Recycling/Going Green
- Thread starter MetalPants
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Nothing... nothing??
May I recommend you get yourself a copy of Earth In The Balance -- the recycled pages make a delightful toilet paper
Like others said, for me it's both. I've lived most of my life lived in areas with poor-to-nonexistent public transit, so I totally get what you're saying about cars and daily function. When I moved to LA, I used the opportunity to switch to public trans for my commute, after a little coaxing from a car-free friend. This city is shitastic overall, but as long as I'm here, I'm going to exploit its advantages, eh? One of those advantages is being able to leave my aging car at home and let the bus absorb the wear and tear of my daily commute. Were it not for the bus, my car would have died by now and I'd be out too much money for another one.
I've got a few incentives to take public transit. One, the commute is not that much longer than by car. Two, driving here is stressful, between the wretched drivers and the poorly maintained streets. I find I'm less frayed by the time I get home from work if I'm on the bus, because instead of focusing on dodging drunks and entitled rich people in beemers, I'm mentally decompressing, reading a book, etc on the bus. Three, my company picks up the tab for my bus pass, so my commute is costing me nothing. The economic savings over the car is significant, especially at my income level.
ETA: I'm also a recycler, although my apartment building does not have a recycle bin. We have several people who collect cans, bottles, scrap metal in my neighborhood. I leave my recycling next to the garbage bin in the alleyway, and it's usually picked up within an hour or so. I feel like I'm doing two good deeds - I'm keeping that stuff out a landfill and providing a little bit of income to someone willing to take it off my hands.
Cos I know you're only joking 
I recycle all that I can; paper, glass, tins, plastics. The only bit that annoys me is when (usually shampoo or other bathroom stuff) bottles have "top is recyclable, bottle is not", or "bottle is ok, top is not". I've no time to sit amongst them on a clean up day and read all the rules.
AND on a pack of cakes ~ box is recyclable, insert is but plastic facing is not. Why not?!!! My eco friendly goes out the window, with the cake box
I actively chose not to have a car and I've not had one for about 14 years. I live in a very good city for public transport, it's very widely spread out but with a huge interconnected train, bus and tram system.
For a long time I felt like some kind of loser as far as not having a car went, people always assumed you had some financial tragedy or perhaps had lost your liscence because of drinking or somesuch if you don't have a car. One day out of the blue I decided that instead of saying, "I don't have a car" I would say "I am car free" because that was a positive take on it. I eventually googled "car free" and LO! other people also use this term.
I hate cars. For just so many reasons..
If all the deaths and injuries that result from cars were caused by a flu there would be mass hysteria. Instead it's just accepted as an unfortunate aspect of life.
Cars are EXPENSIVE.. and very stressful if you are low income and you depend on the stupid thing and it breaks. Insurance, registration, keeping the stupid thing up to the standards required for registering it, the HUGE cost of petrol. It costs more money than a kid.
I also don't like driving, never felt comfortable with it. Frankly it seems to epitomize everything I am bad at.
People who like to show off their cars and take their identity from their cars I find really tedious.. unless you built it or remodeled it yourself all it says is you chose to spend X money on X item. Yawn.
My neighbors are big greenie hippie types. There was a NO War For Oil demonstration in my town some time back, of course they went to this. They DROVE to the demonstration which was literally 6 minutes walk from our houses.
I actively chose not to have a car and I've not had one for about 14 years. I live in a very good city for public transport, it's very widely spread out but with a huge interconnected train, bus and tram system.
For a long time I felt like some kind of loser as far as not having a car went, people always assumed you had some financial tragedy or perhaps had lost your liscence because of drinking or somesuch if you don't have a car. One day out of the blue I decided that instead of saying, "I don't have a car" I would say "I am car free" because that was a positive take on it. I eventually googled "car free" and LO! other people also use this term.
I hate cars. For just so many reasons..
If all the deaths and injuries that result from cars were caused by a flu there would be mass hysteria. Instead it's just accepted as an unfortunate aspect of life.
Cars are EXPENSIVE.. and very stressful if you are low income and you depend on the stupid thing and it breaks. Insurance, registration, keeping the stupid thing up to the standards required for registering it, the HUGE cost of petrol. It costs more money than a kid.
I also don't like driving, never felt comfortable with it. Frankly it seems to epitomize everything I am bad at.
People who like to show off their cars and take their identity from their cars I find really tedious.. unless you built it or remodeled it yourself all it says is you chose to spend X money on X item. Yawn.
My neighbors are big greenie hippie types. There was a NO War For Oil demonstration in my town some time back, of course they went to this. They DROVE to the demonstration which was literally 6 minutes walk from our houses.
For me it is a mix. It´s forced choice sort of, because as I have told before, am phobic of car driving.
Because of that I tend to choose my places of living the way, that I can get around without a car, means that I have shopping and all nearby, that puplic transportation is available, that work/ university is near by or to reach by bike, without having to drive on bigger roads with the bike.
The positive effect is that its good for the enviroment, the negative effect is that I am, a person with a big need for independence, not very independent in that way and limited in job search and sparetime activities...and cannot live in the country side, even I love the counry-side.
If I would not be phobic, maybe I even had a car, though I would never use it for smaller ways, but only for places where I cannot get with other ways and for work (which would be so important, half the jobs I could apply for I can´t because of this handicap, as car-driving is required
). Oh well, but thats a different topic.TerokNor
Yes...
Mine has a load of programs...
One for wool, one for handwash, different temperatures, etc...
we separate plastics, cans and paper.. However, since we stopped drinking sodas at the house, the cans can has been pretty empty. Albuquerque doesn't recycle glass for some reason...
I'd like to compost, but I don't really have room for it in the yard.. We're going to renovate the landscaping this year, taking out the grass (because the damn dogs make it so hard to keep it alive) and I will be planting lots of xeric (drought tolerant) stuff..
I try to buy as local as I can, but don't really give a crap about "organic" stuff other than the meat I buy at the local butcher.. Really amazing stuff..
I'd like to compost, but I don't really have room for it in the yard.. We're going to renovate the landscaping this year, taking out the grass (because the damn dogs make it so hard to keep it alive) and I will be planting lots of xeric (drought tolerant) stuff..
I try to buy as local as I can, but don't really give a crap about "organic" stuff other than the meat I buy at the local butcher.. Really amazing stuff..
I don't do anything active in terms of green activity at all. I'm one of those "won't inconvenience lifestyle one iota unless legally obliged to" people.
However, my lifestyle happens to be moderately frugal these days anyway. I only take one long-haul trip a year (and only one or two short-hauls) at most; I drive a big gas guzzler, but my mileage is greatly reduced now that I don't commute; I have an efficient modern washer/dryer and other mod cons; I'm cheap enough that I tend to turn taps and lights off; I used excess equity to purchase a buy-to-let second property rather than get a bigger place for myself as I'm happy with my current flat; most of my clothes are made from domestic (or, at worst European) mills and tailored in this country; etc, etc, etc.
Not saying my lifestyle is green; it isn't. But it's not as polluting as it could easily be. Someone posted a carbon footprint calculator a year or so back and I came out as a typical person, which actually surprised me. I assumed I would be polluting off the scale. But my lifestyle is such that although I don't do anything specific, I still pollute only about the same as some others who do actively green things.
However, my lifestyle happens to be moderately frugal these days anyway. I only take one long-haul trip a year (and only one or two short-hauls) at most; I drive a big gas guzzler, but my mileage is greatly reduced now that I don't commute; I have an efficient modern washer/dryer and other mod cons; I'm cheap enough that I tend to turn taps and lights off; I used excess equity to purchase a buy-to-let second property rather than get a bigger place for myself as I'm happy with my current flat; most of my clothes are made from domestic (or, at worst European) mills and tailored in this country; etc, etc, etc.
Not saying my lifestyle is green; it isn't. But it's not as polluting as it could easily be. Someone posted a carbon footprint calculator a year or so back and I came out as a typical person, which actually surprised me. I assumed I would be polluting off the scale. But my lifestyle is such that although I don't do anything specific, I still pollute only about the same as some others who do actively green things.
I know that when I used a Carbon Footprint calculator I found out I was using about 1/3 of what the average Australian or American used. In fact I used a similar amount to the average South American.
My smaller than average footprint was mainly due to a) not using a car and b) living in a state in which nearly all electricity is from renewable sources. However some of my other habits lowered it as well. I was a little annoyed that the calculator asked if you bought locally grown food but didn't ask if you grew any of your own food.
My smaller than average footprint was mainly due to a) not using a car and b) living in a state in which nearly all electricity is from renewable sources. However some of my other habits lowered it as well. I was a little annoyed that the calculator asked if you bought locally grown food but didn't ask if you grew any of your own food.
We recycle paper, glass, plastic and metal here, everything goes into a bin that gets picked up once a week. We also compost green waste. I wish we had the recycling wheelie bins that just about every other part of the city gets, they're about 6 times the size of the bin we get here, it could really come in handy here at times, we have that much recycling to go in there!
My car is definitely my biggest polluter, but living in a country like New Zealand I need some kind of personal transportation, the public transport blows chunks out here. Granted, most of the time it probably wouldn't be neccessary to drive a fast and large car around, but we've all gotta have our fun somehow, right?
At least most of the power I use for my big screen tv is renewable, so I don't really have to feel guilty about that, at least!
My car is definitely my biggest polluter, but living in a country like New Zealand I need some kind of personal transportation, the public transport blows chunks out here. Granted, most of the time it probably wouldn't be neccessary to drive a fast and large car around, but we've all gotta have our fun somehow, right?
At least most of the power I use for my big screen tv is renewable, so I don't really have to feel guilty about that, at least!
We recycle everything that can be recycled in our borough, the usual plastic, glass, and metal. We are not required to separate them, which I found odd. I recently read they pay for it to be flown and "recycled" in Nigeria, but it ends up in landfill sites. I am not as motivated about recycling as I used to be, hopefully, this particular local government policy will change soon.
This is my problem here. Within cities, public transportation in Canada tends to be pretty good, but our interurban transit sucks. And if you want to get anywhere remotely rural, good luck. Again, that's the main reason I want to eventually get a car, so that I can leave the city easily when I want to.
Well, I live 30km North of Auckland, and public transport in the city itself is really crap, as well, seeing as 90% of public transport here are buses. Only in the last 10 years have trains started catching on here. From what I hear Wellington is the only city in the country that has a half-decent public transport system, trains are also more heavily used there as well. Yeah, getting between cities is relatively easy, we have buses, airplanes and trains - if you're lucky - serving the main centres.
I guess it's just what you have to put up with when you live in a country the size of Japan with only 4 million inhabitants!
Nothing... nothing??
May I recommend you get yourself a copy of Earth In The Balance -- the recycled pages make a delightful toilet paper
Yes, nothing. I don't recycle. I don't use CFLs. I don't drive a hybrid or use public transportation. I don't have solar panels or a wind mill. I don't buy local, organic, or free range. I use disposable shopping bags and pesticides. I have a top loader washer and a big screen TV.
That book isn't fit to be toilet paper. I used to believe in being enviromentally friendly, but I stopped a long time ago.
I just used the EPA's carbon footprint calculator and four that I am 39% below the average American in terms of yearly carbon dioxide production.
Not bad.
Not bad.
Nothing... nothing??
May I recommend you get yourself a copy of Earth In The Balance -- the recycled pages make a delightful toilet paper
Yet I bet you couldn't verbalize without looking it up what it is about the book that bothers you so much apart from Al Gore being its author.
It's too bad that most modern conservatives have staked out the opposition viewpoint to climate change to such a degree that they now have a ridiculous knee-jerk reaction to any type of conservation, environmentalism, or recycling, even though Republicans of the past like Teddy Roosevelt, Barry Goldwater, and Richard Nixon made great strides in those areas.
Even if you don't believe in man-made climate change, isn't recycling, conservation, and protecting the environment a good thing anyway? Why do you have so much hostility to the idea in general?
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