@MaineLonghorn. We started out that way in Chicago. It was the “Blue Bag” program. That transitioned into the Blue Container program. All our reusables just get thrown into the Blue large container then it gets separated out. It’s a very successful program and just easy to do. In Detroit they have had a tax on glass bottles and you take them into the grocery store and put them in a machine and get money back.
Equating climate change and pollution takes an immediate concern (clean air/clean water) and distorts it into an issue with consequences that won’t be realized for decades (global warming). That’s why I prefer to frame the conversation around less waste and clean air/water.
When we’ve talked with our kids, we’ve shared ideas and make choices that make sense to us…hybrid car, stainless steel water bottles over disposable ones, grocery tote bags, switched to LED fixtures/bulbs, programmable thermostat (Nest), buy less, recycle, etc.
They’re “baby steps”, but modifying our collective behavior starts with awareness and change, regardless how small.
Something that I recently became aware of is nurdles. It’s a terrible problem which I hope attracts more attention. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nurdles-tiny-plastic-pellets-are-polluting-our-waterways-absorbing-harmful-chemicals/
I lived in Houston for years and the water in Galveston was so disturbing. The water was foamy and I wouldn’t even wade in it. The air near Baytown was not only smelly, but we knew people, who had to get their cars repaired because the paint would get damaged from sitting in the parking lot!
Now with nurdles, you can’t help but wonder what it’s impact will be on the food chain.
My children harassed me to prepare more plant-based meals until I relented. It was annoying because I would really need to make an effort to learn some new recipes if I didn’t want pasta all the time and wanted to keep my iron and protein levels up.
BUT. We now eat vegetarian about 4-5x per week and I lost 7 lbs without really trying. I had my annual checkup last week and my blood work was better than it has been in a long while.
I’m glad they bugged me into submission. Please don’t tell them that.
As other have said, it is not just climate change that is of concern with things like plastics. It takes some getting used to (and I often have to go back to my car because I walk out without my reusable bags) but there is really no reason we all have to use single-use bags that generally are not recyclable every time we shop. Same with single-use water bottles for convenience, not because the water is bad.
Yes there are cycles to the earth’s climate but CO2 is not the only thing driving current climate change or our environmental concerns. If there is major drought in the farm belt it will be very difficult to relocate farms to good soils, since so many areas have been developed. The fires in Australia are horrifying and it is not just due to overhead wires.
But there is no free lunch. Hydropower (and water supply) in California dammed the Tuolumne River, flooding the Hetch Hetchy valley which was as beautiful as Yosemite valley. Birds and bats are of concern with wind turbines. A solar field was proposed for a forested area here. Although it was not approved in the forest, it was mostly moved to a parking lot which, while more expensive, preserved woodlands. I am not entirely clear on the push for electric everything - generating electricity also has environmental consequences including the fact that many generating stations have switched from coal to natural gas.
I have to drive to Houston this week and I know I’ll be passing through a petrochemical hellscape from Lake Charles all the way to Houston. It’s pretty shocking, and reminds me of crossing into NJ from Staten Island back in the 70’s - just a sudden onslaught of toxic air.
We can do so much better. Northern Texas with it’s vast fields of windmills is a great example of the progress we’ve made.
Buy less. Use less. Conserve energy. If everyone did this there would be less need for finding new energy sources.
My kids are minimalists. They don’t want anything material for Christmas. No gifts, no stocking stuffers. Just leisure time with friends and family.
They’ve furnished their homes with hand-me-downs from my house or from grandma’s house or from things they bought on Marketplace. No need to buy cheap, disposable furniture from the usual warehouse places.
They’ve moved to small cities where their commute is just a handful of miles. They drive perfectly serviceable 10 year old cars. Buying new cars, even electric ones (which aren’t practical yet), puts another old car into a landfill and means more raw materials going into more manufacturing.
I don’t know why the media doesn’t focus on these sorts of things. It’s sort of appalling to go into stores like Home Goods, Dollar Tree, Target, WalMart and others and see the huge amounts of pure junk people are buying. Mostly made in China. Stuff that will be thrown out in a few months or years.
We seem to have veered from climate change to pollution, but since we’re here let me second this comment! So. Much. Stuff. Just quit buying it.
Are climate change and pollution truly that much different? For the most part, if you solve one, you solve the other.
Manufacturing unnecessary stuff particularly stuffmade in coal fired plants pollutes and leads to climate change. I see a direct connection there. Manufacturing new stuff often requires mining or logging which also causes harm.
My mother always said 'buy quality, it lasts". Millenials seem to want to buy cheap and toss it
That is true in many cases, though not all. An example where improvement in one makes the other more difficult is the substitution of diesel engines for gasoline engines in motor vehicles. Less fuel consumption, less CO2 produced, but more difficulty controlling NOx and soot emissions. Lean burn gasoline engines have similar issues with NOx emissions.
However, in many cases, pollution reduction and reducing driving climate change are coincident. For example, clean tap water means not having to produce usually single use bottles for bottled water and consume much more energy to move bottled water around, or use energy to boil tap water before using. Also, less cost and energy dealing with people who get sick from bad water.
Not all. My kids are like yours, @TatinG. Same with many of their friends and peers.
As a family, we go for quality over quantity.
Yes, great examples, @ucbalumnus .
Since we choke on coal in my stomping grounds, I like to cite that coal produces 1.7x the CO2 that natural gas does, and spews more stuff in the air than I can muster to write about.
I fall on the side of aggressively attacking traditional pollution rather than focusing on CO2, even though the same objectives will be met, because… most people understand what pollution can do to us. Climate simulations will never fly in the court of public opinion.
Don’t forget the fly ash from burning coal that has radioactive stuff in it… People worry about nuclear power plants, but do not seem to object to radioactive stuff in coal plants’ fly ash.
Total greenhouse gas emissions is estimated at 43.1 billion tons. Plastic’s contribution to that is 850 million tons. Hence, plastics can be estimated to be responsible for approximately 2% of man made greenhouse gas emissions. Then, straws represent about 2,000 tons of the nearly 9 million tons of plastic waste that yearly hits the waters, or 0.02%. Therefore, to a rough approximation, straws represent about 0.0004% of greenhouse gas emissions, which is close to a rounding error. This is noise. If you’re serious about climate change, start with zero population growth.
If you don’t use plastic bags from the grocery store, what do you use to pick up your dog’s poop?
“If you don’t use plastic bags from the grocery store, what do you use to pick up your dog’s poop?”
Here’s your answer:
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/09/711181385/are-plastic-bag-bans-garbage.
Unintended consequences and all that.
My town has banned the sale of single serving plastic water bottles. Although it took a little adjustment, seven years after the ban went into place no one misses them anymore. A similar ban on plastic bags went into place a few years later. As with the bottle ban we bitched and moaned but it’s turned out not to be a big deal.
A roll of biodegradable dog waste bags is quite inexpensive, although I’ve personally found that between the biodegradable bag stand in my local park (yay Parks and Rec guys for keeping it stocked!), vegetable bags, which are not banned for health and safety reasons, and bags from out of town locations I haven’t had to buy any yet.
Speaking of single use plastic - hotels are getting away from those little shampoo and conditioner bottles and installing large refillable pumps in the shower. I think California has passed or is considering a law banning the little bottles. I like this as there was never enough shampoo in the little bottles for two women with longish hair to share one little bottle.
I like the refillable soap and shampoo pump dispensers since there’s less waste and would like it if every hotel installed them. But… I think they should also think ahead a bit and buy dispensers that are both able to be sanitized and tamper proof. It’s only a matter of time before someone discovers that toxic mold/bacteria/random nasties are growing in these things that never, ever get cleaned or someone puts a harmful chemical in there (either accidentally or deliberately.)
I agree, no one wants to live in a hazy, smog-filled city full of trash piles with algae-infested water. I think it’s disgusting and irresponsible to subject citizens to that kind of life. At the same time, I’m not going to pay attention to these environmental “alarmists” who keep telling me the earth will end in 12 years. They’ve been making the same predictions for the last 40 years. It’s a new apocalypse every decade. It started with global cooling, then the ozone layer, then global warming, now it’s climate change(whatever THAT is). They all have one thing in common. The predictions have been wrong EVERY time. It seems Chicken Little has been working overtime.