by Ed Welch

Created on: March 29, 2009

"Being Green" not so new

"Being Green" and "carbon footprints" are top buzz phrases these days as we focus on our environment. As the population grows, we should be concerned about what we're doing to the world around us.

It may be hard for some to believe that our grandparents and great-grandparents were "green" also in many respects.
Even for myself, growing up in the 1960s I recall returning empty soft drink bottles to the grocery store, where they would be picked up by the local bottling company, sterilized and filled with new cola. When a bottle was chipped or broken, it could no longer be refilled. When I visited my grandparents house in England in the 1960s, their milk was delivered in refillable glass bottles, rather than the ubiquitous plastic jugs we've come to know. They would place the empties back in the wire basket and put them outside the doorstep. In many families, clothes that were ripped were patched and worn again, often handed down to a younger child.

In the days before the hard-to-open plastic bubbles we call packaging, products came in tins, burlap sacks and wooden boxes that could be re-used in a variety of ways. Families who home-canned fruits and vegetables could re-use the jars if they just replaced the seal of the lid. An old tire often became a swing in the yard, much to the delight of countless youngsters.

Today we are awash in technological wonders - gadgets that do just about everything. But when they break, they are thrown away. 40 or more years ago, when a radio or television broke, it was taken to the repair shop and serviced, then returned in working order. In terms of today's dollars, these items cost more to purchase, but they tended to last longer because they didn't wind up in a landfill just because of a minor malfunction. Regardless of whether you buy an iPod or vacuum cleaner, it likely can't be repaired by a local repair shop. Going into a retailer today, I look at all of the items for sale and imagine that many of these will wind up in a landfill within just a few years. I doubt that the computer I'm writing this on will ever have a fraction of the lifespan of my manual Smith-Corona manual typewriter. It'll just become obsolete when a new operating system comes out. Not all computers get recycled. I've got a couple of old cell phones in a drawer as well.

I know many of these items can go to a recycling center or to be factory-reconditioned, but the fact is that most will not.

As we bask in the glow (or lack of it when recently the lights were turned off at notable landmarks around the globe), feeling good that we heightened the awareness of global warming, let's become more aware of the blind spots many of us have when it comes to items we purchase that are not renewed or repaired but just thrown away.

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