Going green and getting Lucky

  

It’s not just a California thing, or at least it shouldn’t be. I don’t talk about this sort of stuff very often on my blog, but this weekend reminded me that maybe I should.

Since moving into my own home, I’ve become increasingly conscious of my impact on the environment. Granted, I kind of hear a lot about it, living in California and all, but global warming debate aside, it is a biblical mandate to be a good steward of the earth. (Let me pause here for a minute to delve into the semantic significance of the word “steward.” A steward is a servant, a high ranking one, but a servant nonetheless. His job is to take care of the master’s property as if it were his own; the property is not his, but he is so important, that he speaks for the master and is fairly autonomous as long as his decisions fall within the scope of what the master will allow. To be a good steward, one must have intimate knowledge of the way the master thinks; if he doesn’t, his decisions will not reflect the master’s will and, eventually, the steward will be fired. As stewards of all that God has given us, both personally and has human beings, these possessions do not belong to us, but to God. We hold them in trust, and are trusted to make decisions that reflect the Master’s will. I can’t help but doubt that the Master would be pleased with some of our nation’s (or individuals’) materialistic views of natural resources.)

Anyway, back to my story…

Fortunately, where I live, the waste company encourages recycling by giving us separate bins for different items. In fact, our recycle bins are more than twice the size of our garbage can. K and I now have very little waste that we generate, with all of our paper waste, much of our plastic waste, and our green waste (garden clippings and food prep. scraps) going into our recycle bins. Even then, I’ve still been looking for more ways to reduce what we throw away.

Of course, the most annoying waste product are the dozens of plastic bags I bring home from the grocery store every week. For a while, K and I shopped at Trader Joe’s, where they don’t have plastic bags, but paper. At least the paper ones would be reused for different purposes at home, but TJ’s also encourages shoppers to bring their own reusable bags, offering a monthly drawing for free groceries as an incentive. So, I started bringing my own canvas bags.

This past year, I’ve gotten even better about bringing my bags with me, not just when I go grocery shopping, but when I do any shopping whatsoever. Of course, there are times when I forget, but I’ve cut back our plastic bag population by a significant amount. Those that I do have currently will soon become a crocheted shopping bag.

Then, when I went grocery shopping at Lucky’s this past weekend, I got an unexpected benefit for bringing my own reusable bags. As I was checking out, the clerk asked the bagger how many of my own bags I had brought. She then gave me a $.05 discount per bag. Awesome! I know, I know. Five cents doesn’t go very far, but hey, every little bit counts in today’s economy. I posted about this on my LJ and commented how I’d like to do something now about those annoying produce bags, which really can’t be reused for anything. Sure enough, one of my friends commented back that little mesh cotton bags are available to substitute for produce bags. Yay! Granted, they are a little pricey, but it is so worth it to reduce my personal impact on the environment I live in.

Now, it has been a while since I’ve been out of California, so I don’t know what is being done in other parts of the country to encourage people to reduce, reuse and recycle. I’d love to think that this same sense of urgency to protect our natural resources extends beyond this one state, but I somehow doubt it. In fact, I kind of suspect that these practices aren’t even very common once you leave the metropolitan areas of the state.

If you are one of my out-of-state friends, I encourage you to think about how you might be able to reduce your waste output. It can be a very difficult thing when everything we buy is individually wrapped or packaged in plastic and styrofoam, but there are little things that we can start to do everyday, and every little bit helps. It can actually be kind of fun, especially when you get unexpected benefits, a sort of five cent reward for doing your part to be a good steward. :)

May 19, 2008  Tags:   Posted in: Uncategorized

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