I’m getting tired of tossing stuff in the trash. Especially as I raise a child, the guilt I feel when I toss out another plastic container or glass bottle is getting pretty unbearable. So, what to do? There are several options to change your Carbon Footprint, even if solar panels are still outside your price bracket. In addition, there’s a slew of websites and books out there with valuable insight into the little things (and big!) that we can do to change our impact from negative to positive. Following are some of the most accessible ways to alleviate waste and guilt.
Recycling: The City of Albuquerque will pick up your recyclables road-side provided you have them separated and bagged appropriately. Alternatively, they also offer 22 drop-off points throughout the metro area. As the years have gone by, the city has expanded their recycling repertoire, now accepting all plastic bottles regardless of number, as well as plastics #s 1 and 2. This is in addition to corrugated cardboard, not chipboard (i.e. cereal boxes), aluminum, and any and all household paper, including the godawful obnoxious shiny paper of junk mailings. They won’t pick up glass for safety reasons, but you can drop that off at the recycling point nearest you. Overall, recycling around here can be pretty effortless, provided you’re willing to build into your routine the extra several minutes a week it would take to make sure waste is separated from reusable material. Like any good habit, this can be hard to incorporate into our already packed lives, but as a matter of priority, it’s certainly worth the effort to get the recyclable materials to the curb by 7 a.m. on trash day. A way to do this easily is to sort trash from the get-go. You can re-purpose several trashcans to do the dirty work, or you can find a solution like this one to keep all your cans and bottles out of sight. Or hell, you can build it if you’re carpentry inclined. A cheap and handy can crusher can be wall-mounted and kept out of sight in the laundry room or garage. This will help you save space and effort, as you’ll have to put out your aluminum recycling less often. If you use a sturdy cardboard box to keep all your old newspapers & junk mailings in, you can cut deep slits down the middle of each side, lay out the twine ahead of time, and viola! An easy way to keep paper tidy and mess-free when tying it up for the recycling man!
I was talking to a fellow grad student here at UNM who also works in Operations. He broke the news to me that UNM recycles only 30% of its paper and metal. Having worked in Administration here, I know that even with our extensive online systems, students, faculty and staff still generate MASSIVE amounts of paper waste. When I think of all the Daily Lobos discarded throughout campus, used up napkins from the Mercado, and the paper that paper reams come wrapped in (very meta), even 30% is a lot. Additionally, he mentioned to me that aside from recycling copper, UNM actually loses money by recycling. It costs .12 more cents to recycle paper and most metals than it does to toss all our trash in the local dumps. I find this statistic worrisome and a little confounding. As he pointed out however, the social cost we must pay for recycling will last for a long time before we start seeing the benefits (as in, lesser cost to recycle than dump) of our actions. This, however, should not discourage us from doing our share. In fact, it should light fire under our asses to get on the ball and keep using the systems in place to recycle, as the only way to bring down these costs is to standardize and mechanize these streams of material. Interestingly, I also learned today that a lot of our recycling goes to China as raw material, to be returned to our country later on as all the “Made in China” products that litter our homes and lives. Interesting stuff! So, keep recycling, or start if you haven’t already.
Reuse stuff at home: Coming from a family with a crafty mother, I’ve learned to look around and re-purpose stuff within my home. Like my mom, I’ve stopped throwing away Bueno Chile plastic containers because they’re the perfect size for a leftover side dish or extra grated cheese. The glass jars from my yummy Maranatha peanut butter are now used to store bulk raisins and nuts, which are better to buy because you’re not paying (or wasting) new packaging. You’re saving money & material. It’s a no-lose situation! How rare are those? Egg shells and coffee grounds have stopped going in the trash. Since I rent I’m reluctant to start the type of compost pile my dad has been working on for years. However, grinding up eggshells and mixing them and coffee grounds into the soil of your house plants is an eggcellent (awww!) way to reuse materials, giving directly back to the earth, and you’re able to enjoy the results directly. Receptacles, containers, and tubs with lids are things we use every day in our lives. It shouldn’t matter from whence they came, as long as they’re living out their working lives serving and saving extra food, buttons, or other small items.
Change your car habits: I know, I know. Easier said than done, right? And here is where I confess a dirty, nasty secret. I live 5 minutes away from UNM. I haven’t timed it walking, but since I can get there in less time than it takes to play one of my favorite songs on my favorite driving CD, I’m pretty sure that the walking is less of a hardship and more of the good exercise I need anyway. My excuses include: I’m always late, I have a kid that needs a car seat, it’s cold, it’s hot, etc, etc. I have perfectly good, rational ways to overcome each one of these obstacles, and yet here I am, typing this at school and accumulating a massive parking structure fee for the day. I read in a recent issue of the Alibi that Albuquerque was voted one of the cities best suited for biking. It’s true! Our bike paths are extensive and fairly rider-friendly. My next big purchase will be a good, dependable bicycle. Our transit system needs some work before some of us can depend on it regularly (ever try to get from Westgate to Tramway?), but it already serves many Albuquerqueans well (my neighbor included, his car sits quietly in the yard most of the time, unmoved), and the Red and Blue Lines have done wonders to expedite one’s journey down Central Avenue.
In short, there are a million different tiny things to do in our everyday lives that can cumulatively help shift the tide of wasteful existence we’ve been born into. It’s not gonna happen overnight, and being from a culture that’s used to instant gratification and immediate results, this may be a little frustrating. However, we’re all responsible for ourselves and each other, as well as the land we use for our benefit. While my intention is not to sound the Holier-hippie-than-thou horn of green judgment, I want to encourage everyone to take a bit of time to reflect on their use and usage. It’s a journey, not an instant achievement, which means we all have room for improvement.
Happy Earth Day!