7 ms·

One of the greatest misunderstandings of acting to clean our air, land, and water is that it's a burden or chore. In my experience, it's the opposite. I recomme

by spodek 7y ago

One of the greatest misunderstandings of acting to clean our air, land, and water is that it's a burden or chore. In my experience, it's the opposite. I recommend taking on similar challenges. I bet you'll enjoy them and incorporate them into your life as improvements. I challenged myself to buy no packaged food for a week. I made it 2.5 weeks at zero and the experience improved my life so much I decided to keep going using as little packaging as I comfortably could. As my cooking skills improved I bought more fresh fruits and vegetables and, from bulk bins grains, dried beans, nuts, and dried fruit. I shopped increasingly at farmers markets. I came to see Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and other markets as wastelands with more garbage than food in them. I was throwing my trash out once every other week, then once a month. Now the last time I emptied my garbage was September 2018 and the time before that July 2017. Here's a video showing my garbage the first time I went one year without filling a load: http://joshuaspodek.com/year-emptied-garbage http://joshuaspodek.com/year-emptied-garbage. My food tastes better, costs less, is more convenient, and connects me with my community more, as more people come over and I've visited the farm where most of my vegetables come from. If you also believe that we need institutional changes from corporations, government, etc, the fastest, most effective way is to start with personal behavior, building on it, and leading others.

kthejoker2 7y ago
Serious question: how does it "cost less"? As OP notes, buying without plastic is a privilege due to the luxury goods pricing model attached to eco-friendly products.
- esotericn 7y ago
  This is not the case in the UK except in very specific promotional cases. Fruit and veg without plastic is available at your local supermarket. It can be a bit annoying to weigh it - you can use reusable bags for that - an easy one would be that you can get at least 10 uses out of the clear plastic bags you take the stuff home in for example. Processed stuff is harder sure. I tend to not really eat that stuff, staples are cheaper anyway. I agree that most people don't do this - well over half of the supermarket is full of items I'd never even consider buying - but that doesn't change the fact they could. I actually think there's a hump in the middle of the distribution. Essential basic foods are cheap and generally come loose (or at least you'll get 15kg of rice in one big bag). There are some exceptions like frozen vegetables. Processed middle of budget stuff like pre made sauces, ready meals, pre packaged small cuts of meat etc - yeah that's full of packaging. Then you have the signalling products whereby basically you're paying silly money for ready meals in cardboard boxes or whatever.
  - monk_e_boy 7y ago
    Tesco have always weighed loose veg at the till. In france they till person doesn’t care if fruit and veg are bagged, just so long as you have weighed it and have the little sticker.
    - tonyarkles 7y ago
      In Canada, I never bag my fruits and vegetables. They all just get tossed in the basket and come home in a reusable grocery tote. They get weighed at the till.
- friendly_chap 7y ago
  I think you miss the point entirely. Prepackaged foods are way more expensive (where I live at least). You can go to a butcher they wrap up the meat in hair thin plastic bag instead of the bulky one in supermarkets. If you go to a grocer/farmers market you buy almost all things lose. Packaging is an entirely different industry with people adding their own (usually substantial) margins. In Lidl nowadays they sell loose nuts etc, also cheaper then prepackaged ones. You dont have to buy cashew in organic bamboo leaf packaging hand crafted by Cambodian virgins, just bring your reusable bag.
  - kthejoker2 7y ago
    Sorry, I should be clearer. First, where I live, in sunny suburban Houston. There are definitely no places around here that sell fresh meat, nuts, grains, beans, etc without plastic for less than a national brand in plastic at WalMart - forget the Cambodian virgins... The food may certainly be fresher and better and healthier - but it's not cheaper. And in the aggregate if I substituted cheap plastic bagged cereal, prepackaged frozen meals, and juice jugs for a farmers market / bulk store meal plan, my food budget would skyrocket. If it really, truly cost less to go without plastic, poor people would do it, they do any and everything to save a dollar on food.
    - spodek 7y ago
      I stayed with a friend in Houston in November and December. We went to a farmers market selling plenty of produce, nuts, etc that we put in our bags we brought. I spoke to one of the farmers a bit and he gave me some free vegetables. I find that pattern happens a lot. I was full of envy because by that time of year, New York, where I live, has mostly cabbage for greens. Your local farms had a variety of greens in season (meaning plentiful and cheap). I'm pretty sure I could eat cheaper in Houston than here. We also went to a store called HEB with a huge bulk section. We filled bags we brought with us. We ate delicious, healthy, nearly package-free at low cost. I'm not sure what you tried, but I find experimenting for a week or two doesn't give enough experience to learn to cook from scratch fast and cheap. For example, learning to cook beans from dry in a pressure cooker is fast, simple, and very low cost. Here are reviews of my famous no-packaging vegetable stews that resulted from my experiments: http://joshuaspodek.com/food-world-reviews http://joshuaspodek.com/food-world-reviews. > If it really, truly cost less to go without plastic, poor people would do it, they do any and everything to save a dollar on food. I suspect causality goes the other way, at least in part, that eating habits, prompted by poor education and predatory marketing, contributes to them being poor. As I understand it, your logic would suggest that poor people wouldn't drink alcohol, but I see lots of alcohol stores in poor neighborhoods.
- spodek 7y ago
  OP is wrong. I thought that way too before I started. If you blindly shift to whatever the store is promoting, you'll pay more. I joined CSAs (if you're around NYC, I recommend mine http://joshuaspodek.com/where-to-buy-the-best-food-around-new-york-city http://joshuaspodek.com/where-to-buy-the-best-food-around-ne...). Dried beans and lentils are a couple dollars a pound, pre-soaked and pre-cooked. I learned to buy in season, which means the ripest things are in greatest quantity at low prices, plus they vary. I'm swimming in tomatoes now, for example, and they taste incredible. A couple months ago it was lettuce. I also get to know the vendors at the farmers market, and they give me a lot of free produce as a regular. Buying with plastic is a privilege -- externalizing the costs of cleaning your pollution to poorer communities and future generations. I hope that we'll end subsidies that force me to pay for meat, other standard American diet ingredients I don't eat, and fossil fuels transporting foods across the country and around the world which would make prices reflect their costs.
esotericn 7y ago
> One of the greatest misunderstandings of acting to clean our air, land, and water is that it's a burden or chore. I agree. I think it's predominantly a matter of framing. Imagine a person is sat in a car and they've just eaten a chocolate bar. The easiest thing for them to do at that moment is to throw the wrapper out of the window. But most don't do that, they put it in a bag or whatever, collect it, and dispose of it properly. There are tons of examples like this. It's a 'burden or chore' to go to the toilet rather than just taking a shit at the side of the road. It's a 'burden or chore' to brush your teeth in the morning. Except it's not - why? Framing. If it's not on the spectrum of socially acceptable things to something, we won't do it. Consider the opposite end of the spectrum - there are people who deliberately go out of their way to spend money and time for stuff like 'coal rolling'. Do you want to pollute or not? You can start taking actions now, just think a bit more. No-one is perfect.
jfim 7y ago
Out of curiosity, what solution did you find for random disposable objects that have no obvious non disposable equivalent? I already reduce my trash footprint, but for things like toothbrushes and floss, I haven't found a good alternative.
- esotericn 7y ago
  I think very small objects like that are probably reasonable. Waste could be slightly reduced in the toothbrush case with reusable heads, but a plastic handle once every few months isn't a huge deal. I wish that, again, the bloody packaging wasn't so silly though. Just throw them all together in a box at the supermarket. We can sterilise it with boiling water at home if we care.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Noos 7y ago
OP, your shift changes. You no longer work 9-6. You now work 4-12. How easy is it? You now no longer live in a metropolis. You live in a town of maybe 15,000 people. The nearest Trader Joes is an hour drive away. Again, how easy it is? You now are paid $15 an hour instead of what you are making. Is it sill not a burden? I think people here need to really keep in mind how much life situations differ in the USA before they consider something to be a burden or not. A lot of people here at HN live like college students; very close to their work/study, no family, no children, and with generally small footprints in a closely clustered urban area that caters to them. Even the focus on metal work is the same. It really changes if you aren't this type of person an yes it's a burden. You simply don't have the disposable time if you have kids for one, unless your wife is stay at home.
- esotericn 7y ago
  Heh. If your life is a burden, then everything in it is one, indeed. About the only example there you've given that sounds challenging is having "no free time with children". Everything else? What does working 4-12 have to do with going to a farmer's market?
  - Noos 7y ago
    you're not getting up at 6 am to shop there for one. If your shift is variable, you may not ever be off the weekend the market in your area is open. With any commute of length you have very few daylight hours to do business. You can't go and just make small purchases after work; if you are hungry, its convienence store food or fast food from a chain. There's a lot of little things that add up to make any task much harder. People take things like having a fixed schedule or a workplace where everyone shows up regularly for granted; surprisingly little changes can make a goal like this a lot harder to do.
- spodek 7y ago
  Since this response comes up every time, I'm curious if you're just poking and trying to come up with counterexamples. What I'm talking about helps such situations, not hurts, and is more accessible, not less. > I think people here need to really keep in mind how much life situations differ in the USA before they consider something to be a burden or not. Might you have missed that such situations and their variety is what this addresses and helps?

by spodek 7y ago

kthejoker2 7y ago

Serious question: how does it "cost less"? As OP notes, buying without plastic is a privilege due to the luxury goods pricing model attached to eco-friendly products.

esotericn 7y ago
This is not the case in the UK except in very specific promotional cases. Fruit and veg without plastic is available at your local supermarket. It can be a bit annoying to weigh it - you can use reusable bags for that - an easy one would be that you can get at least 10 uses out of the clear plastic bags you take the stuff home in for example. Processed stuff is harder sure. I tend to not really eat that stuff, staples are cheaper anyway. I agree that most people don't do this - well over half of the supermarket is full of items I'd never even consider buying - but that doesn't change the fact they could. I actually think there's a hump in the middle of the distribution. Essential basic foods are cheap and generally come loose (or at least you'll get 15kg of rice in one big bag). There are some exceptions like frozen vegetables. Processed middle of budget stuff like pre made sauces, ready meals, pre packaged small cuts of meat etc - yeah that's full of packaging. Then you have the signalling products whereby basically you're paying silly money for ready meals in cardboard boxes or whatever.
- monk_e_boy 7y ago
  Tesco have always weighed loose veg at the till. In france they till person doesn’t care if fruit and veg are bagged, just so long as you have weighed it and have the little sticker.
  - tonyarkles 7y ago
    In Canada, I never bag my fruits and vegetables. They all just get tossed in the basket and come home in a reusable grocery tote. They get weighed at the till.
friendly_chap 7y ago
I think you miss the point entirely. Prepackaged foods are way more expensive (where I live at least). You can go to a butcher they wrap up the meat in hair thin plastic bag instead of the bulky one in supermarkets. If you go to a grocer/farmers market you buy almost all things lose. Packaging is an entirely different industry with people adding their own (usually substantial) margins. In Lidl nowadays they sell loose nuts etc, also cheaper then prepackaged ones. You dont have to buy cashew in organic bamboo leaf packaging hand crafted by Cambodian virgins, just bring your reusable bag.
- kthejoker2 7y ago
  Sorry, I should be clearer. First, where I live, in sunny suburban Houston. There are definitely no places around here that sell fresh meat, nuts, grains, beans, etc without plastic for less than a national brand in plastic at WalMart - forget the Cambodian virgins... The food may certainly be fresher and better and healthier - but it's not cheaper. And in the aggregate if I substituted cheap plastic bagged cereal, prepackaged frozen meals, and juice jugs for a farmers market / bulk store meal plan, my food budget would skyrocket. If it really, truly cost less to go without plastic, poor people would do it, they do any and everything to save a dollar on food.
  - spodek 7y ago
    I stayed with a friend in Houston in November and December. We went to a farmers market selling plenty of produce, nuts, etc that we put in our bags we brought. I spoke to one of the farmers a bit and he gave me some free vegetables. I find that pattern happens a lot. I was full of envy because by that time of year, New York, where I live, has mostly cabbage for greens. Your local farms had a variety of greens in season (meaning plentiful and cheap). I'm pretty sure I could eat cheaper in Houston than here. We also went to a store called HEB with a huge bulk section. We filled bags we brought with us. We ate delicious, healthy, nearly package-free at low cost. I'm not sure what you tried, but I find experimenting for a week or two doesn't give enough experience to learn to cook from scratch fast and cheap. For example, learning to cook beans from dry in a pressure cooker is fast, simple, and very low cost. Here are reviews of my famous no-packaging vegetable stews that resulted from my experiments: http://joshuaspodek.com/food-world-reviews http://joshuaspodek.com/food-world-reviews. > If it really, truly cost less to go without plastic, poor people would do it, they do any and everything to save a dollar on food. I suspect causality goes the other way, at least in part, that eating habits, prompted by poor education and predatory marketing, contributes to them being poor. As I understand it, your logic would suggest that poor people wouldn't drink alcohol, but I see lots of alcohol stores in poor neighborhoods.
spodek 7y ago
OP is wrong. I thought that way too before I started. If you blindly shift to whatever the store is promoting, you'll pay more. I joined CSAs (if you're around NYC, I recommend mine http://joshuaspodek.com/where-to-buy-the-best-food-around-new-york-city http://joshuaspodek.com/where-to-buy-the-best-food-around-ne...). Dried beans and lentils are a couple dollars a pound, pre-soaked and pre-cooked. I learned to buy in season, which means the ripest things are in greatest quantity at low prices, plus they vary. I'm swimming in tomatoes now, for example, and they taste incredible. A couple months ago it was lettuce. I also get to know the vendors at the farmers market, and they give me a lot of free produce as a regular. Buying with plastic is a privilege -- externalizing the costs of cleaning your pollution to poorer communities and future generations. I hope that we'll end subsidies that force me to pay for meat, other standard American diet ingredients I don't eat, and fossil fuels transporting foods across the country and around the world which would make prices reflect their costs.

esotericn 7y ago

> One of the greatest misunderstandings of acting to clean our air, land, and water is that it's a burden or chore. I agree. I think it's predominantly a matter of framing. Imagine a person is sat in a car and they've just eaten a chocolate bar. The easiest thing for them to do at that moment is to throw the wrapper out of the window. But most don't do that, they put it in a bag or whatever, collect it, and dispose of it properly. There are tons of examples like this. It's a 'burden or chore' to go to the toilet rather than just taking a shit at the side of the road. It's a 'burden or chore' to brush your teeth in the morning. Except it's not - why? Framing. If it's not on the spectrum of socially acceptable things to something, we won't do it. Consider the opposite end of the spectrum - there are people who deliberately go out of their way to spend money and time for stuff like 'coal rolling'. Do you want to pollute or not? You can start taking actions now, just think a bit more. No-one is perfect.

jfim 7y ago

Out of curiosity, what solution did you find for random disposable objects that have no obvious non disposable equivalent? I already reduce my trash footprint, but for things like toothbrushes and floss, I haven't found a good alternative.

esotericn 7y ago
I think very small objects like that are probably reasonable. Waste could be slightly reduced in the toothbrush case with reusable heads, but a plastic handle once every few months isn't a huge deal. I wish that, again, the bloody packaging wasn't so silly though. Just throw them all together in a box at the supermarket. We can sterilise it with boiling water at home if we care.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Noos 7y ago

OP, your shift changes. You no longer work 9-6. You now work 4-12. How easy is it? You now no longer live in a metropolis. You live in a town of maybe 15,000 people. The nearest Trader Joes is an hour drive away. Again, how easy it is? You now are paid $15 an hour instead of what you are making. Is it sill not a burden? I think people here need to really keep in mind how much life situations differ in the USA before they consider something to be a burden or not. A lot of people here at HN live like college students; very close to their work/study, no family, no children, and with generally small footprints in a closely clustered urban area that caters to them. Even the focus on metal work is the same. It really changes if you aren't this type of person an yes it's a burden. You simply don't have the disposable time if you have kids for one, unless your wife is stay at home.

esotericn 7y ago
Heh. If your life is a burden, then everything in it is one, indeed. About the only example there you've given that sounds challenging is having "no free time with children". Everything else? What does working 4-12 have to do with going to a farmer's market?
- Noos 7y ago
  you're not getting up at 6 am to shop there for one. If your shift is variable, you may not ever be off the weekend the market in your area is open. With any commute of length you have very few daylight hours to do business. You can't go and just make small purchases after work; if you are hungry, its convienence store food or fast food from a chain. There's a lot of little things that add up to make any task much harder. People take things like having a fixed schedule or a workplace where everyone shows up regularly for granted; surprisingly little changes can make a goal like this a lot harder to do.
spodek 7y ago
Since this response comes up every time, I'm curious if you're just poking and trying to come up with counterexamples. What I'm talking about helps such situations, not hurts, and is more accessible, not less. > I think people here need to really keep in mind how much life situations differ in the USA before they consider something to be a burden or not. Might you have missed that such situations and their variety is what this addresses and helps?