Maureen, OH

Every spring, there would be (paradoxically in my Mexican neighborhood) an Italian Festival. Hundreds of people would spill into the streets, eating takeaway food and drinking merrily and riding rides and listening to music. Out front of my house was a very large, waist-high flower barrel, with plants in it.

The other volunteers and I sat on the stoop of our house one night, watching the festival, and marveling at how many white American people threw garbage in our flower barrel (thinking it was a garbage can). Some would even realize what they had done, and look for a moment like, Oops, crap! but then walk on their way, because there was already so much other garbage piled in there, so really, there was no point in correcting their mistake.

The funny (interesting) thing was that when Mexican people (our neighborhood was predominantly Mexican, and typically first or second generation immigrants) threw garbage into our flower barrel, they would immediately pull it back out, even with all the other garbage already in there. They acted reflexively, and consistently.

I’m sure this story has a moral, but I’ve never quite figured out what it is–something about our American values, and the perceived futility of picking up after ourselves… or something :) who knows? I just always thought it was a kind of funny story. Although, of course, at the time I was peeved that people kept throwing garbage on my plants.

But keep up the good work. And Beth, thanks for hosting guest blogs — this one has certainly set the bar high!

I recently wrote about some ideas that are a bit related — check it out at http://fairandgreen.blogspot.com

I look forward to following your future posts and I hope you’ll check out mine as well!

All the best!

Now that I have a preschooler the waste drives me crazy. My 4-year-old will grab the end of the toilet paper and run around the house. For her, it’s fun. Which I can understand, if I were 4 I’d probably also like streaming paper down the stairs. But I just see all the toilet paper that’s being rendered unusable. It’s a work in progress for us. Baby steps, right?

I have never thought of it like that.

Waste is a luxury … it’s also embedded into our culture. It shouldn’t be so hard to live sustainably. It’s difficult because our society isn’t built for sustainability any more. Which sucks. But hopefully we can re-weave sustainable practices back into the fabric of our society.

Of course waste is unavoidable and life would be pretty dull if we limited ourselves to only what we need, but a good thought to keep in mind when buying anything, plastic or otherwise, is whether or not it will be used over a period of time; whether it has long term value. If not, try for something that can be used long-term.

And your comments about experience in a foreign country are so true. It’s a good reason for study abroad. I don’t know anyone who has come back from such a trip without being shocked at how they had taken our lifestyle as normal because they had no basis for comparison.

P.S. I would love it if you considered doing a guest post on my blog…