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?
Related posts:
Thaks so much for writing this. I like to say the envrionment is important to me and our family is taking (teeny tiny baby) steps towards making our own footprint smaller — reading this continues to inspire me … and a lunch bags worth of garbage a week!?! Wow, I’m in awe!
Thanks for this, L. We’re definitely very spoiled here, and trying to work on improving our footprint. My kids are a *lot* more aware than I was at their age, and while our garbage bin is generally pretty light every week, we’re still generating a lot of recycling, which I guess is good (ratio-wise) *and* bad (we’re still generating *that* waste).
I remember staying with DH’s aunt in Italy, in a house with inefficient plumbing that blocked easily, and being horrified that the toilet paper had to go in the bathroom bin, which was periodically emptied into the communal dumpster up the street. I only had to deal with that for a couple of weeks, but little things like that make you more aware of trying to make it, at the very least, less gross! It’s way too easy when you just have to flush it down and let somebody else deal with it.
For some reason, my original post a few days ago did not make it through (~~L, are you censoring?). First, check this for footprint stuff:
- http://globalfootprintnetwork.org/(in Oakland, I worked briefly with the founders; they’re finally getting good global traction)
- http://www.earthday.net/Footprint/index.asp (fun & eye-opening, but odd result differences if you enter the same behavior in different countries/languages)
And then this for less-serious potato stuff (see ~~L’s next blog entry):
http://www.potatomuseum.com/
I read this post a while back and it has remained with me. Each time I turn on the sink or toss a napkin in the trash I am aware of what I am using and wasting–your words and how I processed them are making me more responsible. You should write articles on this topic or do a commentary for NPR–I think it is a very important and profound perspective you shared with us here. Thank you.