Rubbish husband

Oh dear. Not yet 9am and already an eco row in the Delaney Lethbridge household. Basically, Wednesday is dump day (as is Saturday) - we don't have garbage collection - so on Wednesdays the hubby has to drive to the dump to get rid of our trash and do the recycling. An early starter, he usually has this done and dusted while I'm still upstairs with Dot.

This morning, however, Dot and I were at the kitchen table as he readied himself. Out of the corner of one eye I sudennly noticed that not just the garbage, but also the plastic and even paper recycling were being thrown in black plastic sacks (one for each type of waste). Since the plastic was already in a plastic bag and the paper in a paper bag, it was pretty obvious to me that the additional bags were completely unneccessary. Not only that, but since he tied about eight knots in the top, these bags were not going to be reusable.

I couldn't let it pass. "What is the point of that bag?" I said crossly.

"Well, the bag in the bin is full, and I need to combine it all so I don't have to do three trips to the car" he said.

It's pretty cold outside, granted, but still, the car is a grand total of about 10 feet from the front door. This didn't strike me as a brilliant excuse. Garbage is one thing, but recycling? Basically, a whole huge bin liner was being used simply to double wrap and transport the paper and/or plastic 10 feet, then being chucked. Was it just me, or was this completly inexcusable? He'd obviously been carrying on like this for months, and had I not got my arse out of bed a bit earlier than usual this morning, would have continued on indefinitely.

"I do then throw the bags into the recycling," he said defensively.

"Yes, but you can't recycle plastic bags," I sighed. "Do you know what 200 bin liners a year in landfill looks like? If you didn't tie those knots you could at least reuse the bags every week - that would be better."

"What, reuse the bag that's been used for the plastic recycling that has dirty bottles and beer cans in it?" he said scornfully.

"Well you're supposed to be washing them out before you throw them," I said not meaning to catch him out, but really.

I knew exactly what was coming next.

"Alright then, YOU take over dump duties."

Ah yes, that old chestnut. "Well I will if I have to, but how hard is it really?" I said resignedly. "I'm not saying all this to be annoying, I'm saying it because it's really important."

He strode out of the room in a huff. I sat there wondering why it is that I still have to tell him this stuff. I mean, this is not a stupid husband (I don't think...). Could he not see the complete wantonness of using a bag just to get the paper from the bin to the car in one trip instead of two? Or am I just an evil wife making up excuses to nag my poor well-meaning husband (let's face it, I'd rather not be the one heading out to the dump in the freezing cold to dispose of Dot's dirty - albeit biodegradable - nappies).

Two minutes later he came back.

"Alright, well now I know what I'm supposed to do I'll do it differently next time," he said. "But there are limits."

"No, there are no limits," I replied firmly.

"Grrr, bloody green goddess," he said in a tone which implied 'you are impossible', and swept off to the dump.

While he was out I received an email from a friend of Sally's (she of carry-a-bag fame) who lives at this amazing eco-community in Ithaca, upstate NY not a million miles from here.

I forwarded the link to the hubby with a note saying, "At least I'm not making you live here."

He got back and read his email. "I'd actually quite like to live there," he said.

Weird. He'd really have to brush up his act or he'd have many more people than me nagging him there.

Actually might be quite good for our marriage to let someone else be the baddie for a change. Maybe I'll look into it...

Happy Christmas dear readers



Hope you're all having a lovely time. As you can see, Dot overdid it a bit on the Christmas dinner, but after 30-something years I'm still making that mistake so who can blame her.

We've had a lovely English country Christmas - lots of walks in the drizzle and pints at the pub - and tried to keep it as green as possible. For example, we wrapped all our pressies in recycled paper from our stash at home. But don't think this meant they looked crap; wrapping pressies is one of my all time favourite things and I take great pride in it, so recycled or not our pressies looked as chic as ever; see exhibit a for proof.



I also insisted on keeping all the paper which came off everyone's pressies. They looked at me like I was weird, apart from the mother in law who kindly amassed a stash of wrapping for me. When I said that all that paper and ribbon was so exciting it almost felt like an extra pressie, even she gave me a funny look and the hubby said "That's what I meant the other day when I said you have a really geeky side".

Anyway, we're off to my parents tomorrow so undeterred I've now wrapped the next batch of pressies in cast-offs from today. Two Xmasses for the price of one - a bit of a change from the innocent days I remember from childhood when we used to fill a black bin liner with discarded Christmas wrapping (no wonder the media are full of how many extra tons go into landfill around Xmas), and the pressies look just as good.

Emiliano v. Epson

One of our readers, Emiliano emailed me a recent exchange with Epson about recycling his printer cartridges. Here it is:

hello,
what should i be doing with my printer ink cartridges? is there an
environmentally sound way of recycling them? i have a stylus photo r2400.
thanks,
emiliano

-----Original Message-----
From: recycle_support@ea.epson.com
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 07:52:19
To:emiliano
Subject: Re: ink cartridges

Dear Emiliano,
Thank you for your interest in recycling used Epson inkjet cartridges.  Due to the design of our inkjet cartridges, we do not refill or remanufacture them.  Neither of these alternatives is cost effective.  Nor do we have a program set up to receive them for recycling at this time.  We are continuing to search for the most cost effective, consumer friendly and
environmentally sound program available for disposal.

In the meantime, we recommend that you contact your local City Government and participate in their recycling and e-waste efforts whenever possible. We appreciate your support of Epson products and we thank you for bringing this to our attention. Please contact us if we can be of further assistance to you

Margaret C
Recycle Support

From: egranado@....>
Date: Dec 20, 2006 11:43 AM
Subject: Re: ink cartridges
To: recycle_support@ea.epson.com

Hi margaret,
Thanks for your reply.
However, that answer leaves me quite unsatisfied. I think epson should be doing more to offset their impact on the environment. Especially since your business model calls for consumers to continually purchase new cartridges.
I'm not sure of the chemical makeup of the cartridges, but I'd bet that they require lots of petroleum to manufacture and take many decades to decompose. How are we ever going to decrease our dependency on foreign oil and clean up our landfills with corporate policy like yours?

I encourage your company to try harder and rethink your "buy and throw away" inkjet business model.
Until then, I will begin contemplating using other printer brands with a more comprehensive understanding of their environmental impact
Thank you,
Emiliano
www.emilianogranado.com

'Neither of these alternatives is cost effective'? Oh well then, better forget all about it, even if:

- Stacked end to end cartridges thrown away in one year would cover a distance of over 24,000 miles = enough to circle the earth.
- Every year 1 billion ink-jet cartridges are sold worldwide.
- Only 3% of those cartridges are recycled.
- 95% of all ink jet cartridges were taken to landfills. 5000 metric tons of plastic and metal every month. (from freecycling.com)

Bloody hell, US corporations need a stern talking to. Luckily lots of other organizations have taken matters into their own hands. Many collect them for charity (try recyclingappeal.com and choose the charity you weant to support). Or you can get cash back for your cartridges: in the US, freerecycling.com offer up to $3.60 per cartridge. And if you want to boycott companies like Epson until they start doing more, you can buy reused and refilled cartridges from inkcycle.co.uk for much less than the big corporations so you never need use a new cartridge - or give them your money - again. I just don't get how all these people can make money for charity if it's not cost effective, but anyway....Emmy wants you to email the lady at Epson. Go for it.

Green and pleasant land?

Loyal readers, apologies for the missed days. We've been at a family funeral. We're back now.

Sooooo, here we are in the UK. I have to admit that after reading about the UK being the second greenest country in the world (beaten only by Sweden) Dot and I imagined ourselves coming to the land of milk and honey, and in many ways England has not disappointed.

Instead of yet more credit card solicitations, the junk mail my mother-in-law receives through the post is a catalogue called Send a Cow (no links today - bloomin software - but it's www.sendacowgifts.org.uk) - a catalogue full of ideas for ethical Xmas pressies (including buying a cow for a third world farmer). On Saturday, I bought eco-friendly (biodegradable) nappies in Sainsbury's, your bog-standard supermarket, in grotty Camden (last time I shopped in Camden it was for Soul to Soul Vol 1 Club Classics and a pair of dungarees. Aaaah how times change). Yesterday evening we picked up a bottle of organic wine at a rural BP gas station (the US equivalent would have stocked nothing but Marlboro Reds, radioactive ice pops and beef jerky), and today we had a wonderful experience at The Organic Farm Shop in Cirencester (http://www.theorganicfarmshop.co.uk) - they basically sell absolutely everything a regular supermarket would, but unlike e.g Whole Foods where not all the produce is organic, everything they stock - from jerusalem artichokes through sausages to breast pads (boys, unless you've had babies you won't know what these are and probably for the best, really) - is. If I lived here I would never shop anywhere else. It was heaven. Oh yes, diesel cars are ten a penny here, too, and diesel is sold on the main forecourt, unlike in the US.

But there have been some disappointments. On Sunday morning at brunch in Primrose Hill (London's answer to the West Village; locals include Jude Law and Kate Moss), the hubby texted me 'Pls pick up wrapping paper'. I texted back 'What for?'. 'Family Xmas pressies,' came the reply. I called him to discuss. "I am not buying wrapping paper. We'll wrap them in used newspaper." "We can’t wrap the family presents in newspaper," he objected, scorn dripping from his words. I knew he was thinking, 'stupid woman, how embarrassing, we'll look totally pikey and the family will not see the funny side' (his enormous family somehow all happen to be incredibly cool and style-conscious). "Well I'm not buying wrapping paper. The family read my blog and will get it," I replied. He huffed down the phone. "Alright, if I can find recycled paper, I'll get that," I offered as a compromise, "OK," he sighed.

So I trawled every last shop in Primrose Hill’s ‘village’. But my quest turned up nothing more than a few 'I dunno's and 'sorry, love's. I expected more from one of London's most chi chi, affluent, supposedly trend-setting neighbourhoods (after all, they have a fab farmer's market and a great deli stocking almost exclusively British produce). Instead, I went home empty-handed.

The wrapping paper stalemate was resolved when I agreed to some spare paper our hosts Theo and Sally had lying around - on the basis that if it had already been bought, it was ok to use it up (in fact one of the Xmas tips I was going to give on here was that you should see what hilarious bits of paper your Mum might have lying round from when you were a kid. I remember some classics like Donald Duck in a father Xmas outfit – sort of vintage 80s chic).

Which brings me to a dilemma the mother-in-law and I were discussing today – which is, when you decide to switch to the eco-variants of stuff, do you use up the bad stuff first, or switch right away and chuck the bad stuff in the bin (you’ll remember I had this same question over the eco-friendly lightbulbs)? My POV is you might as well use it up first because once the pollutants are out there, they’re out there, so they might as well serve a purpose before they head to landfill or waterways, otherwise the damage really is wanton

Actually, what I do is get the eco version, then keep the other under the sink in case I run out because I really can’t bring myself to use it. Or, in the case of laundry, you could do a wash every few weeks with the biological powder if your whites are looking a little more Magnolia.

Anyway, before I go, had to drop in a quote from Jon Bon Jovi, discovered in an article in this month's Q magazine about musicians going green:

"I think Gore is the smartest man I have ever met," Bon Jovi explains. "But if you really want to know why I'm doing this [showing trailers for An Inconvenient Truth at his recent tour], it's because i feel guilty about the huge hole in the ozone layer my haircits created. It is my responsibility to get right all the wrongs of the '80s"

Elnett-tastic.

Offsetting our carbon

The good thing about having this blog is it's making me feel compelled to actually do all those worthy things I've been thinking and talking about doing for years but hadn't. For example, we flew to the UK last night (lots of fun, flying with a 3 month old baby. Actually she was doing just fine till we had to sit on the tarmac at Heathrow for an hour with Dot restrained by a seat belt, poor little love). I found out it's 3,458 miles one-way from NYC to London, so this morning I went onto carbonfund.org and paid $20 to offset 20,000 miles-worth of carbon emissions. You get to choose how they offset the carbon, so I chose reforestation - it's the easiest to get your head round and I like the idea of planting trees (actually I've just realized that I thought I'd totally overbudgeted but that's because I forgot that was a one-way trip till I wrote it down here so I'm about 700 miles short - will plant own trees when we get home to make up for it. Doh).

I really can't believe how easy and cheap it was to do this. Makes me wonder what took me so long.

Right, I have a very important date with a pile of back-issues of my favourite UK gossip mag Grazia to keep before the jetlagged bubba wakes up. Don't worry, they're ones our friend Sally has finished with. So technically this counts as recycling and as such could be considered greening.

Oh, by the way, if you were thinking of getting me the carbon offset for Xmas, no worries - there are plenty of other bad things i do which need offsetting too so it won't go to waste.