Boring tips for earth day

Nothing catches the eye and enlivens the spirit more than a chunk of text with the word “boring” in the title, amirite?

As a person who enjoys self-improvement projects, I often rely on the excitement of new innovations, strategies, or products to kick start me down a path to better habits, less stuff, or more organization. The changes I’ve made in response to my church’s call to deepen environmental stewardship, on the other hand, have been rather pedestrian and (surprisingly) meaningful.

Eat Less Meat — raising meat for food is resource intensive and bad for global warming, so during Lent, Wes and I stopped eating meat and fish. Lent is now over but I’ve maintained eating less meat by cooking vegetarian meals at home and choosing the veg option whenever I can. I eat meat when it is served to me and as an occasional treat (hello, sashimi). On a side note, I happened to get a medical checkup recently and my doctor was really, really happy with my cholesterol levels. The last time I had a full check up was about a decade ago, which I realize hardly constitutes a baseline, but I do remember the doctor saying that my cholesterol back then was on the higher side of normal.

Buying less stuff — We know that our landfills and oceans are filled with a heartbreaking amount of plastic. So we should replace the plastic in our lives with glass straws, reusable produce bags, and bamboo to-go utensils, right? Not necessarily. One of the greenest things we can do is buy fewer things and use the things we already have. So I’m washing plastic produce bags, reusing the boba straws we’ve accumulated, and carrying around mismatching plastic utensils. We still have a ton of plastic in our daily lives but less new plastic is coming into our home. And, yes, many of you have been doing this for years and I used to make fun of you for doing so.

Utilizing community — I’m learning from the green warriors who are leading the way in my real and virtual community. For example, there is a woman in my church who collects mylar (chip bags, power bar wrappers) and many other hard-to-recycle items to send in to this website to raise money for her child’s school. She has agreed to collect such items from others — I’m so jumping on that bandwagon!

Bringing trash home — The El Cerrito Recycling Center is amazing. They take many things, including “plastic film,” which is everything from cling wrap to grocery bags. Also, the City of Berkeley will take any hard plastic (cups, yogurt containers, trays). Since we have such great recycling options, I try hard not to send things to the landfill (and, yes, I know there is an international recycling crisis right now because China is eschewing foreign plastic). So when I eat a Cliff Bar or Anna buys pearl milk tea, we carry the trash home. I have not yet become sufficiently radicalized to bring other people’s trash home…but you know, I’m open.

I would love to hear what everyday things you are doing to build a greener world. Happy Earth Day!