Why is conservation "optional" for some people?

[PiCO]

Some would argue you shouldn't have babies if you can't pay for them. Of course, you also shouldn't take birth control. So, you're pretty much screwed (OR NOT!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!).

 

Oh, you made me LOL. I can't rep you though- evidently I've done that too much.

 

(And btw- I am an equal opportunity eye-roller also. Love that!)

Thanks!

[Jenn in Mo]

..... it's easy from my middle class, kerb-side-recyced-waste pick up suburban mentality, to judge those who don't separate their rubbish into two piles!

 

There really *is* a feeling of judgement coming from many environmentalists. In my small town, there are no facilities for recycling anything but metal. We don't use many cans, so this doesn't help us much. To recycle paper, plastic, or glass, I would have to drive an hour one way to find a facility. And then an hour home. This does not, in any way, help the environment. If these facilities were available to me, I'd use them. But they're not. I try not to use much plastic. I try to use paper and food for the garden. So, some might say, "Well, then, we wouldn't judge you because you're trying with what you have." However, if I were to visit you for the weekend, how quick would I be to sort recyclables in your home? It's not that I'm against it, but I would easily forget. It is my habit to throw something in the trash because it is my only option back home. I'm not opposed to new habits, but I doubt I would quickly catch on over a weekend.

 

Now, if a dunderhead like me were visiting and accidentally throwing recyclables in your trash can, would you roll your eyes and sigh while digging through your garbage? You couldn't know that I'm not used to having the ability to recycle back home unless I told you.

 

I guess what I'm saying is that we shouldn't be quick to judge. I'm not inferior to you just because I have different habits.....no more than a mom to a public-schooled child is inferior to you because of her choice in education. It is not what you think is best. Come on, statistically speaking, it is not what you know is best. But that doesn't mean they aren't really great people.

[Plucky]

That is amazing to me. Here recycling is mandatory and Seattle is trying to legislate even more environmental issues like prohibiting water bottles and plastic bags. My hackles get raised because we are very environmentally concious in my home and yet, we are still nagged to death about it. It gets extremely annoying and I wonder sometimes if the eco-friendly issue isn't used to try to control people and have power over people. Probably not, but I think education and opportunity goes farther than shaming and guilting people into it.

[Pajama Mama]

When we moved here 4 yrs ago, I was impressed that they recycled. We were given bins for cans and paper. I had no problem doing it. Then we noticed that the bins were hardly picked up. The recycleables were scheduled to be picked up every 2 weeks. This rarely happened. I called to find out when they would pick up and didn't really get any answers. So, we stopped recycling.

 

Ds8 is a special needs child who eats using a machine. He uses 5 cans a day for his food. When we recycled, the cans were spilling onto the street because we used so many(and they never picked them up). I had a friend who collected cans to make money. I saved the cans for her. She took them to the recycling center and was told that they wouldn't be given money for my son's food cans. They are made with steel, so they weren't recycleable?!?

 

I feel guilty that we don't recycle but I don't have alot of options. I don't have the time(or space) to collect and take them to a recycling center. If they started picking up regularly, I would do it.

 

We do some things to be more green. I hang up some of our laundry outside and use dryer balls instead of fabric sheets. We are replacing our lightbulb with the corkscrew ones(The name escapes me). We use bags purchased at the grocery store for items instead of plastic bags. We eat at home alot and have a small vegetable garden. I'm trying to switch over to earth friendly cleansers. I am doing some things to save money and some because it's healthier and more earth friendly.

[Crissy]

I think education and opportunity goes farther than shaming and guilting people into it.

 

You are right about that, Elaine.

That mayor of yours drives me nuts.

[Crissy]

I am surprised to hear about the lack of recycling facilities in so much of our country.

I suppose I'm a bit too sheltered here in the Northwest, but I can't imagine why waste management companies won't collect recyclables. :001_huh:

[dawn of ns]

I used to like Penn & Teller before I saw this series. I have not watched the recycling episode, but I'm not going to bother because I found other episodes to be poorly researched. They tend to resort to name-calling rather than doing research.

 

Agreed. As much as I agree with them on quite a bit I get irritated by their appraoch. The issue of recycling is a complicated one that can't be adequately addressed by narrowing it down to one talking point, which is basically what they did.

 

For me the whole issue of conservation is null and void anyhow. It all boils down to this question:

 

Do I take responsibility for what I buy and consume?

 

My answer is yes and so I sort and compost and buy smarter.

[Rebecca in GA]

I am surprised to hear about the lack of recycling facilities in so much of our country.

I suppose I'm a bit too sheltered here in the Northwest, but I can't imagine why waste management companies won't collect recyclables. :001_huh:

 

Oh, ours picked them up all right. The trash man came right to the curb, dumped the waste bin in the truck, then picked up the recycling bin and did the same thing. :rant:

 

Where we live now, our convenience center is a mile or two away. They take all recyclables from glass to miscellaneous paperboard. When we start composting in earnest along with recycling, we could theoretically cut our trash output by 2/3. It's easy for us, but I definitely can see how it would be a problem for many folks without the same access to a recycling center.

[Plucky]

You are right about that, Elaine.

That mayor of yours drives me nuts.

 

He's not my mayor unless he thinks he's the mayor over our entire region, which I wouldn't put past him. I can't afford to live in Seattle.

 

The longer he's mayor the weirder he gets. I didn't think he was that bad when he first ran and Seattle needed change (that makes me giggle). He kind of falls under Mungo's post of people staying in the same area and surrounding themselves by people who all think alike. It's scary.

[tibbyl]

In late 80s/early 90s, my family and I undertook a quest to reduce our trash level dramatically.

 

This included (1) bringing reusable Tupperware-type plastic cups to play group to serve juice (mixed from concentrate) or sugar free Koolaid to tots at a weekly playgroup located at a church. The beverage I brought was typically in a reusable gallon Rubbermaid plastic pitcher. And (2) providing regular glass dessert plates when it was my turn to bring snack. Afterwards I washed the serving items in church kitchen or carried them home for washing.

 

And guess what? The moms were freaky about it. They would pull out the throwaway cups and styrofoam plates from the church kitchen to serve the beverage and snack. Got similar response when I was the designated snack provider mom for Girl Scouts and other groups.

 

Finally I relented and began stocking papercups and styrofoam plates.

 

After entertaining people in very casual style for years, I am confident in saying that people are much more likely to help themselves to a prepackaged beverage over one the one in a pitcher.

[cathmom]

I am surprised to hear about the lack of recycling facilities in so much of our country.

I suppose I'm a bit too sheltered here in the Northwest, but I can't imagine why waste management companies won't collect recyclables. :001_huh:

 

 

Ours stopped because they were losing money on it. So there is no recycling here.

 

I have never been concerned about the environment. Last year, however, I taught at a charter school that has an environmental focus and so I learned more about it. Then this summer I read "Collapse" by Jared Diamond. It was kind of bait and switch, because I didn't realize it would be so much about environmentalism and wouldn't have read it if I had known. By the end it seemed to me that a lot of environmentalism is just common sense, in which case the environmentalists have been doing a pretty bad job explaining the issues to other people. It only makes sense to not cut down all your trees, or to not eat all the fish in the world faster than they can reproduce, or to not let all your topsoil disappear.

 

It seems to me from my non-environmentalist perspective, but living in an area where it's important to a lot of people, that they have focused on issues that are debatable. I can't tell you how much I have read about global warming or carbon footprints, but I have never seen an article (not having searched it out, mind you) about clear-cutting or the fish population. They don't realize that there are people who are not convinced that global warming exists and that laugh about it because a couple decades ago it was global cooling that was the problem.

 

But the other issues about sustainable living are really just common sense, and I think they haven't been presented that way.

[Saille]

I think for a lot of people too, that the environmentalists (true believers) types just give it all a bad name.

 

I think that in America that we conserve a heck of a lot more than we're given credit for.

 

I do my part for recycling, but I would never condemn those who don't.

 

I do resent (for example) having Christianity pushed down my throat by some folks, and can therefore concede the point that it would be annoying to have an environmentalist do the same to a non-conservationist...with a caveat. If I'm wrong about Christianity, I don't hurt anyone but myself. If non-conservationists are wrong, they are, as a group, exacting a horrible toll from their fellow human beings.

 

I could conceive that it's possible that we recycle more than other countries...in fact, a quick google search yielded this. On the other hand, I also found this. However, let's be frank about how much we consume in the first place. Americans are conspicuous consumers. Frugality is the exception rather than the rule.

 

As far as condemning people for not recycling, see my point above. While I can disagree respectfully, it is very, very hard for me not to get bent out of shape when I think someone is jeopardizing my children's health and welfare because they just can't be bothered...I feel the same way about secondhand smoke. A person's right to smoke stops the minute that person negatively impacts the health of those who choose NOT to smoke.

[Saille]

Make room for me. I'm bringing home grown steaks, NOT organic either, and of course I'll bring the rum. I'll drive over in my stinky gas guzzler.

 

But this is what I don't get. If you disagree, fine. What's the point of taking pleasure in doing (or not doing) something that has the potential to negatively impact your fellow community members? Why celebrate it? It comes across as defensive and...well, honestly it comes across like you get a kick out of upsetting people who genuinely care about the issue. Is that your intent?

[Saille]

If we get Obama in the White House, I'm sure that we'd feel it sooner.

 

Yes! EXACTLY! Because no one would be creating an artificial cushion to enable us to continue our careless behavior. We talk about teaching our kids hard lessons, about letting them experience the consequences of their own actions, but we are dodging long-term solutions because we don't want to pay the price. Why on earth not?

 

Homeschooling sure isn't easy, but we all have the courage of our convictions here. It matters to us, so we work for it. Heck, having kids is the hardest thing I've ever done, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I'm sure many of you would agree that living a good Christian life isn't always easy, but it fills your souls. Being good stewards of our environment, of the beauty and health and safety of our neighborhoods, our towns, our cities, our states, our country, the luscious and miraculous planet we live on--to me, that's worth working and fighting for, and it drives me crazy when people very casually brush it aside for the convenience of using paper plates at every meal so they don't have to deal with dishes or not recycling when free, easy to use community resources are right there in front of them.

 

I can't rep you again, but you said this so well...I did a really poor job of trying to articulate some of this. Thank you.

[Saille]

Some of us have Bigger Fish to Fry.

 

Some of us are sick and tired of being told, directly or indirectly, that we are Bad People for being insufficiently obsessed with all things environmental. Some of us don't believe that our buying choices are the business of the green police, or anyone else, for that matter.

 

Some of us suspect that global warming is nonsense. Or even if it isn't nonsense, that the proposed cures are worse than the disease.

 

Some of us suspect the current environmental focus is largely a product of marketing research -- consumerist hype, IOW. A fad. Like pet rocks and leg warmers and Baby on Board signs.

 

I could just as easily start my own thread and ask, "Why is conservation mandatory for some people?"

 

You may not agree with conservation, but I think you can see how conservationists, believing what they believe, would have a hard time thinking of bigger fish to fry.

 

Your buying choices are the business of others when said choices affect them adversely. Also, I don't think suspicion is sufficient grounds for decision making when the stakes have the potential to be so high. I think comparing landfills, groundwater pollution, ocean waste and global warming to pet rocks is really pretty silly.

[newlifemom]

Doran,

 

I have not read this thread at all but have to say every time I see the title I read conversation instead of conservation and wonder why some peoples quietness is a problem for you.:lol:

[Doran]

But this is what I don't get. If you disagree, fine. What's the point of taking pleasure in doing (or not doing) something that has the potential to negatively impact your fellow community members? Why celebrate it? It comes across as defensive and...well, honestly it comes across like you get a kick out of upsetting people who genuinely care about the issue. Is that your intent?

 

 

There seems to be an attitude of "you can't make me" in a number of the replies here wherein people are opposed. It reminds me of times when I am at loggerheads with one of my kids because somebody has decided that she simply cannot give an inch, no matter what. We get to the point that we actually forget what we were arguing about in the first place and the argument instead becomes more about not giving in to the other side.