Wednesday, September 14, 2011

China and Recycling

Wow, wow, wow. Serious internet toboggan this afternoon that began last night at Foresight Design Initiative Green Drinks. The topic was "Art and Sustainability", so of course I was interested (and also the founder of Foresight is an Obie alum), and so I went and listened to members of Chicago-based Filament Theatre Company discuss their journey to become a sustainable theater company. I met an artist there who does performances using trash, and looking at her blog led me to My Plastic-Free Life.com, where a woman has dedicated the last 4 years to almost completely eliminating plastic from her daily life. She challenges others to analyze their own plastic consumption by collecting, photographing and blogging a week's worth. I want to take this challenge, and I'm hoping my sister will do it with me (we live together).

I feel very fortunate to have gone to Oberlin where the awareness of living sustainably was rampant, and at times even militant. Other students knew a lot more than I did, and I credit co-ops and my friends Margaret and Jake for their influence. Now I know how to compost, and not to flush after peeing, among other things. But I realize that not everyone has this experience, and aren't as inclined to change their behaviors and buying or flushing habits. Living in awareness of the environmental choices I make is very important to me, and I want to spread the awareness, but I often struggle to be a very convincing activist. I trained my parents to take fabric bags with them to the grocery store, and bought my dad a home water carbonator for Father's Day (it's awesome!). But I had trouble 'converting' my previous boyfriend, and currently my sister, who doesn't think my "hippie" deodorant is worth the natural sweat (antiperspirants contain aluminum tri-somethings that are a known carcinogen). I feel like this is something I could write more about.

Yet, in a further slip down the internet slope:

Crazy, right? I knew that a lot of the US's recycling went to China, but seeing the images themselves is something else entirely. I spent five months in China during which time I drank the tap water (after boiling, of course). I didn't want to buy purified bottled water, which would result in piles of empty plastic, yet now knowing what was in the water I drank makes me feel a little gross. What will I do next time I'm in China?

Monday, September 12, 2011