Green Living — A Beginner’s Guide

If you’re just beginning your green journey, it may seem like there’s so much to catch up on: organic food, holistic medicine, natural fibers, hybrid vehicles, and so much more. In general, green living is about making changes to reduce the amounts of natural resources we humans use (and, more importantly, waste), and to becoming a caretaker of our remaining natural resources. It’s about working toward sustainability for our society and our planet.

Individual Americans use 100 to 176 gallons of water at home each day.

Historically, industrialized societies have acted as if resources and land were infinite — and burned through them with that mindset. We Americans use a relatively large amount of resources — much more than our fair share. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, “The average African family uses about 5 gallons of water each day, while the average American individual uses 100 to 176 gallons of water at home each day.”

The following statistics from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and James Madison University provide a startling picture of Americans’ waste habits and the powerful effects of recycling:

• The average American family produces 100 pounds of trash per week, that’s 3 pounds of waste per person per day.
• More than 1 billion trees are used each year to make disposable diapers.
• Americans throw away about 10% of the food we buy at the supermarket. This results in dumping the equivalent of more than 21 million shopping bags full of food into landfills every year.
• In a lifetime, the average American will throw away 600 times their adult weight in garbage. This means that a 150-pound adult will leave a legacy of 90,000 pounds of trash for their children.
• The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries estimates that more than 200 million trees are saved each year due to current recycling efforts.

1 ton of paper made from 100% recycled stock saves:

• 7,000 gallons of water (recycled paper uses 35% less water)
• 60 lbs. of air pollution effluent (recycled paper creates 74% less pollution)
• 4,000 kWh of energy
• 17 trees
• 3 cubic yards of landfill space
• $35 per ton of waste disposal fees

Avoid the Hype

As businesses realize there’s money to be saved by “going green,” they also realize there’s much money to be made by selling the green movement in a consumerist fashion. For example, I witnessed earlier this year many businesses giving away or selling so-called reusable shopping bags to customers. These polypropylene bags were hardly thicker than a plastic shopping bag and lasted about as long. That’s not helping anything but a company image. We have to get real — and that means distinguishing what’s really helping from what’s hype, and then making real changes.

Let’s keep this process focused on what it’s about: love for the Earth, respect for Earth’s resources, and keeping ecosystems functioning and abundant for Earth’s creatures and the generations to come.

Plant a Tree

Planting trees is one of the most impactful actions we can take to help restore balance to the Earth. Trees are incredible — sucking up carbon gases like gigantic sponges, creating habitats for innumerable creatures, purifying the air and water, building soil by the ton, feeding us with fruits and nuts, sheltering us from wind and sun, creating rainfall through transpiration, giving us timber and fiber to build our homes, heat them and make other products. They hold the soil together with mazes of roots, preventing it from washing away in rains. Our very lives and the life of the planet depend on trees.

Here are some tips to get you started with tree planting:

• Go Native. Native trees have evolved for millennia to be perfectly adapted to your area — withstanding bugs, drought, storms, and snow with ease. Trees also fit into the ecosystem with other native creatures, giving them shelter and food. I’ve noticed after large storms that nonnative trees are damaged much more severely than native varieties. Depending on your location, the native trees vary widely. In much of the US, oak trees, maples, birch, elm, hemlock, redwoods, red bud, poplars, walnuts, and chestnuts are all fine choices. A bit of quick research will tell you which trees are native to your area.

• Consider Fruit Trees. You can grow the best fruit you’ve ever tasted in your own backyard. Get trees from a local, reputable nursery that specializes in fruit trees. In temperate regions, such as the Midwest, you can grow native varieties of apples, plums, cherry, peaches, paw paw, pears, grapes, persimmon, walnuts, or mulberry. In warmer climates, go for avocado, citrus, carob, olive, pomegranate, almonds, pecans and dates. In tropical regions, choose coconut, cherimoya, guava, mango, soursop, bananas, rambutan, lychee, breadfruit and macadamia. Dwarf trees are genetically very small and can fit in nearly any back yard to produce bountiful fruit. Get healthy, medium-sized trees and follow growing directions found online or at the nursery. Nut trees are an excellent choice too, grow very big, and produce prodigious crops.

Buy Local Food

With peak oil looming around the corner, and the multinational corporation-based food system in serious question, supporting local farmers and food systems is critically important. Most supermarket fare is trucked in from across the US or around the globe, traveling thousands of miles in refrigerated trucks, to the great expense of petroleum and food quality. Without new technologies, it is an unsustainable system. And because food shipped long distances must be picked before it’s fully ripe, it often lacks the full flavor of its locally harvested counterparts. Fresh food tastes wonderful, and local food is thousands of miles fresher than food that travels long distances.

So what counts as local? Some definitions of “local” recommend staying within a hundred mile radius, and this is sensible.

Support local farmers by shopping at farmers' markets.

You can support hardworking local farmers in many ways. Farmers’ markets are a great option. They’re now popular throughout the US, and some are open throughout the year. Many health food stores sell delicious local produce. Online, you can find sources for local u-pick farms, specialty foods, meat and dairy products, honey, and other items. Every time I go food shopping, I buy local food. It’s the first step to reweaving the local food web. If the farmers stay farming, we stay fed. Try it — you’ll love the fresher, tastier, more distinct, and much more nutritious food.

Reduce Waste

Reducing waste isn’t just about recycling more and throwing away less. It’s also about the amount of disposable things you buy and use. This includes items such as shopping bags, plastic bottles, disposable razors, diapers, and cheap goods that will likely break soon.

Buy or make a sturdy, long-lasting shopping bag, or use a backpack when you go shopping. Obtain a quality metal or glass water bottle, and fill it with filtered tap water, instead of using imported, bottled water. Choose organic-cotton, cloth diapers to use at least part of the time, to help reduce waste from disposables. Always buy the best-quality goods that you can afford, and avoid flimsy, plastic goods that will soon be in the trash. In the long run, you’ll save money, while providing a better quality of life for yourself and your family.

Recycle

Recycling reduces the waste sent to landiflls.

Recycling is an absolute necessity. We all produce trash, and most of it is recyclable and valuable when reincarnated into a myriad of other items. If you don’t already recycle, it’s a very important step toward green living. If your local trash company does not provide recycling services, request them. Recycling is easy and fun, and brings about a sense of responsibility and accountability for what we use and where it ends up.

Compost

Hundreds of tons of biodegradable kitchen waste get lost in landfills every year. Consider starting a compost pile in your yard. Then you’ll have plenty of excellent fertilizer for the fruit tree you just planted. There are many resources online and in your local library on how to start a healthy, productive compost pile.

Make a Commitment

Going green is a process and a commitment. It’s a commitment to living healthier and more in harmony with our Mother Earth. But don’t expect to achieve a green lifestyle overnight. As philosopher Lao-Tzu wrote in the sixth century B.C.E., “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” So take one step at a time, if that’s all you can do. But begin your journey to green living today. It’s not that hard to do, and every bit you do makes a difference. So what are you waiting for?

Blake Cothron

Contributing Writer

Blue Planet Green Living (Home Page)

Notes from India: “Clean Lucknow, Green Lucknow”

I’ve spent my entire life in India, but have yet to see a trashcan anywhere on the streets. I guess that’s the reason why there’s a big pile of garbage at most street corners, especially in the residential areas. In some locations, however, the government hires street sweepers to clean the streets of garbage. My family, and others in our neighborhood in Lucknow, burn any garbage left on the street so there are no smells, no germs in the air, and no filth outside the house.

The hillsides are littered with trash. Photo: The Small House Society

Since we don’t have separate dumpsters for recycling, people carrying large plastic bags on their shoulders pick empty plastic bags and bottles, glass bottles, and other items from the piles of garbage on streets. These items are sold, then recycled. Since most of the empty plastic and glass bottles are used and reused for storing spices, creams, oils, food, and other items, they typically aren’t thrown away unless they’re broken.

Food leftovers are generally given to the maid of the house, or put out for cows, birds, or dogs on the streets to eat. But the sad part about this is that some people discard food leftovers or peelings in plastic bags, and unsuspecting cows or buffaloes eat through the plastic bags to get to the food. This can lead to sickness and death for the animals.

On the brighter side, it’s very encouraging to know that hill stations like Nainital and some others don’t allow use of plastic bags to discourage people from throwing it in the lake, which is the focus of tourist attraction.

City streets are covered with litter, and paan stains mar the walls. Photo: Makur Jain

Items not thrown out on the street — such as non-composting paper, metal, and some plastic garbage — are sold to a kabari (trash/garbage collector). The kabari then sells the items to someone who can sell them further or recycle them. Some of these kabari ride three-wheel bicycles through residential neighborhoods, stopping and buying recyclable materials, such as old newspapers, metal things, glass or plastic material, old appliances, etc., from people who call out to them.

The animal dung out on the streets continues to be a nuisance to the cleanliness and hygiene of the city. There was a time when the local milkmen would have small houses and pieces of land throughout the city. They kept their cows, buffaloes, and goats there, and used the gobar (dung) as fuel. They’d collect it, dry it, and make flat discs of it to be used as fuel to cook food. It was possible for them to do this, because the dung would be on their fields or on the nearby streets, where they could collect it.

Three-wheeled cars share the streets with cows in Lucknow. Photo: Small House Society

Ever since the government moved the milkmen out of the city, the stray cows’ dung on the streets just ends up on tires and shoes, and becomes a stench. Even if these wandering urban cows belonged to someone, it would be humanly impossible for the owner to keep track of them and collect the dung of his cows from the various streets they walk on. On a more positive note, there are gobar gas plants that allow the gas from gobar to be used as fuel.

One would be surprised to see the dumping grounds here. It’s a huge piece of land where the garbage is left for years to rot! But there’s good news also. Sometimes the government or the city’s development authority, for example the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA), will press the garbage with road rollers into the ground for months, then cover it with mud or concrete. Then they sell that land as residential or commercial property - using garbage as landfill.

India has lush vegetation and abundant natural beauty. Photo: Makur Jain

Another form of garbage that can be seen all over India on walls, buses, streets, and many government offices is the remains of spit from paan (betel leaf). This tobacco spittle becomes our “social bookmarks.” It’s funny and ironic that every place or wall where it says थूकना मना है। (Do not spit), people make sure they spit on the word मना (not), so the remaining words are थूकना …है। (Do … spit).

The paan stains, as well as cigarette and bidi butts, are littered everywhere. But we’re making progress. The Supreme Court passed a law last year on October 2, prohibiting smoking in all public areas. The Delhi High Court has also banned smoking from being shown in movies.

What’s surprising is that a lot of people contribute toward a “greener India” without even knowing it. Since most cities have small markets in every neighborhood, people just have to walk a couple of blocks and can find almost everything one needs for day-to-day living, thus reducing the pollution from vehicles. Also, Delhi, Lucknow, and other cities have small three wheeler auto-rickshaws that run on compressed natural gas (CNG), which is more environmentally clean.

We are taking small steps in my country, but we are making progress. We are moving toward “Clean Lucknow, Green Lucknow” (the slogan painted on numerous railings, walls, buildings, etc.), and thus toward a greener India.

Makur Jain, Ph.D.

Contributing Writer

Blue Planet Green Living (Home Page)

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Notes from Serbia: Ending Litter through Laws and Education

Blue Planet Green Living invites our readers around the world to send us reports about the environment in their home countries. In the first of the “Notes from ….” series, we published a post from Jagdish Poudel, an environmental science student from Nepal. Today, we are pleased to share a report from Snezana Pavlovic, a 25-year-old student of Balkan languages from Niš, Serbia. “Avoiding pollution and ecology are my passion and hobby,” Snezana writes.

Uvac River, Serbia

In her post today, Snezana introduces us to a beautiful nation that is plagued with plastic litter. She tells us how her government is taking steps to not only deal with this problem, but also to teach children how to protect the environment. We invite you to read Snezana’s post about her nation and to be challenged by the Ten Ecological Laws she presents to us from Serbia.

“We can impose punishments against those who pollute, and we can establish European ecological laws, but we won’t achieve anything if we don’t set forward the conscience of the nation about how important it is to protect our environment,” says Miladin Avramov, secretary in Serbia’s Ministry for Environment and Location planning.

Plastic bags and other litter on a Serbian highway

Protection of the environment could become an optional subject in Serbian elementary schools. An initiative to include ecology in schools was established by the Ministry of Environment, in order to develop young people’s conscience about the environment. The Serbian Ministry of Education is supporting this idea, and just started working on the concept. They are currently considering whether children will learn “protection of the environment” in low or in high grades and for how many hours during the week.

“The youngest are our main focus, because they study very fast, and they are able to transmit their knowledge to their friends and parents,” says Director of the Institute for Protection of Nature in Serbia, Lidia Amidzic, Ph.D.

“It is amazing how many kids want to know everything about plants, how they grow and how to take care of them. Also, they are very interested in animals too,” emphasizes Amidzic. “Kids have humane feelings toward nature, and that’s why they can transmit this positive habit to adults, who unfortunately, often have inappropriate and environmentally destructive habits that are very difficult to change.”

Litter mars the landscape in Veranje.

A PROBLEM WITH PLASTIC

Vranje is the first town in Serbia to forbid the use of plastic bags, and that restriction will start in 2010. This decision was made by the government of Vranje because of the very bad influence of plastic on the environment.

Six years ago, Vranje also was the first town in Serbia to set up a waste disposal site, yet they now have a problem with plastic garbage.

“When the site was developed, it was expected to last for 22 years, but because of the accumulation of plastic articles, the expiration date of the site will be shortened,” says Nela Cvetkovic from the government of Vranje.

A single grocery store in Veranje distributes 600 plastic bags a day.

The accumulation of plastic in the landfill was one of the reasons the city decided to restrict plastic bags, just as the European Union does. “We have one year to do that, and we will use that period to educate our nation about the bad influence of plastic bags, and also to warn manufacturers to focus on other products,” says Cvetkovic.

To produce 1kg of polyethylene from which plastic bags are made, 2 kg of carbon dioxide are dumped into the atmosphere. A single market in Vranje distributes 600 plastic bags every day.

To solve the problem of plastic garbage, most of the countries of the European Union introduced taxes on plastic bags that fall on sellers’ backs. In this way, Ireland’s consumption of plastic bags has been reduced by 95%. This is the goal we hope to achieve in Serbia.

TEN ECOLOGICAL LAWS

Following are 10 ecological laws that we try to respect in my country:

Vranje, Serbia

1. Don’t expect from nature more than you gave her.
2. Protect this planet, because we don’t have another, and we won’t get a new one.
3. Take care of the air before you take time to admire the sky.
4. You must know that the planet and nature will be good only if you are smart.
5. Remember that the life of a tree is assurance for the tree of life.
6. Don’t let the birds give up from their return home from the South.
7. Count the price of preserving nature in the price of every product.
8. Don’t look for a hole in the law of nature.
9. Think more about waste so we don’t end up in it!
10. When you build, don’t steal from nature – share with it.

Take care of the environment, and we will avoid the end of mankind.

Snezana Pavlovic, Student
Univerzitet u Nišu
Filozofski fakultet
Niš, Serbia

Blue Planet Green Living (Home Page)

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My 5: Snezana Pavlovic, Niš, Serbia