Category: low-footprint living

Lately I am making a conscious choice to pay much less attention to the arena of what I call “violent and intrusive landscape maintenance operations.”

Not that it’s not loud and disruptive, just that I am making a choice to not focus my attention there. It’s a powerful choice. It’s not the same as giving up; it’s more like freeing up energy and brain space for things that will actually work.

I’ve known for a while that certain procedures are held in place by a variety of factors, and are therefore not likely a good leverage point for trying to make change. (Your mileage may vary, depending on your skills, inclinations, and personality attributes. If you feel drawn to try to make change at a certain leverage point, I say have at it, unless and until such time as you decide that it’s not working and that something else might work better.)

As for me, there are other leverage points I’m involved with that are producing better results (nationwide movements etc.) than my painful focus on extreme mowing, tree mutilation, etc. –so I will stick with those.

People don’t realize that a lot of what we see as policy handed down by government from on high, is actually the trickling-UP of social norms. I have to remind myself of that and focus accordingly.

It may seem impossible for one person to change a social norm. And it is! However, shifting the social norms is an act of transmission, and that starts from one person to another.

Further exploration:

• If you really want to dive deep into leverage points and systems thinking, please read the classic Thinking in Systems: A primer, by Donella Meadows. https://donellameadows.org

Clothes pins. I was actually just pondering this, I ponder it quite a bit really. Because it’s one of those essential items whose production can be localized and potentially give a livelihood to many individual artisans.

And, as so often happens when I am pondering something that seems small and obscure, I found the very thing on the Internet that I was talking about! Right down to his advocacy of a decentralized model with makers in every region.

These clothespins are equipped with sturdy springs. But a local micro-business could just as well choose to offer the kind of clothespins that are made from a single piece of wood and don’t require any springs.

“Classic American Clothespins is a small, home-based business with a big mission. My family and I are bringing the manufacture of high-quality, spring-and-wood clothespins back to America. Our goal is not to be an enormous, centralized clothespin manufacturing company, but to re-introduce a well-made, useful clothespin and encourage the small-scale, decentralized production of these clothespins by entrepreneurial woodworkers all across the nation. …”

http://classicamericanclothespins.blogspot.com/2013/09/home-page.html?m=1

I am nearing the bottom of my stash of clothespins which I inherited from Mom and Dad’s house. Within that stash were many obviously older and sturdier clothespins, as well as newer less sturdy ones. Also included in the mix are clothespins without springs, just made from one piece of wood.

There’s nothing like a clothesline for drying clothes, as far as I’m concerned. Truly I consider a drying machine to be inferior in multiple ways. Even if it weren’t costly in energy terms, it’s a machine that can break down. And all too often the clothes don’t end up truly dry. And also they end up smelling like some chemical product. Nope, it’s line-dried laundry all the way for me!

Also, laundry can be dried in a shady breezeway area. Or even just one of the breezier rooms of your house. The shade option is good for times and places where it’s not sunny for a while, or if you have some garments that are particularly susceptible to fading.

For drying indoors or in small spaces, those old-fashioned wooden folding laundry racks are a goddess-send. They can be made of plastic too. I found a wooden one, and then a bigger plastic one, at curbside years ago and been using them for many years.

Why should we bother to recycle?

This post was prompted by the very smart, talented teenage daughter of a friend. And this post is dedicated to all the young people who are out there asking important questions, and not wanting to waste time and energy on pointless efforts, and are not just accepting shallow glib answers.

What people mostly mean when they ask this question is, why should we bother to go to the trouble to separate our trash? Why can’t we just toss it all in the trashcan and forget about it?

TL; DR: 1) Things do get recycled, and there is in fact reason to recycle. Also, 2) There are intrinsic personal and household benefits of separating one’s trash, even if recycling were a sham.

If there’s anything I hated most when I was growing up, it’s what I perceived as unnecessary work. I hated it in school and hated it at home. What I perceived as busywork. And I still hate it now.

For me as a kid, the most hated kind of work was yardwork. Because it seemed to be all about just making sure a shrub was square. And it was like this relentless invisible tyrant that we had to bow to. The vegetation constantly grew, and constantly had to be cut, and the leaves raked and picked up. And it was so much work, and it seemed like everyone was always in a bad mood – or at least I certainly was.

But that’s a topic for another post. This is about recycling.

There’s a popular belief that there’s no point in recycling because everything just gets tossed into the landfill.

And for sure, you definitely want to find out what gets recycled in your area. In my area, aluminum and steel definitely get recycled, and people can even get money for it. Other than that, certain types of plastic containers get recycled.

We have single-stream recycling, which means that after our bins full of all the various types of recyclables are collected from curbside, they get separated at the solid-waste center.

From what I hear, single-stream recycling seems to be increasingly prevalent in various places.

What’s becoming apparent to me is that regardless of what approach is being used in your area, just about everything gets recycled eventually. Discarded items with recycle potential find their way to countries all over the world. Coatings get scraped off of copper wire so the copper can be reused; plastic ends up being made into other things.

It’s not an ideal setup for stuff to have to travel so far, and people doing the work of separating stuff get exposed to toxic substances and just nasty stuff from the dump. It’s mostly very poor people who end up doing this messy and difficult labor. And mostly us, residents of rich industrialized nations, who are generating the trash.

If you want an eye-opening overview of the worldwide scene, read a book called Junkyard Planet: Travels in the billion-dollar trash trade, by Adam Minter.

Even the worst case, when things end up all jumbled together in landfill, Mother Nature does break it down and recycle it. Unfortunately some things like plastic might take 1000 years to break down, and that’s a huge part of the problem. Obviously the more we can recycle closer to home, the better. But we don’t have much control over that, other than reusing plastic containers at our own homes until they break or otherwise become unusable.

But anyway:

1) Things do get recycled. Aluminum and steel cans in particular, in some places you can actually earn money. It’s not large amounts of money, but neighborhood organizations and local nonprofits sometimes find it beneficial to collect aluminum and steel cans and take them to the plant for a bit of cash.

2) At least some plastic gets recycled. There are various products on the market now that are made out of recycled plastic bottles. This includes some clothing, such as these stylish Women’s Wayfarer board shorts by Patagonia.

And the recycled-plastic product category also includes some quite luxurious sturdy lumber-like board material that’s used to build furniture and decks. I have a beautiful outdoor glider bench that looks like it’s made out of wood but it’s actually made from recycled bottles. Interestingly, it was made by an Amish furniture company that has a retail outlet shop in my area. Neither the clothing nor the benches and decking material are cheap, but they are extremely durable and people find them appealing for the recycling aspect as well as the sturdiness. My bench is guaranteed for 99 years! A wooden bench wouldn’t even last a fraction of that time in the salty humid coastal climate where I live.

Recycled plastic is being used to make furniture, building facades, roofing tiles and more.

Regarding clothing, it’s possible that recycled plastic may be one of the most ethical materials we can use to make new clothing. (Other than locally growing flax, linen, and other fiber plants in small batches, raising sheep and so on — which isn’t possible or affordable everywhere.)

The clothing made of recycled bottles isn’t cheap, but it lasts a long time. Other than these materials, the most sustainable material I know of for making new clothing would be bamboo. It’s quick to grow, and I hear those clothes last a long time as well.

Of course, as I’ve often said, I think we should use up the gazillion generations worth of old existing clothing before we manufacture anything new, but I can’t really control the clothing manufacturers or marketers. Or everyday people’s desire for new clothing.

I will say, thrift and vintage clothing seems to be becoming more and more popular with each passing day. Even in cases where the prices seem to be creeping up, a lot of people still prefer the old and vintage because it’s often of higher quality as well as better design.

3) In many places, cardboard and paper get recycled. I always forget to mention this because I mostly toss cardboard and paper into the compost. It’s a valuable material that adds carbon to balance out the nitrogen of the food scraps.

But let’s say that nothing was in fact getting recycled. I would still separate my trash! But why?!, you might ask.

1) I am disgusted by smelly trash cans, and do not like to constantly have to wash out the big outdoor trash barrel. And the liquids that drip even from thick plastic trash bags, it’s just very disgusting to me and I don’t want any part of it.

If we separate out the food and beverage residue from the containers, the trash doesn’t stink or drip or attract flies & maggots.

The food scraps and beverage residue are simple to separate from the containers by scraping or a very light rinsing. The food and liquid can be scraped into a compost box, or just tossed into the back of the yard, where they will feed the ants or Ms. Possum and her babies or other residents who share our space. Also, the compost is necessary to feed the trees and other plants who provide us with food, medicine, shade, and privacy. Ideally there shouldn’t be much residue if we only buy what we can use, and don’t waste food.

By the way, some apartment buildings actually have compost collection. I’ve seen it in big cities such as New York City.

Ants are some of my favorite fellow creatures by the way, because they are so good at cleaning things! Even once the containers are in the recycling bin, sometimes the ants and other insect pals will come in and give them a whole extra layer of clean. This makes it a lot easier and more pleasant to take the recycling bin to the curb, which we usually do every couple weeks or every month or so.

2) I hate having to haul out super heavy trash bags or a super heavy trash barrel. Even if it’s on wheels. If we separate out the food particles and beverage residue, and separate out the recyclables, the trash becomes very light and fluffy, and furthermore only needs to be taken to the curb maybe once a month for our household of three. Sometimes it’s even less than once a month.

3) The recycling bin serves as an instant upcycle “container store” for me. Since we don’t have to take it to the curb every week, it functions as a buffer, gives me an opportunity to grab some container I might want to reuse for a planter, candle, gift box etc.

Containers can be painted, covered in scrap paper or fabric, etc. I enjoy the creative activity and the aesthetic appeal of not buying something cheap and new and mass-produced. Recycling bin becomes a free mini craft-supply store on our own premises; what’s not to like! And the containers are easy to wash for upcycle projects since the ants and other pals have already cleaned out all the goopy residue.

I once made a really cute purse out of a tin can from the recycling bin. I covered it in crocheted sparkly pink yarn and made a long strap out of costume pearls and pink beads.

And, a dustpan that I made out of a laundry detergent container is better than any store-bought dustpan I’ve ever had. It’s super sturdy and functional. (I stopped buying plastic jugs of detergent years ago, but empty containers are easy to find all over the neighborhood.)

4) The guys who collect our trash and recycling seem to appreciate the extra care we take, and they are always super friendly to us, always wave and honk. That bit of friendliness may seem like a small thing, but in today’s rushed world it brightens a person’s day.

5) It also brightens my day from a “Do unto others” standpoint. I don’t like smelly trash, and I’m pretty sure nobody else does either. It gives me satisfaction to make their day a little less smelly and drippy.

6) Separating our trash reduces the odds that it’ll end up harming other species. We’ve all seen pictures of a poor innocent turtle or bird being strangled by a 6-pack ring; fish mistaking a plastic bag for a jellyfish and trying to eat it; and so on.

7) Since I’m really lazy at heart, my insistence on separating trash makes me all the more determined to avoid unnecessary containers/packaging in the first place. There are entire product categories I just won’t buy because the containers are a pain to deal with, or the volume of packaging is repugnant to me. Tuna in little pouch packets etc. (But if a guest or housemate does have one of those types of containers, once it’s empty I simply put it out for the ants to do a very nice job of cleaning and de-stinking it before I toss it in the trash bag!)

And now a question for you!

And now I have a question. It’s for anyone who’s ever asked what the point of recycling is. My question is, what is it that makes it difficult and too laborious for you to separate your trash? I’m not asking this in a reproachful or accusatory way, I’m actually asking in order to troubleshoot. What is it that makes it seem unacceptably hard?

Is it because your day is too insanely packed with obligations already, and this is just the last straw? (no pun intended).

Or is it that separating our trash feels like this ridiculously trifling action in the face of all that’s really horribly wrong on the planet?

Or maybe we resent expending labor to address an obnoxious situation that was caused by someone else; forces beyond our control — such as food manufacturers and marketers who choose plastic packaging (and who sometimes in fact seem to take pleasure in layering their products with as much packaging as they can).

Or is it that we feel sort of shamed and bossed-around by some invisible silent finger-wagging environmentalist, and we want to rebel against that?

I once met an old man who had been through World War II, with all of its rationing and other various austerities. He went on to become very comfortably-off. In his old age in the current era, he had come to take great glee in using as many Styrofoam cups as possible, and looking at me (who he saw as a personification of the finger-wagging environmentalist) and laughing while he was doing it. That was a drag.

People don’t like to feel scolded or reproached. Is that what causes a lot of people to not want to separate their trash?

But really, if you are a young person, we the older generations have let you down and betrayed you in a lot of ways. Even (especially) those of us who consider ourselves part of the environmental movement. For the life of me, I can’t understand how so many people who are old enough to have celebrated the first Earth Day in 1970 ended up moving to the suburbs and voting (with their wallets and feet) for chemical lawns; and for car-dependence instead of walkability and public transportation. And just putting up with this vast sea of disposable plastic instead of staging a boycott or something. We grew up when things were different, I don’t understand how people who grew up before the avalanche of plastic packaging can stomach it.

I’d be interested to hear anyone’s answers to this question: What factor(s) make it hard or distasteful to separate your trash?

And thank you so much for being here, reading this post. And I hope some of my personal answers to why I intrinsically want to separate my garbage will contain a seed of something useful for you too.

Further Exploration:

• Junkyard Planet: Travels in the billion-dollar trash trade; book by Adam Minter.

• “The Story of Stuff” video by Annie Leonard. She has a whole YouTube series including “The Story of Bottled Water.”

*** Note: In this blog when I mention a company or product, I do so on my own initiative. No one is paying or otherwise compensating me for mentioning them. (Most companies probably don’t even notice I’ve mentioned them!)

For many of us, our work is our calling, and we have no desire or intention to “retire.”

However, between intergenenerational wealth and becoming eligible to receive old-age Social Security, some of us might find we have plenty of income and don’t need to be making more income. This is the position I am in personally with a paid-for house, plus housemates contributing to utilities and other shared costs, and no need for a car, and now receiving Social Security.

Furthermore, some of us as Degrowth advocates believe that it is healthiest for the planet if we don’t seek to make money unless we need to. Seen in that light, elders (some of us, at least) might be in a unique position to practice Degrowth.

However, volunteering can end up being harmful to the younger generations, as young people need paid work. If everything is being taken care of by elders who can afford to volunteer, that’s not a very good thing for younger people who are trying to raise their families.

After percolating this for a while, I thought up some ways that an older person who has enough income can keep working, while supporting younger people’s needs and minimizing ecosystem destruction to the greatest degree possible.

• If we have a trade or profession, including giving public talks, we can accept gigs still but take a younger person along as an apprentice. Have the client pay the apprentice directly.

• We can accept gigs but have the client, audience, etc. remit the payment to a local mutual-aid organization of our choice, or to a national/global nonprofit that’s not super enmeshed in the nonprofit industrial complex. This is what I plan to do with my upcoming books.

• If the organization wishing your services is adamant that they have no budget and that the function must be performed by a volunteer, we can invite a young person to shadow us so at least they get some internship experience that can feed their future livelihood and career.

• If your calling happens to be in the form of working for an employer, then you could take your paycheck and use it to buy buildings and empty lots in your city (or put down-payments on same), and give those properties to young people, local businesses etc. But this probably won’t be a very frequent situation. It’s pretty easy to turn our calling into something that doesn’t involve a paycheck from an employer. And that frees up a paycheck job for a younger person who needs the money.

Volunteering is a beautiful thing, but I’ve come to feel that volunteering, especially elder volunteering, is prone to create the public perception that some kinds of work are not worth paying for, or that people can get away without paying for it.

And I do really feel like it displaces potential paying work that young people need.

Art, writing, teaching, classroom assisting come to mind. And ecological / native landscaping as well. But I’ve even seen it with carpentry and roofing, and even lawn mowing.

The movie theater, your favorite pub, coffeehouse, the public library, the concrete breezeway structure at a park or City Hall. All of these are places where people can go to cool off. And no, it’s not “cheating” to borrow AC (or heat, as applicable).

You’re not stealing anything. It’s paid for by our taxes (or our patronage).

And, assuming you take the opportunity to reduce the AC at home while you’re out, you’ll be saving on fuel and money.

Cooling centers (official or otherwise) are something we’re only going to need more of as time goes on. As we face more power outages, as well as equipment breakdowns and not enough people available to fix it, and/or not enough money available to fix it.

This might sound disheartening but it’s actually a good thing. Cooling centers offer the additional benefit of connecting us with our local community. And being able to check on the more vulnerable members of our community.

And of course it’s a lot more energy efficient to cool one big building than to try to cool each of our individual houses.

Also, cooling centers can have a TV or library, offering entertainment that you might not have at home.

On that note, I’m off for my weekly visit to my favorite neighborhood pub. A Bloody Mary (no straw please) and a PBR, oh so nice and cold!

And I like to catch up on the TV news which I only usually ever watch in a bar. Plus, there’s this really great vintage car channel that’s always on over there.

This morning a post came across my feed from a landscaper who specializes in brick and rock borders, gravel. The photos of their work were very appealing.

I shared their post on my page, with this comment:

Beautiful borders! As an eco landscaper, with a focus on native and edible trees and plants, I often suggest borders as a way to convey a deliberate and neat appearance.

A managed meadow yard can sometimes get to looking unkempt but I find that a border makes all the difference. Sort of like framing a picture. Good to know these guys exist, they are based in Winterhaven Florida and I’m in Daytona Beach.

Note to fellow Permaculture designers / consultants / landscapers, it’s a really good idea to build a resource list of practitioners in your area. Pond design/builders, pavement & border specialists, and yes even we sometimes need mowing and tree-trimming services!

What a beautiful offer from the Kerrville Folk Festival/ Quiet Valley Ranch:

Hey there, neighbors. In light of the recent flooding disaster, the Kerrville Folk Festival Foundation is opening the Ranch to any displaced folks in the Kerrville area with an RV looking for a safe place to harbor.

We have about 40 full hookup sites and another 30 or so sites with power and water.

We know that many RV parks in the area are along the most dangerous parts of the flooded banks of the Guadalupe, and our hearts go out to everyone who has been impacted. If you can safely make your way to Quiet Valley Ranch, we will be glad to welcome you.

Please reach out to us in our DMs [Kerrville Folk Festival page on Facebook] or email info@kerrvillefolkfestival.org to let us know you’re coming or if you have any questions about our sites / space availability. #kerrvillestrong

And my comment accompanying my sharing of this post on my DEEP GREEN facebook page:

This exemplifies the spirit of the Kerrville Folk Festival. An 18-day festival that I have long deep connection to, despite not having made it out there for some years. It’s not only a (really great) folk music festival; it’s a live demo of what a real nurturing community can look like. Exemplified by the sign you see when you enter the festival grounds: Welcome Home. In the same spirit, another prominently displayed sign reads, “It can be this way always.”

And here is the festival organizing body demonstrating that very ethos and way of life.

In my professional capacity as a permaculture designer and ecosocial activist, I’ve been connecting with my Permaculture/eco-activist counterparts in central Texas regarding the flooding and its counterpart, drought/fire.

I am feeling lots of emotions intermingled with the exhilaration/satisfaction of engaging in productive brainstorm-networking towards advocating & implementing solutions, prevention, restoration.

And, I am warmed by the nurturing spirit of just simply housing and feeding people.

As a Festival volunteer for some years awhile back, I experienced this spirit firsthand. Nobody went hungry if the staff could help it! People always went the extra mile to support each other’s emotional and spiritual needs as well.

It’s been so beautiful to see that continue and maybe even grow over the years. Truly remarkable. The first Kerrville folk music festival was in 1972!

Although located all the way in Florida, I would like to humbly offer space in my little rustic concrete-block “eco hostel” -flavored house by the sea to KerrFamily members who might need a place to recharge, lay their heads.

Back in March 2018 when I bought this house, I had housemates before the ink was even dried on the title signing papers. My friends/housemates were asking to be let in while I was still at City Hall getting the utilities turned on!

Days later, for Bike Week, we had a total of 11 people staying here. It was so much fun. Over the years, as natural disasters and not-so-natural disasters have intensified, it came to me that if the house can sleep 11 festival tourists, we can certainly sleep 11 refugees.

Peace and love everyone. Hug your people.