I used to say that my mother was a Depression baby and for a long time a younger friend thought that I was saying she was a depressed baby. My mother grew up in the Great Depression on a farm in North Dakota. These were tough people who took nothing for granted. Everything came hard, and nothing was ever wasted. My aunt likes to say, “when we butchered, the only thing we didn’t use was the oink”.
Which is to say my family was the first one on our block to recycle. My parents saved food cans in the garage, neatly washed with the label and ends removed and flattened. When there was a carload we’d drive them 25 miles to a neighboring town.
Not that I always understood. As a teen-ager it’d make me furious that my mother washed and reused bread sacks. “We’re not that poor!”, I’d sulk. Later away from home I realized, why wouldn’t you wash and reuse bread sacks?
So I was exposed to recycling 30 years ago and have for the last twenty been an enthusiastic recycler. We know the mantra: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. So why did my husband and I join EcoTeam?
1. Someone asked. I never answer the door after dark. But my husband did and there was a pleasant couple who asked us to come to a neighborhood organizational meeting. They were sincere and likable and we said yes.
2. We like meeting our neighbors. My husband and I consider ourselves lifers on our street. It’s a smallish house in an pleasant neighborhood, close to the bus line with sidewalks and old trees. We might wish for a larger house someday but the truth is our house holds a history of our work and our lives. I don’t like to think of leaving our smallish house.
How wonderful it is to grow old together. I am grateful for the gay people on my block. They do not have children and flee to the suburbs.
3. To learn a few new tricks. We were curious and figured you can always learn a thing or two. And we did. I hadn’t considered, for instance, asking for tin foil instead of Styrofoam for restaurant leftovers. This is a small behavior change that costs little more than awareness, but eliminates the need for a bulky substance that literally never degrades.
4. What I actually learned. Together my neighbors and I examined our small daily habits and the details of how we live. We learned not only do our actions matter, but our actions are at the core of the problem.
We learned to catch our water in plastic jugs. Our water gets hot enough for dishes in about one gallon. When both jugs are full, I know I’m remiss in watering something.
Sometimes the water goes out to the birdbath. Vegetable scrub water sometimes goes to the compost pile (biodegradable soap). I love the ritual of the compost pile, walking through the yard with my offering, a small gesture of gratitude for our abundance.
This was the true gift of my experience with the EcoTeam. Simple awareness. Increased mindfulness in everyday life, doing all the good things you were taught to do. Don’t make a mess. Play fair. Share.
As a consumptive nation, no one does it better than the United States. I say we’ve conquered that quest. It’s time to move to the next thing.
The time is ripe for anti consumption. Let’s honor our rightful place in the universe. No where does it read we have the right to pillage and destroy. Frankly, I’d rather have the universe on my side.
David and Mary Lockwood are currently volunteer coaches for the Kansas City EcoTeam. You can reach the author at Mary@Lockwoodwebs.com