Last week I bought a new curtain rod for my living room. For months I had been meaning to pick one up and kept forgetting but I knew that soon I would be starting my "zero waste" campaign and in the spirit of a true careless consumer I thought I'd better buy all the stuff I needed before I made getting those items even more complicated for myself. I mean as soon as I truly started being a zero waster, I'd have to find some way to obtain curtain rods that did not include any kind of packaging at all. So I'd have to find used curtain rods, and they'd have to be the right length and color and have ends that matched the ends of the other curtain rods in the room. Maybe I'd even have to spend a few hours researching curtain rod makers or distributors who were willing to sell me a curtain rod directly before it went into any kind of packaging. None of that sounds as easy as running into walmart and scooping up the perfect matching rod all while I'm getting the dog food, the extra hand towels and a battery charger for the WII. So $300 later ( never go to Walmart while you are in a spacey mood and have unlimited time) I go home with my new rod. In a burst of unusual gusto I decide to put the rod up right away. So I rip off the top piece of cardboard and rip off the long plastic container and dump out the contents. The first thing that strikes me is that they have a separate package made of plastic to house the four little screws needed to put up the rod. How wasteful I scoff. I then notice that one of the all important matching end pieces is not attached to the rod and was free floating in the plastic in it's own little baggie of plastic. Well why on earth would they put that in plastic too? I power on with my unpacking and pick up the rod to see how long it stretches and it won't stretch. Shoot. Did I buy the wrong length? It's a full minute before I figure out that the rod is encased in a second skin of plastic that needs to be taken off. For the love of Christ. A gosh darn curtain rod wrapped in plastic, wrapped in cardboard and plastic beside all it's components also individually wrapped in plastic.
Enough. It's truly enough. It reinforced everything I already know: We are ridiculously wasteful. The amount of non biodegradable trash that is produced from something as simple as a curtain rod is outrageous. I mean the thing is made of metal, not intended to be ingested and used only as a tool to hang things on. Does it really need to be so well protected? Does it really need an 1/8 of a pound of plastic wrapped around it? And that is to say nothing of the other $290 worth of items I bought that night. The six large bags that I carted into my house went back out to the recycling bin exactly the same size they'd been when I brought them in, only now they were full of empty packaging.
I sometimes think about the floating plastic island. It boggles my mind, quite literally. I really can't come down on the exact words that it inspires in me. I want to say, well that is just awful. But that doesn't sum it up does it? Mostly I feel a tremendous sense of wonder - even awe. How the hell did we create this thing? How did all the plastic come together to form this island and then separate from whatever it was attached to when it started. If it was never in fact attached to anything and this is just trash from the ocean, how did it know to come together? Does it just roam around and every piece of plastic it passes rejoices for the arrival of the mother ship and latches on? It's miraculous. How did we let it get this bad? And what are we going to do about it?
So I'm going to try.
You hear all the time, how if we don't start making changes, that our children's children will be in great trouble. And we all nod and agree that we want to protect the earth and the faraway generation of people. But it's so far away and so theoretical that it's hard to truly feel it while you peel the plastic wrap off the box of organic healing tea you just drove home from buying. But now the reports are changing. Apparently the end of days as we know them is not as far off as we thought. Apparently our own children are in danger.
My children.
It's time to change, you're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem, you're either in or you're in the way, etc...
There is also a spiritual component to this change for me. On some very important spiritual level, I can't escape a fundamental truth (for me): we humans are getting it wrong. The scientific and technological advances we've made are amazing in the truest and purest sense of the world. I couldn't be more grateful to be living in a time and place that allows me everyday to take full advantage of all that our greatest minds and surest hands have created. However, it still feels slightly wrong. People are so lonely. So depressed. So tired. Everybody works all the time, no one has time for their families or friends or little pleasures. It's the funny joke, how parents can't wait to get rid of their kids, husbands can't wait to get away from their wives, wives can't wait to get away from their husbands and all of us can't wait to get away from our parents - especially the aging ones. It's cool to think that kind of stuff, it's hip. On the contrary, we worry about moms who breast feed too long, look sideways at the users of the family bed, feel pity (or contempt) for the woman who stays home to care for her child instead of building a career and feel woeful for the friend whose elderly parent has moved in. We applaud money. You are doing great if you earn a lot of money, are given a lot of money or cement your potential to earn a lot of money with a degree. We know that you are doing great by how big your house is, how nice your car is, the beauty products you use, the label on your clothes. And then, once we have determined that you are in fact a success by these demonstrable things, we then feel bitter about how much you have so secretly hope that you get a divorce or gain weight or become an alcoholic. It's a twisted sad, lonely cycle. I'm opting out.
This idea, this zero waste idea is the first step. I already cultivate intimate relationships, I already put my children above all else, I already live outside most people's better judgment but inside of my heart. Now it's time to live in harmony with the earth.
My next step will be to build my own tiny house powered by solar and wind power, to have my own sustainable organic farm, to do this with a community of people, and to do it all with zero waste. We shall see.
Off we go......
By the way I have been totally inspired by a woman named Bea - here is the link to her blog http://zerowastehome.blogspot.com/
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