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Living "Green" by Paula Apynys What is Green Living? Living "green" means that you make choices that minimize your negative impact on the environment, and, when possible, increase your positive impact. Choices abound - indeed, they overwhelm. Almost any activity you engage in can have environmental implications. Food choices, product choices, transportation choices, housing choices, gardening choices, waste disposal choices -- all these areas represent possibilities for environmentally positive, neutral or negative decision-making. There are many articles and books about green living (a simple google search will bring you plenty to get started) and there are literally hundreds of specific things you can do or stop doing to reduce your negative impact on the environment. You can also engage in activities that actually improve the environment. (By supporting the businesses in this directory you can positively impact the environment while helping your neighbors make a living.) The first step, though, is acknowledging that your choices and actions have environmental consequences -- and that's a huge step. Huge. We live in a consumer culture that is dependent (to the tune of 70%) on our habit of buying things. America thrives when we buy. Companies make money when we buy. Companies have had zero incentive to inform us about their manufacturing habits if those habits are environmentally destructive. Ditto, our military industrial complex. Military installations are huge polluters -- not something our government wants to emphasize. Companies that manufacture pesticides don't want you to know that beautiful looking farm communities are immense contributors to groundwater contamination and river and lake pollution (from rain running off pesticide treated crops). Large-scale livestock farms (also known as CAFOs: Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) generate more waste than they can manage, leading to groundwater contamination and the spread of disease-causing pathogens. CAFOs have also overused antibiotics leading to strains of super bacteria that are antibiotic resistant. (And all you wanted was some bacon with your eggs!) Indeed, once you start down the path of investigating green living -- the green/environmental movement and its reasons for existing -- you can become overwhelmed to the point of paralysis. You can also become paranoid about toxicity. You may decide that you have to give up practically everything you enjoy in life and how fun is that? And you can feel despair as you wonder if your sacrifices can possibly make a difference. And we haven't even mentioned Global Warming and the fact that we may lose half our continents in the next 30 years (or however long) and that honeybees are mysteriously dying off around the world which may lead to a cascade of plant and animal extinctions. Yep, it's a great time to be alive! I mean, at least we'll be dead when the planet coughs it up for the last time, right? In the end, having worked through these phases we have concluded that, short of suicide, the only thing to do is press on, and do that which IS in our power to do, as much as we can manage to do it. Our faith has to be that every little bit helps. Furthermore, in the spirit of "pass it on", our feeling is that if we can contribute to getting others to do their little bit, the collective little bits can become large enough to achieve significance. We write this in the interlude between presidencies (November 2008). At this point we have the promise of significant change in many areas, including the environment. The powers that be are engaged in the struggle to decide whether to throw a lifeline to our Big 3 Auto companies, or let "nature" take its course. It is instructive to note that part of the discussions involve the demand for the Big 3 to "green" their products and operations in exchange for bailout dollars. Green is on the table in a big way right now - and big federal dollars can help take care of things that we as individuals are essentially powerless to effect. Everyone needs to do their part. As consumers we do have direct power over our buying choices and we need to exercise that power. As citizens we need to continue to influence our government to wield its power on behalf of the environment. When the micro meets the macro, true change occurs. Day to Day Although we would like to claim 100% purity in our living and buying, we can't. We can't even claim 50% purity. We're working in that direction but have a long way to go. The simple fact is that it is easier, and often cheaper, to NOT be green. Certain aspects of green living can and do save money, but other aspects cost more, especially up front. And many things that are cheaper usually, in one form or another, exchange less money for more effort. Maybe not a lot more effort, but some. Take the concept of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" -- all of those activities require time, effort and often ingenuity. As a veteran reuser of items during home renovations we can tell you things would have gone a lot faster if we had just thrown everything out and bought new. We're proud of everything we've rejuvenated but each saved item represents minutes or hours of effort. We can say that we save money by NOT buying any cleaning products other than laundry detergent, dish soap and simple organic all-purpose soaps solutions like Dr. Bonners. Those, in combination with vinegar, baking and washing soda pretty much take care of our cleaning needs. Foodwise, though we would like to buy organic and free-range all the time, we don't. It's simply not in the budget at this time, though it is a goal to have as much food as possible come from local organic and free-range sources. We have bought from Farmers Markets seasonally and would also like to start our own vegetable garden but that's still on a future to-do list. Meanwhile, we did purchase cloth grocery bags from our local supermarket and have dramatically reduced our use of plastic and paper bags. (We used to make a point of getting a few paper grocery bags when we shopped that we would put inside plastic grocery bags and use for scooping out cat litter. It only recently occurred to us -- duh -- that the bags our cat and dog kibble come in make perfect receptacles for cat pooh and cat clumps. They're strong enough and the damp from litter clumps doesn't leak through.) We recycle our trash. We take our toxic chemical leftovers to the the appropriate disposal centers. We filter our water at home and don't buy bottled water anymore. We use low or no-VOC paints in our remodeling projects. We don't use pesticides on our lawn and we let it go to brown in mid-summer rather than watering it. We try to combine errands so that driving is less wasteful. As we replace our appliances we'll get Energy Star rated models. Buying Local One of the highlights of 20th-century living was the rise in access to international goods. For a period of time we were able to move anything anywhere at anytime, and (relatively) cheaply. America has driven this process and it's been great! At least for awhile. Unfortunately the negative consequences of these practices are becoming more and more apparent, and we suspect the 21st century will be different (whether we like it or not). For one thing, while we've been moving products and produce all over the world, we've been moving jobs all over the world too, mostly, though, from America to other, poorer places. It is also becoming clear that seemingly well-meant efforts to feed and help the world develop through institutions like the World Bank and World Trade Organization has mostly resulted in the destruction of native habitats and small-scale sustainable agriculture and an increase in world hunger and poverty. In our own country we have a food supply that is overwhelmingly dependent on a small number of large-scale monoculture producers, leaving us one or two disasters away from genuine food shortages. And we've all experienced an increase in food prices as a result of a spike in gas prices. That right there should be a head's up to us all that we should all be taking a hard look at our food supply options, and the closer-to-home the better. To that end, in 2009 we intend to start buying as much of our produce and meat from local suppliers as we can manage. We hope visitors to this site will find the Farmer's Markets, CSA's, and free-range meat and poultry producers near them and patronize them. Just doing that would be a huge green step with positive outcomes in all directions. In addition to our food options, obviously the directory's purpose is to encourage "local buying" of green products and services of all types. When you buy locally, your dollars circulate locally in a multitude of ways. Small businesses typically purchase large proportions of materials, products and services locally, thus helping other local businesses. As our financial meltdown plays itself out it's notable that small businesses are chugging along. They are where most Americans are employed. In a macro sense, having many, many small and varied companies is safer than fewer, larger companies. We all know what happens when a community is dependent on a couple of large companies. The community is vulnerable on many levels. We also know that competition wanes and choices actually become more limited. So even though not every local company is green, where we don't have a green option, we'll next have to weigh getting the green option from far away, or using the local option that isn't green. Depending on the situation we'll choose one or the other over far-away-not-green whenever possible. Green Entrepreneurship The primary focus of the Ec-Ohio Green Directory is to provide a resource to help Ohioans find local/regional environmentally positive products and services. As an offshoot of that, we'd also like to help encourage the start-ups and growth of new green enterprises. Over time we will be adding more information and resources to the site about starting green businesses, etc. As we gather entries for the Directory we see plenty of holes we'd like to see filled with Ohio-based providers. More on that later. Going Green: Articles and Resources We thought a lot about adding links to articles about green living on this site, but ultimately felt that they're so easy to find already that there's no need repeat them here. Our Books and Links page has some good "getting started" resources. A trip to the bookstore will yield several books as well, all of which have useful lists of websites, etc. We encourage you to do some foraging out there and learn as much as you can. Meanwhile, what we want to develop on our Articles page is stories about Ohioans who are living green, creating green businesses, making changes in their lives, etc. So much of what you will read, while very helpful and informative, is about people and places and products that are unrelated to our climate, heritage, resources, history, etc. Green living is not just about eating organic food, driving hybrid cars and recycling, it's also about learning about your own back yard and appreciating things that are right in front of you that you may be unaware of or taking for granted. It's also about fixing what you can fix, here and now. While it is laudable to donate to larger causes and to try to help people and animals around the world, the reality is that if all of us everywhere were able to simply care for what's around us, finding respectful ways to coexist with other animals, maintaining our lands and water supplies, and respecting and supporting our small farmers, a whole lot of problems we're currently grappling with worldwide would be solved (or at least dramatically improved). If we were able to is the key, though. Many government policies (ours and others) and business practices run directly counter to this simple fact. Those policies and practices need to be changed just as surely as many of our personal buying habits and practices need to be changed. There are good people out in the world working to change things in the political arena and you may become one of them. But you don't have to be an activist to make a difference.
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