Sunday, December 29, 2013

The Best New Eco-Practice of 2014 So Far....The Plastic Bag Ban

One particularly windy day on my way to drop off my son at kindergarten, I was forced to stop for several minutes in the road while an extra large dust devil, turned white plastic tornado from all the plastic bags it had caught up, passed through the residential area along South Meadows Road. The bag-nado choked a few birds on its way.

Plastic and birds do not mix as evidenced by this disturbing video about the life of Albatross way out at sea:



I live on the southwest end of town where the wind whips into a frenzy through the spring and into early summer and then again in the late fall and early winter. The result is ugly plastic bags stuck to every fence and cholla cactus within view throughout most of the year. My house borders a large empty County park so I spend a goodly amount of my outdoor time in those windy months collecting the ripped up, useless, discarded pieces of plastic bags from the edges of my yard.

The lifecycle of the plastic bag is a sorry one to be sure. Check out this 4 minute video about it - well worth the watch!



For these reasons and more I am thrilled for the best new ordinance of the new year (so far) to arrive! Have you heard? The plastic bag ban is coming to Santa Fe. I'm so excited!...to see how it all goes down really. I'm excited about the ban too of course as I believe it is good for the planet and people...any step away from our disposable culture is good in my worldview. (Paper bags will still be available as will plastic bags thicker than 2.25 mils, that's a change for another day.) But I am also excited to see how Santa Feans react to this forward thinking ordinance when it finally comes into effect in February.

Santa Fe is not the first city to ban the bag - Austin, Portland, Tuscon, even Los Angeles precede us. However, having read the comments to the SF New Mexican's online article it appears locally it may be a controversial ordinance in practice. One lady said no way to the ban in her post because she didn't want to use those dirty smelly canvas bags - how unsanitary! (Hopefully someone has since told her they that canvas is washable). Some feel that it will disproportionately affect people in the less affluent parts of town. The southside has been specifically mentioned as discount stores there claim they can't afford to upgrade their bags to thicker quality plastic as some of the downtown stores might do to skirt the ordinance and keep customers happy. Less affluent customers then will bear the burden because they can't afford to buy reusable bags. It may be a legitimate concern, but humanity is full of creative solutions when pressed. Here are a couple already in play:

Earth Care's Youth Allies are making reusable bags out of the free fabric they have collected and are distributing them to those that need them. (Kuddos to the Earth Care kids who helped pass the ban in the first place and had the foresight to do something about the potential disproportionate impact).

Natural Grocers on Cerrillos got rid of their plastic bags of their own volition years ago and employed their creativity to keep customers in food carrying containers. (Cheers to them for that BTW). They set up bins to hold different sized cardboard boxes that come in the back door as food packaging and offer those boxes to bag-less customers to take their purchases out the front door.  All stores could follow suit as there is no shortage of cardboard around town.

Since learning about the bag ban I have taken extra care to notice my bag intake. Although I carry a couple of those stuff-able reusable bags in my purse wherever I go, I still consume way more disposable plastic bags than I would like to admit. Sometimes I get a bag out of laziness or passivity. Sometimes I don't always get my reusables out in time before the cashier puts my items in the bag and hands it to me (they are so fast at it!). When I take my items out of the unwanted bag and hand it back to them they more often than not throw it in the trash rather than using it for the next customer, so I usually take the bag with me. At least I can recycle it. I still have eco-guilt every time I leave the store with one, whatever the reason.

Now I can rejoice in the knowledge that the plastic bag ban is coming. I LOVE it when the system works with me to live up to eco-habits rather than against me! It makes life so much more enjoyable and reduces my eco-anxiety (a concept for another blog post).

So SFeans, will you make "carry canvas bags with me at all times" number one on your New Year's Resolution list? Are you getting your camera ready to capture the beauty of a plastic bag-less desert landscape we haven't seen the likes of for over two decades? Leave a comment and tell me what you think about the upcoming bag ban.

For more information, check out these past articles on the plastic bag ban:
The Good, the Bag, and the Ugly, Santa Fe Reporter
Council Passes Plastic Bag Ban, Santa Fe New Mexican

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Un-Stuffing the Mind

Lately, spurred on by the recent death of my older brother, I have been examining my life, reviewing the whole thing from start to the present like a movie. Trying to make sense of my experience here on earth thus far. There is nothing like staring the death of a loved one in the face that makes a person question the worth of their life. Or that has been my experience of it. It is as if when my brother took his own life, he knocked over the house of cards that is my life and it fell to the ground in a messy pile. I have been slowly picking up each card and examining it, trying to put the pieces back together in a way that makes sense, and in a way that tells me it has been a good life. While I do this, my brother  stands over me urgently saying - "now make sense of that! Make sure the life you are living is a life well lived. Make sure you are getting all you can from your life. I couldn't figure out how to do it, so now you must. And do it now, don't wait! Death awaits you too in your own time."

One quintessential moment in my life that recently I've been thinking a lot about happened in 2000. I was about a year and a half into my Peace Corps service in a remote village in Panama. I visited home during Christmas time to decide if I was going to extend my term or return home in accordance with the original plan.

During my visit, I found myself sitting on a bench in an affluent suburban mall. Around me people streamed in and out of clothing boutiques that extolled the virtues of clothes made in Honduras, designer hand bags made in China, and other assorted accessories from around the world. To my right, teenagers eagerly awaited a chance to try out a water massage machine - a contraption that looked much like a tanning bed gone haywire - meant to offer relaxation to harried holiday shoppers. And to my left, more teens handed over ten dollar bills at a kiosk selling gourmet doggy treats and chocolate covered espresso beans.

The remote subsistence village I had been living in just west of the Panama Canal had no economic infrastructure except my neighbor's tin-roofed, mud-floor hut out of which he sold essential food staples: sugar, rice, canned meat, and homemade popsicles. In Panama, I had been living deeply connected with what I would consider the "real world." My life was subject to the pounding rains of the wet season, sometimes flooding the village and stranding me in my little home for days at a time; and extreme drought during the dry season when water was so scarce I had to walk a half mile to a natural spring to find some for cooking and cleaning.

The feeling that overcame me as I sat on that bench in the mall was a void of aliveness and connection inherent in a life lived in the American mainstream. The mall is a place that shaped my generation and many that followed in the unending quest to find identity in the American landscape. Generation after generation in the United States is being told they will find their identity in the goods they consume; that the most important decision our lives require is to choose which corporate logo best expresses our personalities.

That message was in stark contrast to the life I had been living in Panama. Although the villagers lived a life labeled by the economic index as "extreme poverty" they seemed no more or less happy than the affluent people of the United States.

The little hut I lived in Panama had a bed with a mosquito net over it, a two burner propane stove, one pan, some food, some clothes (many of them hand sewn), some books on a shelf, some seeds, and a wall with my machete and a few other tools hung on it. And still that was more than some homes in the village had.

The home I am living in now is full of stuff, bursting at the seams with stuff. Furniture, toys, clothes, tools, dishes, stuff to cook with, stuff to play with, stuff to do hobbies with, stuff, stuff and more stuff. The realization that Americans have too much stuff is nothing new to be sure. People have been talking about over-consumption for years, decades, and longer. But the realization of what stuff has done to my life is new for me.

I did end up extending my time in Panama for a few months to finish a project in the village. After my Peace Corps service ended, I took a bus through Central America to get back to the United States. I journaled extensively during that time. As I reread those journals lately one sentence I wrote leaped out at me from the page - "I don't want to become part of the middle-class of the world!"

I tend to take the voice of that 26 year old seriously because I know she was in touch with the real world. Living in a mud-floor tin-roofed hut for three years was a life changing experience, it impacted me on a core level that I had never experienced before or since. I developed an entirely new worldview from that experience. I have been working to remember my life back then so I can understand again the sentiment and impetus for that feeling. In my journal I gave no explanation of it as I am sure my reasons were obvious to me at the time.

The impact of reading that sentence today was that I looked around at my life and my world began to crumble a bit. What has happened was something that 26 year old feared most. At some point in the growing older and raising a family, the accumulation of stuff began to get in the way of my experience of the real world. Sure, most of our stuff is green, eco-conscious, and bought with social justice in mind. But it is still stuff. The spending time buying, ordering, making, using, finding a place for, picking up, cleaning, fixing or replacing and dealing with of, consumes much of my time as a person and especially now as a stay-at-home mom.

When life becomes about stuff, even if it is handmade, local, organic, sweatshop free stuff, it is still just stuff. I feel stuff gets in between me and connecting to the real world. It keeps me separate. I'm sure some would argue that stuff can also connect you to the real world, but overall my experience is of separation.

I went from working in environmental education in one of the most wild places in the U.S. - Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons - to spending three years living in Panama working as an agroforestry volunteer. When living in the shadow of the Grand Tetons I would look out at the landscape and see ecosystems, animal tracks, plant families, and habitats. In the understory of the Panamanian rainforest I would look out at the landscape and see hillsides for planting corn, marshy areas that would make good rice paddies, and patches of sun for growing tomatoes. And while I hate to admit it, but in my time living in Santa Fe, settling down and raising a family I now look our at my landscape (or yard) and see places for a new piece of furniture, a spot to hang a hammock, a kitchen pot that needs replacing, or a need for a new pair of pants to be bought. My lens on the world and the stuff of my mind went from wildplaces to agriculture to consumption. I've truly been domesticated.

Of the many questions I find myself grappling with in answer to Aaron's beckon call to live a life well lived three of them now pressing on my mind are - How did my life become about stuff? And what does an un-stuffed American family life look like anyway? What brings life deep meaning and worth and how can I have more of that instead of filling my life with things?

To answer these questions I began doing some internet searches to see what other people were saying about this topic. One idea that resonated with me most was minimalism as an answer to consumerism. Rather than talking about recycling, reusing, and making your own stuff (which does have its value, don't get me wrong), it is about reduction. Not letting stuff rule your life and your home and most importantly not letting it occupy so much space in your mind means just simply having less of it, dealing with it less, thinking about it less. Easier said than done of course. Especially in this moment of the Christmas season. High time when we are bombarded with the message to consume. I'm not immune to it either - as evidenced by the pile of Christmas presents in hidden in my closet waiting to be put out on Christmas eve after the kids go to bed.

But I am looking forward to starting a new in 2014. I am determined not to let my stuff own me or my life. So far I have managed to take about 5 grocery bags of stuff to Salvation army and give away a set of dishes and some furniture to a friends, things I was keeping around just in case we needed them someday. So that is a start.

Here are a few of the best tips I picked up in my research with a few of my own thrown in on how to un-stuff your mind:

1. Spend (more) time in nature - escpecially when you feel the urge to buy coming on.
2. Cultivate natural habitats - instead of landscaping your yard for your own enjoyment - create spaces for birds, bees, butterflies, rabbits, and even coyotes.
3. Spend low-stress time with friends. Invite people over but don't stress about it. Let them see your mess if need be. Make it a potluck or just for tea.
4. Clear your mind through meditation. Best way I've found to un-stuff my mind it is clear it out completely.
5. Take a nap in nature. Try it, you'll see what I mean.
6. Volunteer. Think about other people make your own wants seem less important.
7. Become and astute observer of your inner consumer. Check out Leo's blog for the great things they have to say about this: http://mnmlist.com/consumerism-vs-minimalism/
8. Nurture your inner minimalist. Cultivate simplicity in your mind and it will eventually show up in your life.

What helps you to un-stuff your mind? Post in the comments section, I would love to hear your thoughts....

Happy Holidays!
Christina