalent of the disposable pad in 1921, while the self-adhesive pad wasn’t introduced until the 1970s. Before that, women used rags, fabric, wads of cotton, sponges, whatever worked best, and usually washed and reused the same rags each month. There were belts, suspenders, or sanitary panties with hooks or tabs to hold pads in place, because tight fitting underwear is a recent trend. For thousands of years, women have used reusable pads that they likely made themselves, and no one seemed to mind.
So how did we get stuck on disposables? Well, for years, women have been made to feel ashamed and dirty about the natural functions of their body. Early advertisements told women that disposable pads could help them hide their problems by disposing of the evidence. The same theory seems to persist in today’s advertising, when we’ve even gotten to the point of pads with “silent” packaging so the other women in the bathroom won’t realize you’re opening a pad. Our society expects us to hide our periods and pretend nothing is happening- like we’ve got some kind of terrible disease. If we’re buying “sanitary” products, we must assume we are unsanitary. Whatever embarrassment you feel probably came from negative advertising. Periods aren’t discussed openly. Very few of us had positive first periods. The usual response is, “oh, now you get to spend the rest of your life “inconvenienced” once a month.” Likely this has an effect on our periods- how much of PMS is really irritation that for five days you have to continue to deal with the world when you’d rather stay in bed all day eating chocolate and sleeping?
Many other cultures celebrate a girl’s first period with a party and gifts. Others hold menstruation to be a time for meditation and reflection, when women can take a break from regular life. Our culture still seems to think menstruation is a punishment from God. Long ago, women’s cycles followed the cycles of the moon, often menstruating during the dark of the moon and ovulating during the full moon. Even now, women with irregular periods are sometimes advised to leave a light on while they sleep to emulate the light of the moon- which will regulate their periods. This is known as the Dewan effect.
Tell me- what’s unnatural about your own blood? Knowing your own body and being aware of your cycles gives you self-confidence, especially the first time you observe all aspects of your cycle and are not only able to predict the exact time you will get your period, but feel when you ovulate, and, amazingly enough, this can also improve your health and destroy some of those symptoms normally associated with periods- fear, pain, agitation, etc. A positive outlook can go a long way. It’s no big deal if someone knows you have a period. Are you afraid they’ll find out you’re a woman?
Disposable pads are made of wood fiber, polypropylene, and polyethylene (#5 and #4 plastic). Tampons are made of a cotton rayon blend with a polypropylene cover, unless you buy those which are all cotton or have a cardboard applicator. In a woman’s lifetime she can use over 15,000 sanitary pads or tampons, adding up to about 250 to 300lbs of waste. There are 85 million women of menstruating age in America, throwing away about 13.5 billion pads and 6.5 billion tampons per year (2001). Can you even picture 13.5 billion pads? These fill landfills and clog the sewer systems, and can take over 500 years to degrade. Over 170,000 tampon applicators were collected along US beaches in one year.
In addition, both tampons and pads can contain traces of dioxin, a carcinogen. This is left over from the bleaching process, and over time can accumulate in the system, causing, surprise, cancer. Have you ever noticed how the ingredients aren’t listed on a box of tampons? Tampons also put you at risk for Toxic Shock Syndrome, which occurs when bacteria build up in the vagina from the fluid absorbed by a high-absorbency tampon. The FDA uses research provided by tampon manufacturers to tell the public that tampons are completely safe- even though there are no federal standards of quality or absorbency that could determine which are less likely to cause toxic shock.
Now for some solutions. You could start with all organic non-chlorine bleached tampons, though that does nothing to solve the waste problem. The cost is about the same or a little more than regular tampons. There are also reusable options. If you feel the need to use a reusable coffee cup in the morning, there is no reason not to use reusable pads or a tampon alternative. These include cups like the Keeper or Diva Cup and natural sponges. The Diva Cup is a small silicone cup that collects blood and is emptied when full. It usually can stay in up to 12 hours, and will last 10 years if properly cared for. The come in different sizes, to accommodate a variety of vaginas. The initial cost is $35, which over ten years amounts to about 29 cents per month. Natural sponges are animals that live on the ocean floor, which are dried out and cleaned and can be reused for about six cycles. They are, however, dead animals and have to be scraped off the ocean floor, which is not exactly an environmentally friendly option.
Reusable pads come in an amazing variety of options. You can purchase them from one of many female run companies such as Glad Rags or Lunapads. A starter kit costs anywhere from $30 to $150. Or you can make your own out of scrap fabric. They are usually cotton with a terrycloth liner; some also have a piece of nylon for extra protection. They come in all shapes and sizes and colors and if you make your own you can of course customize for the best fit. They’re bigger than normal pads because they wrap around, but they’re also more breathable and are highly recommended to women that have problems with frequent irritation or infection, which can be caused by the plastic backing of disposable pads.
There are always issues with any choice. Just look at tampons- in some countries they’re sold with little plastic finger covers so that women don’t have to touch themselves. That sounds strange until you realize that some countries don’t sell tampons with applicators. You don’t have to make the switch all at once- people will start by using reusables at night or at home, which can cut over 1/3 of the waste. Yes, you have to clean them yourself; yes, you have to get over touching your own blood. People will see them and wonder. Reusable pads will get stains, but if you soak them in cold water and wash them the stains will be minimal, and stains do not mean they are dirty. They make special bags so you can carry them around during the day, though Ziplocs work just as well. You can generally wear them longer than disposables because the cotton is more absorbent (and also less likely to leak). You really only lose from 2tbsp to one cup of fluid during each cycle. Plus, you never get the adhesive stuck to your hair.

“To make the switch from disposables to reusable products requires an attitude change from being able to throw away the mess (or is it the evidence?) of our menses and perfume and deodorize at the same time, to accepting the reality of this natural part of our bodies.”

I also wanted to bring up, at least briefly, birth control. I never used to discuss this in my lecture because, well, for a long time I thought the benefits of not getting pregnant outweighed the downsides of birth control. But as there are alternatives, and birth control becomes more and more of an environmental issue, I wanted to at least mention it.
There are two reasons this topic is important for girls. One, like pads and tampons, there is an environmental concern in regards to birth control. There have been a lot of rumors circulating in regards to hormones ending up in our water supplies, and whether these are all true or if we really have to worry yet, no one seems entirely sure. It’s typically safe, when it comes to pollution, to err on the side of less pollution is better.
The second, and this has been subject to even less research, is that birth control in its many conventional methods has not been proven to be entirely safe for all women. Most methods haven’t been out for a long period of time, and several have been pulled from the market after they were discovered to have negative effects on our systems, such as Norplant, and suspicions have been raised about many of the other forms- though no one has bothered to figure out what exactly all the side effects are.
I’m not going to go extensively into alternatives, because this is an area where you have to choose for yourself. Some people don’t seem to have the same bad reactions to hormones as others, and some people have a harder time counting days and paying attention to their own bodies. And sometimes accidents just happen. Believe me, I have contemplated going back on regular birth control for the convenience more than once. But I am one of those people who can’t tolerate hormones in my system. Even aside from the risk factor, I do not personally like to be dependent on pills to take care of my body any more than I like being dependent on pads made of plastic that come from the drug store. If there is a more localized alternative, that gives us control over our own bodies, and puts the knowledge of how they work back into our own hands, then that’s the option I’m going to take.
When it comes right down to it, the real question is, do you love your body? One of the most radical things you can do, for yourself and for the environment, is to care about yourself, and to be attuned to what’s going on. I mentioned before that with practice you can literally feel yourself ovulating. That kind of power can change your life. And if you care about yourself, and your body, you’re going to treat it right- and that means not tormenting it by trying to shove your period to the side, and trying to hide from the simple fact that you are a girl and you menstruate and I am here to tell you this is beautiful and amazing.
And, to not lose sight of the theme of this lecture, I strongly believe you can’t love the planet while you’re hating yourself. Look at the damage we do to the environment and how much of it has to do with how much we just don’t care about its effects on ourselves- thousands of kids get asthma every year from power plants, but we let it slide- thousands of people get cancer from pollutants in the air, in the water, and we do nothing… because we don’t know how to love ourselves, dirty and chaotic and imperfect animals that we are. If you can change that, you’ll be surprised how quickly everything else falls into place.

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Money Money Money

Reality Sandwich: Money, A New Beginning

There are two important (related) points I want to address from this article:

We have a growth economy (in fact, an exponential growth economy) and a finite quantity of resources upon which that economy is supposed to be based. This is undeniable.

In a growth economy, we must constantly have more things if there is going to be more money in circulation- in other words, in order to grow, we must have more things to sell. If you look at our society, it is based almost entirely on the privatization of things which were once free (such as clean water), and the constant invention of new things to spend money on (for example, “upgraded” technologies, which renders the old versions obsolete).




This causes two problems: first, that in order to continue to grow, our economy encourages phenomenal amounts of waste. If you reuse something for ten years instead of buying a new one every few months, there is no profit to be made, as a long lasting reusable item subverts your need to constantly make a purchase. The same principle demands the constant use of more resources to produce the new items.

Second, it traps you into a constant cycle of accumulation. I’ve talked about this in terms of major environmental groups previously on this blog. When you constantly require additional funding to stay afloat (literally to stay in business- to maintain your employees and programming) a vast percentage of your time is spent on accumulating money in order to do this. Now imagine if we were secure, and accumulating money was unnecessary- that same amount of time spent on fundraising and grant writing could be spent on immediate, tangible applications, such as going out and quite literally cleaning up a stream.

It’s yet another way to look at sustainability. Let’s look at one of my favorite examples again, water. One way or another, we have to pay for water. Even if you refuse to buy bottled water, which is thus far the ultimate in privatization of water, you still have to get it from somewhere (a tap) because it certainly isn’t clean enough when it’s running in a stream or something similar. There are methods of collecting and purifying your own water, but these are typically discouraged, looked down upon, or made otherwise difficult, if not outright illegal. So we get our money from a tap, the cleaning of which is paid for typically by a municipality, which pays with our tax money and the like. If you have your own sink, typically you have a house or apartment or something around it (which you had to pay for), or even if you are getting water on the go, you need some kind of container to put it in (which you had to pay for). Water is by no means free. We must accumulate some sort of material good to grant us access- whether it be a whole house or a Nalgene bottle. Take a minute and imagine someone in a tribal society with a Nalgene bottle. What the hell would they do with it? They’d have to haul it around all over creation. If water were simply available, clean and without pollutants…

Well, possibly you can see what I’m driving at. The destruction of the commons, as it is typically called, has deep reaching consequences for our environment. If everything is privatized, it is no one’s responsibility- who is to blame for the polluted air in the vicinity of a power plant, as we’ve asked before? The plant, or the people who purchase power from them? And when it comes down to removing the pollution, who should pay? And who, ultimately, pays when the people living nearby (regardless of whether they purchase power from that plant or not) suffer from exposure to pollution?

Something to consider, certainly.

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