Oct 15 2007
blog action day — the environment —
Friends, as part of blog action day, I’m blogging about the environment.
This is, if you know me, laughable. I have a graduate degree in treehugger. I’m totally evergreeen, yeah?
I had no freaking idea what awareness of my footprint truly was until I moved onboard a boat. Here are a few highlights:
- Water consumption. Here, have two tanks. Use only the water that’s in them, and figure out how long it takes for you to go through that amount. Get progressively more creative about trying to fill the tanks less often.
- Sewage. When you have to drive the boat over to the pumping station to deal with your output, and 100% of the family’s waste is in a nice tank under someone’s bed, suddenly, you become aware of exactly how much waste human beings make, and how much work is involved in processing it. I am utterly nauseated by the amount of water wasted by “normal” flush toilets, now that we have a simple pump toilet, and every cup of water in is a cup of water we’ll have to pump later.
- Food. You have a tiny bit of storage space, and every inch matters, so you go for more food and less packaging. And you start to realize that every package takes up an insane amount of space. And besides that…
- Garbage. Oh my god. In our marina, the garbage dumpster is pretty close, but the recycle bin is a really long haul. So “take out the trash” involves walking 400 yards or so up to the gate, getting a cart, bringing it back, putting in the garbage and recycle bags, walking (uphill) back up to the gate, out to the bin, down to the other bin (probably another 500 yards or so), and coming back. Lovely exercise, yes, but not while slogging around bags of yuck. So you start working out brilliant schemes to minimize trips, and therefore, garbage. I am reminded of a college professor I had, whose family generated one lunchbag’s worth of garbage a week. We are working to emulate him.
- Sustainability. Recently, we had to replace the battery bank. That’s four 150-pound batteries. That’s a ton of expense and a ton of waste, and a giant PITA to get out of the boat, down to the battery place, yada yada yada. I expect the new batteries to last six years, minimum. Someone asked me why I hadn’t just gotten auto batteries, which are cheaper but less durable, and all I could think was “yeah, let’s see you schlep those babies…”. Things in boats are always priced in multiples of $1000 (the term is “boat bucks”), and when you’re looking at massive outlay, you’ll do almost anything to repair, reuse, or otherwise extend a thing’s life. We thought we were in for replacing the water heaters, and when my friend Jon managed to rewire the old one, I almost cried with relief and gratitude.
- Recycling. Not just paper, glass, etc, but other stuff as well. There’s very little free space on a boat, so things like freecycle and paperbackswap just rock. Get a thing, enjoy a thing, give it back to someone else, get a different thing… less attachment, more joy, less clutter, more entertainment.
- DIY. This is *huge* in the liveaboard community. People here know tools, use tools, and it’s expected that if you’re going to call in a pro, it’s because you tried everything and then some before you did. It’s a spirit of self-sufficiency that’s going to be required, if we all don’t quit screwing up the environment we have.
So those are the big things I can think of at the moment. Who knew my footprint could get smaller? I wonder how small it will get before we’re done?
The only thing I’d add, and really you cover the intent in Recycling, is…Less Stuff. Or Unconsumerism. Or something like that. When you can’t bring something ON the boat unless you take something OFF (a basic survival guideline), you think hard in yet another why about How Much You Really Want/Need Something. In a world where so many tings are easily acquired- they’re cheap, they’re in front of us, whatever- boatlife gives you a big incentive not to acquire needlessly, and reconsider consumption.
Good post. Glad to see you posting again. I’m also pleased you were part of the movement. Did you ever get in touch with the Eco flag people. I’m seeing more yachters involvement. I just got my large flag which will be flying events and handing out some flyers to those interested.
Keep up the good work! Fair winds!