The Topic on Our Minds

Oh, the oil spill.

I’ve been avoiding writing about it, because it’s almost like, what can you say? I’m not surprised by it. Some people have expressed to me their disbelief that such a thing could occur: we thought the oil rigs were safe! I’m not sure what universe they’re living in, but I was never under the impression that they were safe. Have they been saying that on the news? I mean, when you think about it, what about an oil rig makes you think “that sounds like a brilliant idea”?

“Since 2001, 858 fires and explosions have broken out on oil and gas industry facilities in the Gulf of Mexico, killing more than 55 workers, according to the US Minerals Management Service.” - BBC

Yeah.

And of course, the irony is that this happens at the same time that Obama, supposed liberal hope of the future, approves offshore drilling. Hardy har har. It’s almost too coincidental to believe. It’s almost like his opponents went and caused an oil spill just to make him look like an idiot. Or that some group did it to raise opposition for off shore drilling. Or maybe it is a conspiracy to drive the price of oil up… by dumping half of what’s left into the ocean, there will be less of it? And then they will be forced to open the Atlantic to drilling because they will claim, like the flat out liars they are, that this will lower the prices again.

Here is part of a statement from Oceana that I think sums it up nicely:
Despite the oil industry’s statements, events like this one will happen again unless we act to prevent them. It is time for the U.S. to recognize that the risks of offshore drilling far outweigh any benefits. We must stop ignoring government studies showing clearly that expanded offshore drilling does nothing for the consumer: it does not lower the price of gasoline and it will not make us energy independent. As we watch the response efforts in the Gulf, and try to imagine the sheer magnitude of oil gushing from the bottom of the ocean with no end in sight, it is clear that our ability to find oil far outstrips our ability to respond to a blowout.

I think this is so hard to write about because it hurts, so, so, terribly. The sheer amount of devastation that comes from a spill like this- the lasting devastation- the loss of wildlife, of habitat, of livelihoods for thousands who depend on the sea for their incomes- it’s hard even to comprehend. And what is even harder to wrap your mind around is the fact that people want it to continue. People want underwater drilling to continue. People are willing to take the risk of THIS MUCH DAMAGE just so we can have a pittance more oil. Because that’s all you’re going to get out of the earth, at this point. There are only so many dead dinosaurs we can dig up.

The fact that the US government would be willing to spend billions of dollars chasing the pipe dream of additional oil, rather than say, oh, I don’t know, cut back on the amount of oil used, proves to me (as if I needed more proof) that the government does not have our best interests in mind. It has the interests of the lobbyists that pay the most. And those would be the oil companies. When I read the statements from legislators saying things like “we need this oil” and “with more research, this will never happen again,” I’m so angry I can’t even see straight. Both are blatant lies.

I think what disturbs me even more is the support American people have given to the concept of drilling offshore. There was an opinion piece in the college newspaper just last week arguing in favor of using more oil. This just makes no logical sense. There is no more oil, and the sooner we get that into our heads the more chance we’ll have to avert complete disaster. In the article the student argued that it is her lifestyle choice to use more oil, and that no one should be able to take that away. Which is fine, except that her lifestyle choice has caused tragedies like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. All of our lifestyle choices have. If you drive a vehicle, if you use ANYTHING made out of plastic, if you have power in your home, if you eat anything in a grocery store, if you buy anything from a store, it doesn’t matter if it’s the greenest hemp reusable bag out there, it used oil. And using oil causes oil spills. There is NO WAY AROUND IT. None. Don’t want oil spills? End the use of oil. Period. It belongs in the ground. It was there for a reason in the first place.

Sadly, people are delusional. I was having a conversation just the other night with two very intelligent young men- who were still arguing that it’s ok, we’ll find a technical fix long before oil runs out. But this is not the case, because we simply don’t have the time. Time’s up. Time to make a change. Time to end dependence not just on foreign oil, but on all oil. NOW. Because if you think this oil spill is a disaster, wait until you see what happens where there is simply no oil left- when people start starving to death because there are no more oil based fertilizers to make crops grow, when there are no more trucks to transport food, when suddenly oil is so scarce that our entire economy collapses under the increased price of literally everything- because that’s where we’re headed, people. There’s no way out. Not so long as we allow the status quo to remain.

Not so long as we ignore the fact that the US government is more interested in appeasing lobbyists than in the future health and safety of the entire US population.

One last note from the news, and the only person in the news I’ve actually agreed with: "That's what's sad about this opportunity," says Lisa Margonelli of the New America Foundation. "We're going to expend a lot of energy towards these moratoriums when we could be addressing the underlying problem, which is the oil consumption itself."

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County Threatens to Cut Recycling

Chestertown Spy: County Cuts Curbside Recycling

Dear readers,

When you read the above news item, please also read the commentary. I would like to attempt to dispel some of the preconceived notions regarding recycling that the general public seems to hold. I feel that as the Recycling Coordinator for a 2000 person community I can speak with some accuracy in regards to the larger issue of the surrounding Kent County community.

First of all, recycling is an expensive proposition. As Ford Schuman states in the commentary (and he is one of the few other people who can speak accurately about recycling, being the head of a recycling company himself), “It has always been a misconception that recycling pays for itself. Recycling easily costs less than landfilling. Even if you have to pay $20/ton to ship a load to a manufacturer that accepts it free, you’re well below the trash tipping fee of $55/ton, not counting shipping. Plus you don’t have to safeguard the recycling for perpetuity and more jobs are created.”

Recycling does not pay for itself. Recycling will never pay for itself so long as raw materials are cheap and largely subsidized. Consider the plastic bottle. Plastic bottles are made of PETROLEUM, ie OIL, and we all know oil is in short supply. However, it is so heavily subsidized by the federal government that the price is unnaturally low. This allows beverage companies to use it copiously to produce plastic bottles for your consumption. You are not paying the price to them. They are not paying the price of extracting the oil, particularly from conflict areas. The federal government (and our soldiers abroad) are paying for this with YOUR tax dollars.

After you’ve used a plastic bottle, if it gets recycled, it is then somehow the county government’s responsibility to figure out what to do with it. They need to put out the money to collect it, and, because people are insufferably lazy, in Kent County they have chosen to do this via curbside collection to make it as easy as possible. We have gone a step farther at Washington College, because our community was too lazy even to be bothered with curbside. Instead, we installed 230 fairly expensive bins directly in hallways on campus and employ 10 students to empty them on a weekly basis, and still, STILL, we are not capturing all of the recycling that goes through this campus. An enormous amount of it goes into the trash, because apparently it is too “inconvenient” to walk ten feet down the hall to the recycling bin.

The fact that the county has been successful with curbside is a stellar recommendation for their efforts and commitment. But let’s talk costs for a minute. Here on campus, we have spent thousands of dollars on installing recycling bins (one sturdy bin that is able to hold up to the beatings students regularly give them is approximately $120- just as an aside, this is comparably cheap when placed next to your average public trash can). We annually (or rather, the federal work study program) pay about $25,000 for student work. And then there’s me, the only “full” time staff person dedicated to recycling, and considering I am technically only paid half of my salary to do recycling, but spend more like 80% of my time on it, the college is getting a pretty good deal. It’s expensive. And, to top it off, we aren’t paying for containers, or hauling. The county is (thanks, guys).

The point is, we as a society expect to pay to have our trash removed. We somehow expect recycling, because it is associated with the environmental movement, to pay for itself. Newsflash: it doesn’t. It never will, unless oil subsidies vanish and the real cost of raw materials reveals itself (I’m hoping for that option, personally). Recycling is not, and never will be, saving the environment. It is diverting a few types of waste away from landfills and converting them (through an extremely energy intensive and expensive process) into other materials. If we were really concerned about the environment, we wouldn’t be producing the recyclables in the first place, we’d be concentrating on zero waste and reusables. We’d be holding companies responsible for the products they are creating, so that the cost of dealing with a beverage container was put back on the creator (and the purchaser), NOT the tax-paying public and the municipalities.

But that, of course, would be inconvenient.

In closing, if the county is truly shutting down the recycling program because they are disappointed it’s not more of a money generator, I would really like to see the figures on how much they put out annually for trash removal and tipping fees. If these costs are covered by the towns (as I believe they are), then I move that it should be the responsibility of the towns to pay for recycling as they also pay for trash removal. And if people are not willing to pay more to live in town and have someone come to their doorstep to pick up their waste, they need not to create so much waste in the first place.

I invite anyone who complains about the expense of recycling to spend a day collecting and transporting recyclables from the public. After seeing the inordinate amount of materials people waste in the space of a single week, please feel free to come back to me and complain again about the expenses. All we, the recycling collectors of the world, are trying to do is manage YOUR waste in the most efficient way possible.

Believe me, it’s not a job that receives a lot of thanks.

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Surprise, Surprise

So I caught this on the news today: Killer Whale Kills SeaWorld Trainer.

All I can say is, no, REALLY?

You put a 12,000 lb whale in a tank and expect it to jump through hoops? Seriously? Are you delusional?

But of course they are. People believe they can tame nature, that they can pen up a 12,000 lb social animal alone in a tank, and that everything will be fine. Because we're in control, aren't we? Don't we have control over everything? Isn't that how it's supposed to be?

Of course, we put ourselves in cages, too. We call them offices. And we wonder when people "go postal," as they call it. And then we're just as shocked when a "killer" whale does the same. Of course, in that instance, it's all about a failure to follow job safety. I bet OSHA will get involved. Even the Humane Society recommends shooting the poor thing if it threatens human lives.

They can investigate all they want, to "determine what went wrong in this case", but it doesn't take an investigator to know an animal in an environment where it doesn't belong will eventually lash out.

Let me give you a hint, SeaWorld. Orcas do not give hugs.

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The 11th Hour

I have a long list of environmental documentaries in my Netflix queue, but I very rarely watch them (even though many of them are instant!). I think the reason is that they annoy me far too much. I imagine many of them are intended for people who don’t know that the environment is in trouble, but for me, I tend to tune out half of what they say (because I’ve heard it a thousand times before) and then become aggressively angry at the other half because I don’t agree with the type of solutions they suggest.

The 11th Hour was a perfect example. Leonardo DiCaprio managed to annoy me so badly I nearly turned the movie off half way through. If you are new to the environmental movement, or looking to be told what you already know for the umpteenth time, than by all means, watch this movie. This is a perfect film for those who are just getting their introduction to the concept that humans have royally screwed themselves over by destroying so much of our environment (read: our surroundings, the place that we live). It will also make the many people who believe that environmental destruction is bad but don’t want to change their lifestyles feel very good about themselves, because it promotes, unsurprisingly, the same “vote with your dollars” nonsense that ended An Inconvenient Truth.

Let’s start with the same old, it’s us and nature, and we have to save nature nonsense. I was glad that he (Leo) at least acknowledged that part of the problem is our society’s tendency to view the two as separate entities: we are part of nature, whether we like to believe it or not. But, after pointing this out, he went on to ask if nature holds the answers to our environmental crisis. I suppose he is referring specifically to the non-human part of the world, which yes, Mr. Smarty-Pants, probably holds some answers. You will notice that the non-human part of the world would be getting along very well if it weren’t for us. They must be doing something right, don’t you think?

Leo clearly thinks so, too. At least, he featured plenty of fairly uninteresting speakers who seemed to think so. But then he went on to ask what a city would look like if it was designed like a forest, and my brain nearly exploded. This particular bit boggled me so much that I will ignore his assertion that we need a “new industrial economy,” which means more regulation from the federal government and a revised tax structure, to more heavily tax those persons who pollute. It is naïve and somewhat delusional to think the government will ever tax industry more than a pittance for pollution, and will never charge them with cleaning up the mess they’ve created. Government and big industry go hand and hand, and you can be sure that no politician is going to cut off their own funding by angering big business.

But to get back to this city designed like a forest thing. If a city were designed like a forest, it wouldn’t be a city at all. This is one of those paradoxical questions. A city, apparently, according to the dictionary, is a large town or an incorporated municipality (which would technically make Chestertown a city). A forest is, well, a forest. It’s got trees, diversity, healthy soil structures… it’s self-contained… and a city requires thousands of people to be living in the same place. Usually all on top of each other, in one big building. That’s the definition. In order for a city to exist, massive amounts of resources must come from other places, to the city. Even if they invent some fabulous way of creating food in quantities large enough to feed all the people in cities, I can almost guarantee it will require some kind of technology (because we’re big fans of technological fixes), which will require some kind of metal, which will require mining, which will probably require petroleum, which is a non-renewable resource- are you seeing how this is unrelated to a forest? People in those kinds of numbers always require outside inputs, which are inherently unsustainable, which forests are not.

Not to mention the fact that forests, every few decades or sometimes hundreds of years, deteriorate and decay and burn down or fall down and go back to shrubs or prairie or what have you before growing back up into big forests again. It’s part of the cycle of life. Death, growth, change. Forests evolve. Species come and go. There are cycles.

Can you imagine a city like that? Would it still be a city? Cause I think the answer is no.

And oh, please, shut up about the voting with consumer dollars thing. It’s getting old. There are ways to create change without going out and buying more THINGS.

Besides, where’s YOUR shirt from, Leo?

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Snow, Snow, and more Snow

I’m going to admit up front this doesn’t have much of anything to do with the environment. It is a rant, pure and simple. But I think it reflects on why we treat the environment the way we do: we can’t accept a loss of control, pure and simple.

In my position at the college I am privy to most of the complaints levied by the population in relation to the goings ons of the everyday sort of campus affairs- broken toilets, out of order exit signs, and, most often, heat that is either too hot or too cold and air conditioning that isn’t functioning, depending on the season. I get just as many complaints at work as I do through facebook, which seems to be the repository of everyone’s bad feelings about their daily activities. And in the past week, there have been even more complaints than normal- and all about the snow.

Oh, I’m tired of being stuck in the house. Oh, there’s nothing to do. Oh, I’m so tired of shoveling, oh, I wish it would stop snowing, oh, the lines at the grocery store, whine whine whine. People who I know don’t like their jobs much complaining about how much they want to go back to work. People on and on and on about how the college shouldn’t have been closed for a whole week, that it was taking too long to get things cleared, that the state botched things up, that if we lived up north they never would have dealt with things so badly.

Well, I for one am appalled at these reactions. First off, knowing how hard the crew worked on campus to clear away the snow as fast as they could, staying overnight, not seeing their families, working endlessly to clear away snow that was already piled high on the ground, not to mention the places where it drifted- I saw damage to buildings, pieces of roofing pulled right off by the snow. And the understaffed crew had to clear it all away with two pick ups with plows, because one of them broke clean in half from the weight of the snow, a broken tractor, and a rented Bobcat. People asked why the snow wasn’t cleared faster. Well, what would you expect? It’s not like they’re willing to divert more money to the grounds crew, for extra staff, or for better equipment. And yet somehow they expect them to be able to make the snow magically disappear the day after it stops falling? Really the complainers should be ashamed of themselves for having so little respect for the people who have worked so tirelessly to clear the campus for them.

But it’s not just people on campus. Everyone I’ve talked to goes on and on about how miserable they were staying in their houses, not being able to get out and drive. It’s all about having to get out and drive- and honestly the roads would have been clear a lot faster if it weren’t for the people who insisted on trying to drive on them before they were ready, so that road crews (on campus included) spent more time towing people out of snowbanks than actually plowing. And what I can’t understand, is why people are so incapable of being inside their own houses (especially if they have children). Is being at home so bad? I got so much done over the week at home- and enjoyed myself more than I had in months. It was a right little vacation.

But then again, I’m ok with the slow pace. I’m definitely ok with not driving. I keep all the food I need in my house, because I don’t shop at the grocery store anyway. And I’m willing to admit that some things are just more powerful than business as usual, which seems to be what everyone else was so upset about. “Nature” cannot be allowed to stop the ongoing rush of daily activity. Snow? No. Snow cannot be allowed to cause interruptions, no matter how many feet of it fall on the ground. We must assert our control over it immediately, show that no manner of snow fall can keep US from driving on the roads.

And, to attempt to make this relevant, this is how it relates to the environment: we believe, as a society, that we can control natural forces. We believe weather has no effect on us. THIS is how we end up growing tomatoes with massive petroleum inputs in January. THIS is how we start to believe that we can change the composition of the atmosphere and not have any negative effects. We believe we, and the natural world, are two separate entities at war with one another. And, if we believe that it is direly important to conduct business as usual on a daily basis, we are at war with nature, because nature is not business as usual. Stuff happens, and that stuff usually happens for a reason (not like fate, or something), but because those weather events are important to the survival of the ecosystem. And we can fight them all we want, but in the long run, we will lose. Business is not going to conquer nature. Unless we accept the fact that we are as subject to its ever changing progression, we will get left behind.

So get over it, people. It snowed.

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Recycling is Bull S***

Treehugger: Recycling is Bull S***

Before anyone gets offended, I’m borrowing the title from Treehugger. And I agree.

*waits for gasps of shock to disappear*

Recycling is a huge waste of time. The fact that students spend a total of about 50 hours per week collecting and sorting recyclables on this campus: waste. Those recyclables have to be trucked somewhere, and Kent County, just like so many other municipalities all over the country, is responsible for finding someplace willing to buy the materials (usually China). They don’t make very much money at it. But the alternative is to dump them in a landfill, and landfills are even more expensive.

Why is this such a waste? What alternative could there possibly be, you ask? Well, not so very long ago in the past, there were refillable bottles. You drank a Coke, say, and then you gave the bottle back. And they washed it out and put more Coke in it. Whoa. Same with most other beverages, including alcohol.

But for this to be possible, there had to be places making beverages in the relatively near vicinity of the place where people were drinking them. Otherwise you had to transport a load of glass bottles over long distances, and, well, obviously glass doesn’t travel very well. Plus it’s heavy, and costs a lot to transport. Having a lot of little places each making soda or beer or alcohol meant lots of little companies each making their own product, often unique, often with local ingredients. There were hundreds and hundreds of brands of sodas, and probably thousands of microbreweries.

Now, Coke couldn’t have that, could they? Thousands of people doing their own thing, making unique diverse products? Bad for business. And Coke couldn’t afford to have lots of little factories all over the place- far more efficient, and far cheaper, to make Coke in one place and ship it all over the country. But not if you have to ship glass bottles back, and wash them, and refill them, and ship them out again. Thus was born the aluminum can. Lightweight and cheap to ship. Can’t be refilled. Never mind the fact that aluminum is ridiculously expensive to mine, that’s all done in Africa, and who cares if strip mining demolishes native populations and leaves millions of people in stark poverty. For Coke, it’s not only cheaper, but now they don’t have to deal with the end product: it’s all yours! Part of the bargain! But what in heavens name are you supposed to do with that aluminum can?

Well, for years, throw it in the trash. Then the environmental movement got all crazy, and you had to recycle it. Notice the key word here: YOU. YOU had to recycle it. YOU had to figure out what to do with it. Municipalities, which are not exactly money making organizations, had to figure out what to do with it. And they, and you, have to do this with every single consumer product.

But I say NO. NO, it is NOT my responsibility to figure out what to do with this plastic bag. I don’t want it. I don’t take them. What the hell are they doing in MY river? I don’t remember anyone ever asking companies to make plastic bags. I don’t remember anyone asking the companies to start producing aluminum cans. And seriously, did anyone go around asking companies to make the ridiculous tons of plastic s*** that plague waterways around the world? I certainly didn’t. And yet it’s supposed to be MY responsibility to deal with it? Are you kidding?

It is time, far past time, that we stop putting all the blame on ourselves. Oh yes, you as a consumer can vote with your wallet and all that. I’m just not sure why we have to continue to be defined as consumers at all, as if we don’t have any option other than to consume. What if we become producers? What if there are local microbreweries, who start taking bottles back again, and refilling them, and selling them? What if you buy products locally, so they don’t have to be shipped at all? What if you buy them from craftspeople, who don’t wrap them in tons of packaging? Or, if you’re still determined to keep using those multinational corporation products, why don’t you DEMAND, with your consumer dollars that are supposed to be all-powerful, that THEY take responsibility for the packaging of their products? That THEY deal with the millions of tons of plastic, of aluminum cans, of other useless packaging, instead of passing that cost on to you, the consumer (because the municipalities are collecting recycling using your tax money)? What if THEY take responsibility for the pollution they create, and not just the waste, but the air and water pollution? Why is it our problem? Did we ever ask for it?

Companies will undoubtedly say this makes their products more expensive, but I say bull S*** to that too. Coke spends billions of dollars on advertising. If their product was really all that great, they wouldn’t have to. They could use some of that money to solve the problem THEY’VE caused.

But, oh right, the global economy depends on shifting all the responsibility away from corporations, who have the legal rights of people, but none of the responsibilities, and putting it on “consumers.” And CLEARLY the global economy is more important than the environment, and our health, and our lives.

How very silly of me.

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Ten Things Not to Buy in 2010

Ten Things Not to Buy in 2010

I think this list is kind of funny because I probably wouldn’t buy a single thing on it anyway, except maybe a newspaper subscription. I disagree that books are going out of style (send me your books! I’ll give them a good home), probably because I’ll never get a Kindle (my eyesight is bad enough without trying to read on yet another computer screen). I can’t understand why anyone in their right mind would buy new college textbooks anyway. And I definitely agree that buying CDs is pointless (when you can get them for free, and save waste in the process). Thumbs up to the no gas guzzling cars or energy inefficient appliances- but that’s another one that should have been a no-brainer.

I have another what not to buy list. In fact, call it a New Year’s challenge to rival the one to exercise more and lose that last ten pounds (except I encourage you to actually try and do this one). In fact, this one is even more of an imperative: it might actually make a difference.

1. Things from the grocery store
If you’re lucky, you live in an area with a farmer’s market and CSAs and co-ops. The marvelous thing about CSAs is that you don’t have to think about it at all- you just show up for your pickup and there is an array of fabulous delicious (local) produce for your selection! There are even meat CSAs and if you are in the right area fruit CSAs- all of which you pay for beforehand, in the winter- so you don’t even need your credit card when you go. The farmer’s market can supplement your purchases with things your CSA doesn’t offer- ranging from bread to pastries to jam to candles to produce to chicken to lamb to eggs and much more. Finally, for those products you can’t typically find at the farmer’s market, you can join a co-op to get (more or less) locally produced dry goods- I get flour and other baking necessities, as well as dry beans and rice, from my co-op. As long as I remember to put in my order each month, a wonderful friend of ours divides up the orders and gives everyone their bills. If you don’t know of a co-op in your area, start one up! It’s easy- it just requires a little extra time each month to put in orders and email everyone when its time to come pick them up. As a result, the only thing I buy at the grocery store is paper towels, and occasional random items like salt and lemon juice.

2. New Electronics
Seriously, why would you even bother to buy new electronics? Talk about a waste of resources. Check out this website for more on why: Last Year’s Model

3. Disposable Pads and Tampons
Many, many, reasons for this one, from the environmental to the personal. Check them out here: Green Girl Talk

4. Anything that comes in individually wrapped packages
And that includes granola bars- as well as candy, gum, tampons, crackers, snack products, and who knows what else. It’s pointless to individually wrap something when you can just buy a big version and save the waste. Besides, have you ever noticed that individually wrapped items are ALWAYS more expensive than bulk? Buy in bulk- save money, save time, save the waste!

I also want to include in this one bottled water. This is the biggest waste of resources known to consumerism, if you ask me. DRINK TAP WATER. If your tap water is not drinkable, bring it up with your city. Don’t spend all your money on bottles of water that are probably not much cleaner than your tap water, AND require ridiculous amounts of energy (and oil) to produce, as they are made out of oil, and the FDA does not allow bottles that contain food products to be made out of recycled plastic. So you can recycle all the water bottles in the world and STILL each new plastic bottle must be made from oil. Besides, even recycling uses ridiculous amounts of energy. Recycling plastic is not efficient.

5. Tissues
Handkerchiefs. I had to use a tissue again the other day, after having switched to handkerchiefs maybe… three years ago? And I got snot all over my hand. I was not pleased. Tissues are sad pathetic excuses for handkerchiefs. Believe me, your nose will thank you. I make mine out of old shirts, and just throw them in the wash when they get gross. They come out good as new!

6. Gag gifts/ Keepsakes/ Paper weights/ Things they sell at the Hallmark Store
I find these to be the most irritating things to receive from other people. They don’t DO anything. Apparently sales of them are high because there are entire stores devoted to these sorts of things. I go inside them every once in a while out of fascination: what is all this for? Why do we spend our hard earned money on things that have absolutely no purpose? Gag gifts can be funny, but it is more the concept that is funny, and after you’ve seen them once the laugh is over and that’s the end of it. Then what? Then it just sits around collecting dust and taking up space. Same with the objects people buy- I mean, one or two, sure, but seriously, some people have hundreds of these random little figurines and statuettes and who knows what else sitting around.

7. Soda
Do yourself a favor this year and give your system a break. It will thank you- as will the waterways that are poisoned every year by run off from the corn fields that go into the production of soda and other items made entirely of corn. You can find all about it elsewhere on this blog: here and here and here, to start.

8. Cleaning products, especially the nasty ones
You can clean with vinegar and baking soda. Really. There are tons of recipes out there for making your own cleaning products from very basic ingredients, and there are even more recipes for personal care products. Do some research, be a little creative and DIY, and spare our waterways from the nasty chemical runoff coming from our sinks and drains. No one needs fish kills and fish with both types of reproductive organs. If you must buy cleaning products, look for things that are biodegradable and contain the least number of toxic death chemicals possible. And buy in bulk.

9. Clothes
I once made a pact with my cousin not to buy any new clothing for a year. I used to have a serious addiction to buying clothing, especially shoes, and found myself spending an awful lot of money and time on the pursuit, and then not wearing half of what I bought. So I made a pact, and I broke the habit. Now I still almost never buy clothing, unless I really need something, and when I do I try and give away at least one item in my closet (to keep it even). I think in the last year I’ve bought: underwear, new snow boots, and leggings (which I wear every day). Definitely saves an awful lot of money, and reduces waste.

10. iPhones
This one is just because they annoy me. I know I already put “electronics” on the list, but I hold a special level of dislike in my heart for iPhones and Blackberries and the rest of them. When my dad is interrupting conversations to check his email on his Blackberry, and my friends are surreptitiously taking pictures of me and uploading them to facebook on their iPhones while we’re hanging out, I develop more and more reasons why the internet should just stay on the darn computer.

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The Cutest Little Trash Collector

That would be me, apparently. At least that’s what I was called, while collecting the recycling the other morning.

The funny thing is, I basically am a trash collector. Some people like to make a big fuss and insist that we’re collecting recycling, as if this makes the act of collecting it inherently different from collecting trash. The end use is different, certainly. The recycling gets, you know, recycled. But when it comes down to actually going through every building and pulling out bags of bottles and cans and hauling them all over campus, it feels a lot like trash collection to me, except the trash goes straight in the compacter. We have to sort the recycling. By hand.

It’s the sorting that really gets to you, after a while. It would be one thing if you grabbed a bag of recycling, and it was full of clean bottles and cans that had been rinsed and emptied. But chances are someone threw a full cup of coffee in the recycling, and neither the cup nor the coffee are recyclable. Most of our bins around campus sport prominent labels that read “BOTTLES AND CANS ONLY”, but somehow we consistently end up with objects which are neither bottles or cans. Paper coffee cups are a popular addition, as are those greenware cups from the dining hall. Hate to break it to you, campus, but just because it says “greenware,” they do not suddenly become recyclable. They are made out of corn. Technically they could be composted if we had a way to collect them and a much bigger composting system. But they can not go in with the petroleum based plastic bottles.

The thing that really gets me is how, even when we put a big giant label on something that says “NO CUPS,” you will lift the lid and, surprise, there are cups.

This has me a bit worried. Is our campus illiterate? This idea was suggested to me by another staff member who was astonished by the amount of trash I displayed in one bag of recycling I had pulled. “But why would people but trash in the recycling?” he asked, perplexed. Possibly they can’t read the signs.

But we decided to start asking students, and see if there was another answer. It seems unlikely that students were able to get accepted to the college if they were unable to read simple words like “NO” and “CUPS.” The common answer seems to be that there aren’t enough trash cans. It is far more convenient to put your trash in one of the many, many recycling bins on campus than to hunt down a trash can.

Now wait a minute- I thought we didn’t have enough bins? This is what I hear all the time, when people are trying to tell me that we don’t collect enough recycling, that recycling isn’t convenient enough, that I need to buy more bins. But, as it turns out, we have too many bins. And not enough trash cans.

Unfortunately that’s not something I’m allowed to put in my budget. Any ideas, dear readers, on how to keep the trash out of the recycling bins, in lieu of buying appropriate trash receptacles? Because the cutest little trash collector is getting a little tired of getting covered in coffee every morning.

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Burger King Attempts to Conquer the World

Whopper Virgin Documentary

Usually I post things on here that I like. This is something that makes me want to go on a very, very angry rampage. If I were the sort of person who made moralistic judgments, I would be doing so right now- but instead I will go through it point by point. Watch the video first, or this won’t make any sense.

One- This is a very cleverly designed ad campaign. Notice how they select out the few people who, most likely out of context, seem to be friendly with the advertisers, inviting them back to their villages, etc. I imagine just as many people flat out told them no, or spit the burger right back out, or told them to get the hell out. But they chose not to show you that, of course.

Two- The whole premise- that there are very few people in the world who haven’t tried hamburgers, and that this is a wonderous thing, going around and introducing hamburgers to the “whopper virgins” of the world, is presumptuous and condescending. Thank the stars there are still people in the world who have never eaten a hamburger. The implication by Burger King that they are bringing enlightenment to the world in the form of the whopper is a disgusting example of our culture’s mindset that our way is the only way, and those who haven’t yet been exposed to it should be brought around to see the light.

Three- This is demonstrated in how they focus on the way most of the people filmed are unsure as to how to approach a burger- whether to take it apart or cut it up or what- as if this is quaint and adorable in the way a very small child tries to figure out how to use an unfamiliar object.

Four- The simple fact that they developed a portable Burger King grill to take on the road, and complained about not being able to plug it in at many of their stops- well, another example of condescension. I’m surprised a lot of people even had electric outlets to start with, and the fact that Burger King felt the need to go into their communities, disturbing their way of life, and plug in an “official” Burger King grill- I have no words.

Five- In the same vein, it’s interesting that they chose locations as close to Burger King restaurants as possible- clearly this has nothing to do with the fact that Burger King has so saturated the market that they have very little room for expansion, and are looking for ways to bring their products to the last reaches of the earth, because we have a growth economy and this is the only way to increase profit.

Six- Which is really what it comes down to: how can you increase profits when there are already more burgers in existence than people, in theory, could legitimately eat? The advertising expense for this ad campaign must have been tremendous, and you know Burger King wouldn’t put out that kind of money if they didn’t expect some kind of return.

Seven- Overall, I find the entire campaign distasteful and disrespectful to traditional cultures to an extreme. I cheered when they asked one man if he liked the whopper better than seal meat, and he answered that he preferred seal meat. Good for him. Homogeneity in food is one of the biggest causes of global issues- poverty, environmental destruction, destruction of indigenous ways of life, I’ve covered this on this blog many times over. Not to mention that the reason whoppers all taste the same is that the taste is manufactured in a plant, out of chemical ingredients, and basted over the meat to give it that familiar flavor. Nothing to do with the actual meat, which probably tastes like cardboard. At least that’s how I remember fast food burgers in my memory- but it’s been at least ten years since I quit eating them.

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