Recycling, Flash Mob Style!

The Thoughtful Consumer is going on hiatus for awhile again. In fact, I haven't posted for several weeks so it looks like my hiatus started before I was even aware of it! I'll be spending some time writing more short articles on uncluttering and organizing, like the one I mentioned in my previous post: "How to Get Dressed Without Driving Yourself Crazy," and working on a new art project.

For now, I'll sign off with a brief YouTube video featuring a flash mob from Quebec, Canada, that has a very surprising way of advocating recycling. ~ Enjoy! And thank you, as always, for your support and interest in this blog.

Image credit: Carlos Gustavo Curado at stock.xchng

Status Shopping for Babies

It's no secret that we live in a society obsessed by status consciousness and that the coveted rank of high status is conferred by ownership of "the right" brand name stuff, preferably plenty of it. It's also no secret that in Los Angeles that obsession has reached critical mass.

So what happens when status conscious Angelenos become parents? Well, naturally they absolutely must have "the right" stuff for their little ones. That means nothing as common as mass-marketed clothing and toys is appropriate. No, for them shopping for only the specialty and boutique labels will do.

Alan Fields, who co-wrote Baby Bargains, a popular shopping guide for parents, determined that it costs $6,655 at retail prices to buy all the stuff a child "needs," even before baby's first birthday rolls around. Fields said, "Twenty years ago, no one really cared what brand your stroller was. Today, it's a status symbol."

But here in the sun-drenched home base of diamond-encrusted cell phones, the desire for the "right" stuff is about the only thing that dependably trickles down to the folks with less robust bank accounts than the average media mogul. So what's a mom to do if she'd like to save a few bucks on her little darling's pricey accoutrements? If she's a clever former marketing exec, she'll come up with a creative plan to find lightly used ones. And that's what Valley-mom Kristin Nelson did when she set up her first Baby Bazaar.

In a recent LA Times article, reporter Jennifer Oldham states that in only four years Nelson's sale "has grown from three dozen friends and neighbors selling used children's things in Nelson's Sherman Oaks driveway to a twice-yearly mega-event that fills a 6,000-square-foot hall. Come fall, she'll be moving to a 10,000-square-foot space with room for 375 sellers."

Now dubbed the LA Kids Consignment Sale, the event offers some 25,000 items for sale, making it "the largest such event in the Western United States and one of hundreds that have sprung up nationwide in the last five years to help parents divest themselves of the expensive doodads and knickknacks that seem to be absolutely indispensable to raising a child in the 21st century."

Originally Nelson thought she'd be selling to low income parents looking for bargains. Instead, she found "stay-at-home mothers in $165 jeans frantically searching crowded racks elbow-to-elbow with screenwriters and nannies. Some came from 30 miles away or farther."

If you'd like a glimpse of what the sale is like, take a look at this two-minute LA Kids Consignment Sale video produced for the LA Times.

At least this giant consignment sale is a very fine example of recycling. But shouldn't we also be considering the sheer quantity of stuff that's being sold? Was all of it necessary to raise a happy newborn for the following 365 days?

I wonder how much it really costs to raise a healthy, happy baby, especially if you don't happen to have a spare $6,655 to spend in that first year. I'm not a parent, so I can't speak from experience; please chime in with your observations if you do have kids. And meanwhile, let's get some perspective.

In 1999 in Los Angeles, 181,473 children under age five lived below the poverty line. That's almost 25 percent of all the kids in that age group in LA County. Considering our current economic malaise, it's unlikely that things have improved in the last decade.

In 2002, a family of four was considered below the poverty line if their income was less than $18,100. It's doubtful that any of these families could have even imagined spending over one-third of their total household income on stuff for a new baby.

As I said, I don't have kids, but the last time I encountered a child under the age of one, I can absolutely guarantee that he didn't care about the name on the label of his jammies.

Unfortunately, his parents did.

© 2008 Cynthia Friedlob

Books Can Be Clutter, Too

If you're an avid reader, as I am, you undoubtedly find it easy to accumulate mountains of books. I learned rather quickly that I couldn't possibly keep every book that I read, or even just every book that I read and actually liked (they're not all winners). You've also probably figured out that it doesn't take long to feel totally engulfed by your reading material. And, honestly, after the bookshelves have overflowed, how many stacks of books can be passed off as end-tables before there are more end-tables than ends?

Long ago I entertained a fantasy of having a home large enough to contain a fabulous library, but that fantasy has been replaced by an awareness of its utterly burdensome folly. Now I'm quite content with a reasonable number of bookcases that hold my favorite art books, some useful reference volumes, some sentimental favorites from my not terribly misspent youth, books that I had the privilege of having autographed by their authors, and books that I simply can't let go because they are so entertaining that I've sometimes read them more than once (P.G. Wodehouse, Donald Westlake and a few other writers are priceless gems).

But what does one do with those excess books that invade every nook and cranny? There used to be neighborhood independent bookstores that were perfect havens for old books. You could trade them in for new ones or sometimes sell them outright for a bit of cash. Sadly, those days are almost completely over. Independent bookstores have suffered almost to the point of extinction. Here in Los Angeles, one of the greats, Dutton's Books in Brentwood is closing the end of April. I wrote a blog post in February of last year about the fate of some of the other wonderful independents.

And yet, Powell's goes on. In fact, it seems to be thriving. Thirty-seven years after opening in Portland, Oregon, it remains "a bookstore with a unique recipe that, though viewed as unorthodox, worked: Used and new, hardcover and paperback, all on the same shelf, open 365 days a year and staffed by knowledgeable and dedicated book lovers." Powell's also made the smart move of putting its entire inventory online in 1996, allowing it to reach a vast reading audience far beyond its current six brick-and-mortar locations.

Best of all for those of us who love to read, Powell's will buy books that are in good condition and even pay the postage to have them mailed to Portland. The process is simple and, although they don't accept every title, it's pretty easy to amass a nice little store credit that you can use to buy more books!

Of course, there are many other possibilities for handling your used books, including donating them. Your neighborhood library has fund-raising book sales, your favorite charity may welcome them, or your local senior center may have a collection that is shared and replenished by the community.

Bookcrossing is an unusual alternative that might appeal to you. It allows you to register any book you have on their site, label it with a Bookcrossing sticker, then "set the book free to travel the world and find new readers. Leave it on a park bench, at a coffee shop, at a hotel on vacation. Share it with a friend or tuck it onto a bookshelf at the gym -- anywhere it might find a new reader! What happens next is up to fate, and we never know where our books might travel next. Track the book's journey around the world as it is passed on from person to person." It's also a fun way to make contact on the site with other literature lovers.

In the future, you might want to consider learning to love checking out books from your library. You get the joy of reading them without the job of keeping and disposing of them. If you're still a hardcore, gotta own it book lover, you might want to investigate Amazon.com's Kindle. This wireless reader holds two hundred books in the space of a single paperback. It's expensive (four hundred bucks), and the ten dollar downloads also could quickly add up to a hefty price, but what a great way to keep your favorite books at hand without crowding your living space. No, I don't have one . . . yet. However, I'm surely tempted by its positive reviews.

As for your old books, whatever you decide to do with them is fine as long as you remember that if they sit unread on your shelves or floor, they're not bringing other readers the joy you experienced while reading them. That would be an unfortunate loss. So pass them along and spread the word. Literally.

© 2008 Cynthia Friedlob

It's Not Stuff, It's Art

Unless you're a survivalist or a Freegan, with little more than a backpack full of basics, or unless you're a person who shops exclusively at thrift and antique stores or Freecycle, eventually you're going to have to buy something new.

Being a thoughtful consumer, you'll want to maximize the value of your purchase, whether it's household furnishings or clothing or even something decorative or artistic -- yes, thoughtful consumers are not required to sacrifice to the point that they never buy anything simply because it's beautiful or it lifts their spirits. Having beautiful objects in a beautiful environment is a worthy goal for those of us fortunate enough not to worry about meeting our daily living needs.

But have you ever given thought to the fact that someone, or a team of someones, must design whatever it is that you buy? By focusing our attention on this part of the process of creating "stuff," we can become more aware and more sensitive when choosing what objects we want to have around us. If we choose wisely, we'll be content with what we have and not be tempted to buy simply for the sake of buying.

When shopping for anything, whether it's new or "new to you," there are only two criteria to consider: the design of the item must be both attractive and functional, otherwise it's of little use. ("Functional" includes those items that are spirit-lifting.) There are many clever ways to reuse and recycle older items, but I also find it interesting to learn more about designers who have made names for themselves by coming up with new items that fit those criteria.

Karim Rashid has designed products that I think are innovative and interesting, although many are pricey and rely on manufacturing from non-renewable resources. But I do find his overall design philosophy appealing:

"Every business should be completely concerned with beauty - it is after all a collective human need. I believe that we could be living in an entirely different world - one that is full of real contemporary inspiring objects, spaces, places, worlds, spirits and experiences. . . Design is about the betterment of our lives poetically, aesthetically, experientially, sensorially, and emotionally. My real desire is to see people live in the modus of our time, to participate in the contemporary world, and to release themselves from nostalgia, antiquated traditions, old rituals, kitsch and the meaningless. We should be conscious and attune with this world in this moment. If human nature is to live in the past - to change the world is to change human nature."

These are not the statements of someone who's just designing "stuff" -- and they're not the words of someone who mindlessly clings to things out of sentiment. Rashid wants us to live in the moment, with things surrounding us that enhance that moment.

Michael Graves, already well-known as an architect, became quite famous as a result of his designs of many household objects for Target. In an article in MetropolisMag.com, writer John Hockenberry states, "[Graves] has been an evangelist for beauty and humor in product design, as in his famous silver conical Alessi teapot as well as his buildings all over the world." By designing for Target, he's also demonstrated that good design should be affordable, too.

Just a few years ago, Graves suffered an illness that left him paralyzed from the waist down. He was so appalled by the ugliness and lack of functionality in his hospital environment, as well as in the designs of most products offered to people with disabilities, that now, Hockenberry reports, "Graves and his team are hard at work on a line of products that fuse one-dimensional medical utility with style, multifunctional elegance, and beauty. . . He says it all comes back to the choice of whether to make something beautiful or to tolerate something ugly. Allowing something to be simply ugly leads to permitting something that's not functional, that doesn't work right, that can be unsafe. . . 'Look around you: people can tolerate a lot of bad design,' he says with a twinkling smile to his staff, who have heard it all before. 'I can't tolerate any of it, of course. And I won't.'"

Graves' personal tragedy will result in wonderful improvements in design for medical devices and for people with disabilities. Perhaps he'll tackle the larger design issues of hospitals, which are usually some of the most ill-conceived, depressing environments one can encounter.

What happens when a fine artist designs? Andrea Zittel is one fascinating example. She creates everything from clothing to modular living units, "trying to combine design, craft and art." I became interested in her when I learned of her A-Z Uniform project which she worked on from 1991 to 2002. In her own words:

"Most of us own a favorite garment that always makes us look and feel good, but social etiquette dictates that we wear a different change of clothes every day. Sometimes this multitude of options can actually feel more restrictive than a self-imposed constant. Because I was tired of the tyranny of constant variety, I began a six-month uniform project. Starting in 1991 I would design and make one perfect dress for each season, and would then wear that dress every day for six months. Although utilitarian in principle, I often found that there was a strong element of fantasy or emotional need invested in each season's design. The experiment as a whole worked quite well, especially since dreaming up the next season's design helped relieve any monotony that might have occurred from wearing the same dress every day."

Because Zittel's an artist, her process moved on to creating uniforms from fabric torn from the bolt, then to making clothing by crocheting a single strand, and finally to using felt. Just thinking about her work can help us reconceptualize our relationship to our clothes: how many we need, how they're made, what purposes they serve when we wear them.

Performance artist Alex Martin also tackled the issue of fashion in her Brown Dress project. She made a brown dress which she wore each day for an entire year, from July 2005 to July 2006. Her reasoning:

"I made one small, personal attempt to confront consumerism by refusing to change my dress for 365 days. In this performance, I challenged myself to reject the economic system that pushes over-consumption, and the bill of goods that has been sold, especially to women, about what makes a person good, attractive and interesting. Clothes are a big part of this image, and the expectation in time, effort, and financial investment is immense."

Martin's current project:

". . . a wardrobe of my own devising -- recycled, re-mixed, re-fabbed . . . only things I made myself (clothes, jewelry, shoes, underwear, bags, everything) and my source materials were clothing items already in my possession - a completely closed loop, 100% recycled from my own closet."

Through this project, Martin offers another commentary on consumer culture, self-reliance, and creating things that are aesthetically pleasing as well as functional.

If we stop looking at our stuff as "stuff" and begin to look at each of our objects as the result of artistic expression, we'll have more appreciation for them. Then living with our carefully chosen possessions rather than just a bunch of stuff will mean paying attention to their beauty. Living in an environment that's not cluttered will be necessary to allow us to see the objects we've chosen and enjoy them. It's a shift in thinking that I believe would affect the way we look at everything in the world: seeking beauty and function, then being grateful when we find it.

Stuff is not just "stuff." Each thing has been designed, each thing is art, each thing is an opportunity to enhance our lives. Is your stuff good art or not so good art? Is it enhancing your life or detracting from it? Is your home an artistic expression of who you are or are you living in a Museum of Mess?

(c) 2007 Cynthia Friedlob

Freecycle to Freedom

Would you be surprised if I told you that right this minute there are 3,672,475 individuals or families who would give you, no strings attached, an item that you need if they owned that item and were done using it? A sofa, refrigerator, desk, clothing, computer, children's toys, just about anything you can think of that's legal and family-friendly could be yours for the asking. How? Freecycle.

The description from the website explains the way this on-line community works: "The Freecycle Network™ is made up of many individual groups across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them's good people). Membership is free. . . . The Freecycle Network was started in May 2003 to promote waste reduction in Tucson's downtown and help save desert landscape from being taken over by landfills. The Network provides individuals and non-profits an electronic forum to 'recycle' unwanted items. One person's trash can truly be another's treasure!"

What a great way to get stuff for free, but, more importantly for many of us, what a great way to give stuff away. Let's say that you've tossed out the obviously useless things, you've handed off all that you can to family members and friends, you've done your eBay selling, you've consigned some antiques at a local shop, and maybe you've even put yourself through the torture of a garage sale. Well, first of all, congratulations on such an incredible achievement and please contact me immediately so that I can interview you because you are a rare soul indeed.

But now, what to do with what's left of the excess stuff? (I can guarantee that there still will be excess stuff, even after you've made all those other valiant efforts.) You don't just want to trash it because it's still useful. Sure, you could haul it over to your favorite local charity, or perhaps have them come by and pick it up, and I highly advocate that you consider doing so. But what do you do if you have items that aren't accepted by charities but are still in good condition? You may be surprised to learn that many charities don't take such things as mattresses and box springs or older appliances. Or what if you're moving, you absolutely must get that old dining table and chairs out of your apartment and you don't have the means to transport it all yourself? Or what if you just like the idea of giving away some of your stuff on a more personal level? Freecycle could be the perfect solution. You join your local group on-line (or consider starting a group if your area doesn't have one yet), post the item you want to give away on the website, and wait for responses. It's completely your choice how and to whom you give it away. (Freecycle offers suggestions regarding your personal safety, regrettably an issue that must be considered when dealing with others.)

Freecycle's goal is not to help alleviate the needs of the many impoverished citizens of our society; there are charitable organizations and government assistance programs that are supposed to be devoted to that mission. Freecycle's goal is to help keep things out of the landfill. It's a great example of the convergence of local environmental activism, on-line social networking, and recycling at its best.

Do we really need a program like Freecycle? Oh, yes. According to a Lubbock Online article by Marlena Hartz about their local Freecycle group, that Texas county has two landfills. Some 2,000 to 2,400 tons of waste are added to those landfills daily. The population of Lubbock County in 2006 was only 254,862. Extrapolate that to the population of our entire country, currently estimated at 302,438,836 people, and the amount of trash we're piling into our landfills is staggering.

We need all the help we can get and Freecycle is one of many programs that offer hope. In a CNNMoney.com article by Marc Gunther, Daniel Ben-Horin, the founder of the nonprofit Web site, TechSoup, says, "What is really interesting about Freecycle is that unlike a lot of virtual communities, something very concrete happens."

Making something concrete happen to cut the amount of waste we generate is crucial on a national level, but it's also important for us individually. If we've wised up enough to realize that we own more than we need and we're ready to let go of the excess, Freecycle offers us a unique way to part with it.

Got something you could Freecycle? Of course you do. We all do.

(c) 2007 Cynthia Friedlob

Thinking Outside the (Mail) Box

People often talk about the Post Office the way they talk about the weather; they'll complain but figure there's nothing much they can do about it. And yet, just like the weather, things eventually do change, even at the Post Office.

A recent USPS press release announced that they have received "Cradle to Cradle" certification. If you're unfamiliar with the cradle-to-cradle concept, here's the basic tenet as it's expressed on the MBDC website, on-line home of the architecture and design firm of William McDonough and Michael Braungart:

"Instead of designing cradle-to-grave products, dumped in landfills at the end of their 'life,' MBDC transforms industry by creating products for cradle-to-cradle cycles, whose materials are perpetually circulated in closed loops. Maintaining materials in closed loops maximizes material value without damaging ecosystems."

This eco-friendly manufacturing and recycling design concept is being implemented at the Post Office by requiring ". . . all 200 suppliers contributing to the manufacture of Postal Service envelopes and packages [to]complete a demanding series of measurements and assessments of materials for human and environmental health. Maintaining these new, higher standards is now an integral part of doing business with the Postal Service."

This also means that, "based on the recycled content of the more than 500 million Express Mail and Priority Mail packages and envelopes the Postal Service provides its customers each year, more than 15,000 metric tons of carbon equivalent emissions (climate change gases) now will be prevented annually. Express Mail and Priority Mail boxes and envelopes also are 100 percent recyclable."

Pretty huge impact and certainly a laudable effort. But what if we take this kind of reform a step further?

One of the biggest organizational frustrations for most people is the huge amount of junk mail they receive. Even if you request the removal of your name from every available mailing list and through every available service, you will still get unsolicited mail, most of it junk. All of this unsolicited mail uses the Post Office's bulk mail rate. What if the Post Office required that every piece of mail that used the lower bulk mail rate also had to use mailing materials that were certified cradle-to-cradle? Think that would cut down the unsolicited mail we all get? Think that might make marketers a bit more selective when putting together their mailing lists? Oh, yes.

True, this could be a cost-prohibitive requirement for non-profit organizations and perhaps they could be allowed to make the change more slowly, over a period of a few years. But non-profit organizations already should be showing some discretion about the number of mailings they send out, even to supporters. I am very much in favor of donating to worthy causes, but I do get annoyed (and drop a charity from my list) if I see that my donations are being used primarily to solicit more donations through numerous mailings throughout the year.

I think this change would be a win-win situation, for the environment and for citizens. What do you think?

(c) 2007 Cynthia Friedlob

Our Disposable Culture on Campus

Everyone knows that November and December are the months that many people open up their checkbooks to make end of the year charitable donations. But who knew that the end of the school year also offers a potential charitable bonanza? On college campuses across the country, departing students leave behind a gigantic load of tangible goods, often in great condition, that make perfect donations for charities. That's if the stuff isn't just tossed in the trash.

Generations of students have commonly stocked up throughout the school year on the usual staples of college life, from desk lamps and study supplies to sports souvenirs and laundry detergent. But the trappings of our affluent society have spread to the dorm and students now commonly have all sorts of fancy furnishings, small appliances and big wardrobes that they acquire with the same gusto their parents demonstrate at home. Since most schools offer little or no storage during the summer term, the majority of this stuff usually has been consigned to the dumpster or just abandoned in the room, especially if the student had far to travel and didn't want to deal with packing and shipping expenses. Here's just a partial list of items that students leave behind, gleaned from several recent articles about the phenomenon:

computer printers
microwave ovens
toaster ovens
mini-refrigerators
window fans
linens
clothing
bicycles
mattresses
bookcases
clock radios
carpets
televisions

Excluding the more esoteric cast-offs, such as a boa constrictor and a three-foot inflatable Jesus, there are literally tons of useful things that formerly were being thrown out but are now offered to local charities where they serve an enormous need. Many student organizations and administrators realized that it was a terrible waste, a major landfill burden and a big clean-up expense for the college to allow so much perfectly fine merchandise to end up in the trash. Students and schools began setting up systems to collect donations from students and distribute them to charities. There's even a non-profit company called Dump and Run that transforms the piles of abandoned stuff into organized charitable donations on a dozen college and university campuses.

But what does the accumulation of all this stuff say about us as a society? Clearly, it says that by the time kids hit their college years, the pattern of over-consumption and the belief that we live in a disposable culture have been well ingrained. At the University of Florida alone, twenty tons of usable items were donated recently to the Salvation Army and other local charities. Twenty tons, all from college students on one campus. It's astonishing. And it's a sign that if we want to make a cultural change in the way we consume and value our possessions, we'd better start by setting a good example for our kids and explaining the concept of "enough" when they're still very young.

MSNBC's report on this "spring fling of things" includes the following:

Ed Newman, who oversees the recycling and reuse programs at Ohio University, calls the spring move-out "a study in conspicuous consumption."

"There are 85 schools in Ohio and 4,000 in this country, and they're all living like there's no tomorrow," he said.

Though proud of the [recycling] efforts, he is also troubled by how much still is wasted. About 80 percent of OU's trash could be recycled or reused.

"It's more appalling than anything else," he said.

If you have a college student in your family (or if you are one), what a difference you and your school could make to local charities by setting up or participating in a campus-wide donation system at the end of the term. Yes, it's too late to start a big new recycling project for this year, but just in case you or your college-age kid are still packing up to head home for the summer, please try to take the time to donate what you're not taking back with you. To throw away useful things that you no longer need isn't just thoughtless, it's exactly what Ed Newman said: appalling.

Check out CNN.com, MSNBC.com and the LA Times for more details on this compelling nation-wide story.

(c) 2007 Cynthia Friedlob

Green is the New Black, Too

I've never been a big fan of guilt as a motivation to do the right thing. Obviously, sometimes it's helpful because most of us don't want to feel bad about ourselves and sorry for the troubles we've caused others, which is exactly how guilt makes us feel. Avoiding the possibility of feeling guilty can help moderate our personal choices.

But on a larger scale, it's often harder to use guilt as a motivator to change our behavior by telling us that the world at large will suffer somehow if we don't. In fact, it can be so difficult for most people to get anything other than an abstract handle on the suffering of the world that we pay much more attention to news about substance-abusing, emotionally damaged celebrities rather than "hard news" about war, poverty, and injustice. Partly I think this is because all that hard news can just seem overwhelmingly depressing, and partly it's because we may feel that one individual can't do much to change things anyway. Of course, I disagree with that position because every effort, no matter how small, can contribute to positive change -- otherwise why would I bother faithfully sending out the tiny voice of The Thoughtful Consumer amidst all the gazillions of blogs in the blogosphere?

I'm still convinced that the best motivator for large-scale change in people's behavior is making something cool. This is because our wonderful but flawed human race can be pretty darn shallow sometimes. Based on plenty of hard evidence proving without a doubt that's the case, advertisers regularly exploit our insecurities, our acquisitiveness, and our desire for status. They do a darn fine job of getting us to believe that we can make up for what we "lack" by simply purchasing whatever they're pushing, no matter how insignificant the product may seem to be. (Any fans of old television shows out there who appreciate the extremely witty "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman?" Mary obsessed over the floor polish she used on her kitchen floor; if the floor wasn't shiny enough, somehow she'd failed as a woman. The show was a parody, but parody only works when it's based in truth. Let's 'fess up: we're all mostly suckers for advertising.)

I made reference in a previous blog post to the rather ironic pronouncement in the fall 2006 Vogue magazine that it was no longer cool to be ostentatious, and in a post on April 4 I cited Seth Godin's clever phrase, "Zero is the New Black," referring to low-impact living on the planet as the current height of chic. Well, I succumbed again and purchased the May issue of Vogue (hey, I can be shallow, too) only to discover that a few pages are devoted to living "green."

Now, "green" in Vogue terms is not exactly the same shade of green that most of us mere mortals probably have in mind when we use the term, but any shade of green is a step in the right direction. For example, the Kips Bay 2007 Decorator Show House (worth $25 million after a "celebrated green real estate developer" did her thing) will be painted with Aura, an eco-friendly paint by Benjamin Moore. For her up-coming summer projects, a well-known event planner will be using LED lighting that uses less electricity. Celebutantes and "ladies who lunch" were, in fact, recently lunching at the American Museum of Natural History while hearing a lecture entitled, "Living Green in the Face of Global Climate Change." Vanity Fair took out a full-page ad promoting "a new kind of eco-living" -- "presented by Lexus." Okay, I drive a Honda Civic, but I'm still intrigued.

The point is that when wealthy fashion style-setters and eager trend-followers start to leap onto the green bandwagon, the rest of the developed world isn't far behind them. This is good news for the planet and for its inhabitants.

Maybe your effort at going green will be recycling all those old clothes you no longer wear by donating them to the neighborhood thrift shop. Maybe you'll purge papers and magazines to recycle, too. Maybe your new, simplified, less stuff-laden life will result in a less stuff-laden brain (I can guarantee this). Then you can think clearly about the products you do need to buy and figure out if there are some simple choices you can make that will be friendlier to the environment.

Less stuff equals living lean. Eco-consciousness makes you green. Vogue, the bible of the fashion set, has declared that's what's cool. So what could possibly be cooler than you, darling, when you're a lean, green, fashionable machine?

(c) 2007 Cynthia Friedlob

Zero Is the New Black

If you haven't already heard about NoImpactMan, you will. Colin Beavan, his wife and young daughter live in a small but swanky New York City apartment where they've been enjoying a very comfy, sophisticated urban lifestyle without giving any thought to how that lifestyle was affecting the environment. Now, in a fit of upper-middle class guilt, they've decided to give it all up (except for the apartment - whaddayou, nuts?) during a year-long experiment to reduce their impact on our planet's resources to the absolute minimum, thus the moniker, "NoImpactMan."

Their plan is a radical effort to cut back gradually to the bare essentials required to survive in the city and it's caused quite a stir on-line and in the press. Is it possible to live in a major metropolitan area without creating trash, eating only locally grown organic food, using no subways or cars, no elevators, buying nothing in plastic packaging, watching no television, and much more (or much less)? Controversy rages on numerous websites and within the comments on the NoImpactMan blog: Is this the noble experiment of a modern-day Thoreau or nothing more than a physically demanding publicity stunt? Is there a contradiction between trying to have no impact while simultaneously filming a documentary, planning to publish a book, as well as using a computer to blog regularly? And, let's get right to the most often asked and debated question: How (and why) does one survive without toilet paper?

The personal hygiene issue I addressed on this blog in a lengthy response to a comment on my "Ethical Spending" post in which I was introduced to NoImpactMan. Suffice it to say that I am not in favor of any choice that jeopardizes one's own health, that of others in the family, and perhaps the larger society in the name of "simplifying" life. Sometimes progress is just fine with me, thank you, with or without impact.

But I'm always fascinated by the questions raised by people willing to push the concept of minimalist living to the extreme. Exactly what would we be willing to give up if we felt it would help sustain the Earth? How do the realities of city living affect our decisions? How do we determine what areas of sustainable living are our personal responsibilities and what areas are corporate or government responsibilities? When does righteous protest against consumerism tip over the edge into slightly loony behavior that makes even the most devoted environmentalists cringe? These are questions worth pondering.

Amidst all the brouhaha surrounding NoImpactMan, what I consider to be the most encouraging response is the subject of a commentary by marketing expert Seth Godin on his blog. "Zero is the new black," he pronounces. It's simply no longer cool to live large and have too much stuff. As people become more aware of the significance of the choices they make, the more absurd some of those choices seem. We know that people may not always be motivated by social responsibility but they are quite reliably motivated by the cool factor. And once marketing and advertising get involved, you can bet your big old SUV that very soon, throughout our society, "more" will be "less."

Of course, for people living in homes still packed to the rafters with excess possessions, it's hard to imagine the changes the Beavan family has committed to make. Just creating some livable space is enough of a challenge. But by making a space livable, isn't that making a contribution to a sustainable culture? Okay, tossing out tons of trash is adding to the landfill, but we are all recycling whenever we can - aren't we? And what about all those donations of clothing, furniture, toys, dishes, collectibles? That's just recycling on a larger scale. More importantly, unburdening ourselves of all that unnecessary stuff and enjoying our new-found freedom will make us more thoughtful about our future purchases, most likely reducing them to what's necessary.

And that, of course, always leads us back to the main challenge: defining what is necessary. How much do we need to live? How much to live "comfortably?" Everyone will have a different answer to those questions, but they are the heart of the issue. As we already know, for most of us the honest answer will be: less. But now, less is not only more, as architect and designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe famously said; finally, less is also cool.

(c) 2007 Cynthia Friedlob

Thoughtful Disposal

Way back in the Paleolithic era of the environmental movement, I remember hearing someone speak about what happens to the gigantic amount of trash we toss away. I also remember being led by the speaker to the distressing realization that there is no "away." All that trash may no longer be in our living space (and Heaven knows we are grateful any time that we can get stuff out of the house), but where does it go?

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, we produced a staggering 245.7 million tons of municipal solid waste in 2005, and the majority of it is now crammed into landfill. Some of that waste consists of things that are genuinely fully used up or worn out, or from the packaging of products, from shipping supplies and containers, and from outdated items that have no after-market. Obviously, being thoughtful consumers would help reduce the huge amount of waste that we generate from the products that we buy. If we buy higher quality, more durable items and fewer of them, we have less to throw "away." If we choose items that are recyclable, that would help, too.

"Oh, great," I can hear some of you moaning. "We're already feeling guilty and overwhelmed by too much stuff everywhere we look in our homes, and now we're supposed to feel guilty when we get rid of it because we're adding to the problems of the entire planet!"

Well, not exactly. Feeling guilty about how much stuff we already own doesn't help the situation. What helps is action. The good news is that most of us have already started to take action. That huge figure the EPA cites actually indicates a reduction of 1.6 million tons of waste compared to the statistics for 2004. Clearly we're wising up about disposing of things more responsibly.

We're taking advantage of recycling paper, plastic, aluminum cans, etc., and some communities offer trash pickup to take organic matter to composting facilities. We still have far to go when it comes to disposing of or recycling hazardous materials, but where there's a potential for profit, there's motivation. That's exactly the situation discussed in an interesting LA Times article on 2/10 by Martin Zimmerman about e-waste recycling.

Discarded electronics are the fastest growing source of solid waste with a 17% increase from 2000 to 2005. Californians contributed our share in 2006 by trashing 450,000 tons of the stuff. However, because cell phones, printers, computers, and other electronic items contain hazardous lead, copper and cadmium, they can't go into municipal landfills, so they create a major disposal headache. Fortunately, they also contain plastic, metal and glass that are very desirable and thus an entire e-waste recycling industry has been born.

Even those of us who struggle to keep up with our daily obligations usually make at least a token effort to be responsible about recycling. I'm completely in favor of it and try my best, but if you've read my book, you know that I'm also in favor of some flexibility for people in a crisis situation who simply cannot cope. At the height of my efforts to unburden our home of too much stuff, I did a great job of getting massive amounts of paper recycled, but I confess that I tossed some flashlight batteries and ink cartridges right into the trash. I thought my head would explode if I had to deal with getting them to a hazardous waste pickup collection site at some indeterminate future date for an event that occurred only once in a blue moon. I'm not proud, but I'm also not perfect. In fact, at this moment I have two empty ink cartridges torturing me as they sit near my desk, waiting for me to find the recycling bag the library kindly provides and that I have managed to misplace. Who will win this round in the fight to recycle? I'm pretty certain that I will find the bag so the library, and the planet, will end up on top.

Most of us aren't perfect when it comes to handling our stuff, otherwise how would we have gotten into such uncomfortable situations in the first place? But perhaps thinking about the impact our decisions have on the fate of our planet will be a helpful way to motivate us to choose more wisely when we're buying things and to make a little extra effort when we're letting go of what we have. We have only a few options when it comes to disposing of our excess stuff:

1. Sell it (be certain it's worth the effort),
2. Donate it to family, friends, or a charity (be certain it's still in decent or reparable shape), or
3. Toss it. If we're going to toss it, let's try our best to dispose of it appropriately.

We can't just throw it "away."

(c) 2007 Cynthia Friedlob

Recycling Conundrum

The latest L.A. Times Sunday magazine, "West," devoted its entire Home Design Issue to "adaptive reuse," which refers to converting a previously commercial or industrial building to a living space. The magazine focused on seven radically reconceived homes that formerly had been a church, a water tower, a firehouse, a power station, a grocery store, a movie theater, and a Pullman railroad car. Each of these spaces had been cleverly altered, fashionably furnished (rather sparsely, I'm pleased to say), and, when completed, lovingly occupied by their new owners. I found the results very impressive.

I always appreciate the effort involved in saving old buildings and making them functional for the way we live and work now. It's a perfect combination of environmentally friendly reuse of resources and a respect for the unique history of the place. And I've noticed that it's become cool. Once again, I think the cool factor will help push forward an idea that is quite compatible with the concept of simplifying life by eliminating clutter. Like homes, cities can become cluttered, too, with old buildings and sometimes complete neighborhoods that are left to decay. Because it's wasteful, expensive, and often a loss aesthetically to demolish of a block of abandoned buildings, in most cases it's wiser and more practical to find a way to recycle these buildings and make them useful again.

But not always. Just as with some personal possessions, sometimes the cost of saving an old building is prohibitive. If it doesn't have historical significance, it may be better to demolish it, then replace it with something new and, perhaps, completely different. I'm a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, so I tend to lean toward saving and adapting all that can be saved and adapted. I consider it an important part of our country's legacy. However, just as we must be thoughtful about the things that we save in our personal lives for ourselves and our families, it's important to be thoughtful about what we save in our public lives for society. Leaving behind "stuff" - buildings and monuments - as our only public legacy is as misguided as leaving behind nothing but the "stuff" we've personally accumulated over the years as a testament to the value of our lives.

A thought-provoking personal experience: I went to an art show opening not long ago at a charmingly retro cafe in the middle of downtown Los Angeles, where there's a vortex of loft/condo conversion activity. The bright little cafe was a shining beacon in an otherwise fairly scary-looking block consisting of single- and double-storey old business buildings and a parking lot. Across the street was a huge adaptive reuse building in which modestly-sized loft spaces were selling for well over a million dollars. But the neighboring block to the west I can describe only as the poster child for urban blight. It was horrifyingly bleak, decrepit, and filthy. Even worse, at the opposite end of the street, to the east, was a woman sleeping on the sidewalk, the totality of her possessions stacked in a grocery cart. Thankfully, we had parked our car right in front of the cafe. When we got in it to leave, we saw two huge rats foraging in the gutter across the street, ironically right at the underground parking entrance to the million-dollar loft building. I had nightmares for several weeks about that poor woman.

Of course we can spend our money on adaptive reuse of buildings and be pleased with our choice. Of course we can use our personal resources to acquire some lovely things to enjoy ourselves and someday leave behind for our families. But what about that woman? I'd also like to leave behind a contribution to society that would help eliminate the conditions that led her to live in such a tragically impoverished situation. I’d like to find a way to help "recycle" that woman and make her a functioning member of society again. I'd like to be remembered for what I did, not just what I bought.

© 2006 Cynthia Friedlob