HERE AND NOW List

HERE AND NOW

An Organic List of Little Changes We All Can Make to Make our Children’s Future Safer and Healthier

Please contribute ideas and suggestions and criticisms

  • Save on Energy
  1. buy organic foods and as much locally grown (and processed, etc.) food as possible (read “The Tale of Two Tomatoes“).
  2. buy from local bookstores. Sure, the UPS truck drives by anyway, but mine might be the package that puts an extra truck on the road. And my extra buck can support the independent bookstore, which is always a good cause.
  3. don’t preheat the oven, unless when cooking poultry, meat or fish (bacteria!).
  4. don’t preboil (e.g., when cooking pasta, potatoes, corn, etc.), and don’t let pots/pans boil away and fill only with however much water is needed (e.g., when making tea).
  5. when doing dishes and laundry, use lowest temperature necessary - usually that’s “cold”.
  6. replace all alight bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFL), even the one in the fridge.
  1. when doing dishes, fill sink; don’t run tap.
  2. run dishwasher when it’s full. 
  3. one cup a day (as much tea/coffee as you want, but in only one cup: less dishes).
  4. when brushing teeth, don’t run tap.
  5. shower less: every other day, work towards every three days, etc.
  • Reduce-Reuse-Recycle
  1. recycle even the smallest piece of paper, the tiniest plastic cup or lid.
  2. set up exchanges with friends, especially for those babyclothes and toys.
  3. use only the minimum of paper napkins/towels, at home and at restaurants (stick it on: These come from trees).
  4. bring own resusable cup to coffeeshops.
  5. wash out ziploc bags and baggies, reuse.
  6. call up junkmail/catalogue companies and request being taken off their mailing lists (it works: most will!).
  • Decrease pollution
  1. paper or plastic? Neither! (bring own canvas bag to shop, they’re stronger and much more stylish anyway - amusing/disconcerting article on the topic).
  2. don’t buy bottled water (according to the Whole Foods “The Whole Earth Weigh-In” pamphlet, “80% of the 25 billion single-serving plastic water bottles Americans use each year end up in landfills.”)
  3. when buying something, consider its packaging (lots of plastic? Thanks!).
  4. no to paper, styrofoam or plastic cups (bring own resusable cup).
  • Cleaning
  1. use “green” cleaning products.
  • Trash Taboos!
  1. flush toilet selectively (just keep the lid closed) (if no guests are around).
  2. those diapers! > switch to g-diapers.
  3. those pads and tampons! > switch to DivaCup.

A note on Taboos: Most items on the list are straightforward and easy, the last three might not be. I was as squamish about poop and blood as the next person… until I gave birth and started changing diapers. So I reconsidered the cultural taboos that made me recoil from excrement/menstrual blood and the honest consideration of their cost to the planet. Really, those 18-20 billion soiled, plastic and chlorine-bleached disposable diapers and those 7 billion bloody tampons and 13 billion bloody sanitary pads sitting in landfills in the US alone (and counting)… are they that much less disgusting?

  • Items that we would like to add but that are more difficult to implement: 
  1. compost organic materials. Update
  2. grow herbs and veggies, but we don’t have a garden and there is very little direct sunlight in our basement appartment: find a solution.
  3. not buy any more leather shoes, handbags. Bags is easy, shoes less. Find some alternatives, preferably that don’t involve more plastic.
  • Feasability = Adaptability

If our circumstances can’t be adapted, of course we have to adapt. I remember my mother-in-law’s protest to our organic-food-resolution: “What if it isn’t available? What then?” Well, then we’ll just have to starve.

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