My Inconspicuous Conservation Confession

Well, vv is 15 months old now, still nursing like a champ (though probably only 4 times per day now.) And the simple, spontaneous nursing relationship that I was dreaming of in my earlier blog posts materialized after all, thank goodness. This is something that is truly a blessing.

And now, of course, there are other things on my mind . . .

I heard a piece on NPR (like every good liberal!) about the economic concept of "Conspicuous Conservation." This is a pattern of behavior in which, to paraphrase the segment, "driving a Prius is nice; being seen driving a Prius is even nicer." The economists had researched and proven that most folks of a progressive/environmental bent are more likely to engage in green behaviors if they can be seen as behaving greenly by their community/circle (provided the community/circle is also "green.")

This was striking to me because I always feel like I try to keep my green behaviors INconspicuous. Now, as a family, we could certainly go a lot further in our greenness (and I hope to), and I'm not trying to put myself up there as a paragon of planet-saving home life. But, I would go so far to say that among my/our circle of friends, we are among the most committed to being green. And I basically keep my mouth shut about it because I don't want to come off as being preachy or holier-than-thou. It's just something we do because my husband and I believe in it, and I don't want any judginess to enter into my friendships (in either direction).

Which I realize a wimpy attitude. I mean, people do need to be encouraged to make "lifestyle changes." Also, more selfishly, I do wind up spending a lot of my time as a (mostly) full-time SAHM, doing these green things -- they ARE time consuming -- and sometimes, I wish I got a little credit for it. (See, I'm not totally selfless.)

So I thought I'd list the stuff that I do, and we do as a family, that feels like it's a bit out of the mainstream, that reduces our impact on this planet a little. Let's see if, after I look at it, it seems super-awesome (to me) or insignificant.

1)The obvious one: we are CSA members (summer and winter shares). This means we support a local farm, and get organic, local, AWESOME veggies about 9 months of the year (but we do have to show up on Thursday evenings to pick up the veggies and carry them home, chatting with friends and neighbors in the process).

2)We also buy meat, eggs, beans, grains, and flour from a consortium of farms upstate (ditto on the picking up and chatting).

3)We get low-temperature pasteurized milk from the local farmers market. This supports another local farm, plus it comes in glass bottles which we return for a discount on the next week's milk. (This also requires a committed weekly trip to the farmers market -- not the one in our neighborhood -- and washing/keeping the bottles around till the following week. My husband and daughter get some good time in at the Jackson Heights playground while doing this "errand.")

4)I make our own yogurt from this fantastic milk. So it's super-healthy, fresh, free of any additives, and prevents that many more plastic yogurt containers from being made (we eat a lot of plain yogurt). (This is actually pretty effortless, it just takes a little planning.)

5)We compost all of our food waste via the compost pickup at our local farmers market. And, importantly, I do not use our compost as an "out" for CSA veggies that got old because I couldn't get to them in time. I get to them all on time (somehow.) Likewise I use parts of the veggies that many don't (eg. stems of greens and herbs.)

6)We use baking soda to clean our hair, and apple cider vinegar to condition it. We do not use shampoo or conditioner. The results are the same, if not better.

7)I have never used a skincare product on my 15 month-old daughter except for VERY occasional A&D for her diaper rash (very rare since she goes w/o a diaper a lot at home) and very occasional shampoo. Actually, I take it back, I do use a mineral, non-nano sunblock on her now that it's sunny. But soap, lotion: no.

8)I cloth diaper my daughter. This is one where I have slipped down the slope a bit and gotten lazy about using disposables when we are out. I'm trying to get back to max 1 disposable/day. Again, regarding conspicuousness, I think it's good for people to see somebody using cloth diapers. Cloth diapers do have to be washed, and yes, when there is poop I'm kneeling by the toilet, scraping the poo off the diaper with a spatula then dunking the diaper in the water to get the excess off. Then, I prewash the cloth wipes a bit in the sink. But hey, disposables are bad.

9)We do not have an air conditioner. Well, we do have a wall unit in the living room, which we've used once this summer for a visiting friend. Seriously, you do adjust to the heat if you are never in an A/C'ed environment. Though to be honest, it's easier knowing that I COULD turn on the A/C, I'm just choosing not to.

10)I always take canvas bags with me to the store. I know, kind of obvious, but worth mentioning.

11)We do have a car, which in NYC is not strictly necessary. But we don't drive it very much. And it's diesel, which means it gets great gas mileage and when we get our s**t together we can start using biodiesel.

12)I have bought so little new stuff for my daughter, I'm practically an enemy of the state. Okay, I did buy a new stroller, but it was last year's model at 50% off. I think my friends think I'm just super-cheap, the way I troll craigslist waiting for the thing I want to pop up. And it's true that I would rather do other things with my/our money than buy over-priced new stuff. But our cultural obsession with new stuff, from the conspicuous consumption aspect, to the short-lived personal high of bringing home and opening a new package, is (obviously) KILLING our planet. And I really try to evaluate what I buy (new or not). The baby industrial complex unveils product after handy, educational product for life with baby, enough to make a parent go insane. And much of it, you just don't need. For example: there are a MILLION things you can buy for feeding your baby, like a set of spoons that have some with longer handles for when you are feeding the baby, and some with shorter handles for when the baby is feeding herself. But you don't need two different spoons. You can reach the baby with the shorter-handled spoon, I promise. We have also managed to get by without buying the colorful Munchkin brand plastic covered bowls that every parent seems to get. vv just eats out of a regular, not-particularly precious, probably breakable bowl. But we sit with her when she eats, so if it looks like it might wind up on the floor, we take it away. Anyway, some families might really have a need for these products, but not for others that we use. The point is, we approach products with skepticism -- is the product generating its own perceived need? Or can we get along without it, even though we might look a little ghetto to our fellow parents?

13)If vv grows out of clothes that are too trashed to pass along to another family, I cut them up into rags and use as cleaning cloths. Again, pretty obvious and old-school.

14)Along similar lines, we use cloth napkins. And, I don't wash them every time we use them. If clearly dirty, of course I do, but often times they are not that dirty and we just use them again. We also save any unused napkins we might get from takeout and use those if we need something disposable. Speaking of which,

15)We do not eat much takeout. Now, okay, we live in New York City, where everything is available for delivery, and, okay, we probably have takeout for dinner every week-and-a-half or so. So to many people that will seem like a lot. But given our milieu, it's pretty infrequent. And I really make an effort to cook a lot, to always be processing the food that comes into our lives via CSA or farmers market or what have you, into something yummy and nutritious for us and friends to eat. Keeping salad dressing on hand, making the yogurt, learning to make sauerkraut/kimchee (my current project), etc etc etc, in addition to cooking enough at a time that we will have leftovers for lunch, all without a dishwasher. Yeah, mommies (and dads), you know it's work, right! Work with a huge payoff, but work nonetheless.

16)We have chosen to get our electricity from a provider that uses wind energy. This is entirely my husband's project, requiring no thought or time on my part, but I include it to be thorough.

17)We have a clothesline. I do do one load in the dryer (at the laundromat) per week, but all the diapers and some of our clothes get dried on the line or on our indoor fold-up racks.

Some things I'm just getting started on:

18)Gardening: I had to talk my landlord into letting me dig up a tiny plot where I currently have 4 culinary herb plants. They are growing great so far and I hope to be able to garden more in the future. Since for as long as we live in this building, I will never have that much room to garden, I focus on supplementing the CSA. Next year I'm thinking about maybe some plants that can be used for herbal teas, and maybe some garlic? Plus a pot of mint, in addition to my current herbs. I haven't gardened since I was a kid, so I have a lot to learn.

19)Along the lines of increasing our food self-sufficiency, I'm trying to learn more about food preservation. Again, it's baby steps. I'm trying my hand at some lactofermentation (helped along by whey strained off from the home-made yogurt -- cool, huh?), and hope to can a bunch of tomatoes late in the summer (a friend has promised to show me how.) How awesome would it be to not have to buy any canned tomatoes all winter? Pretty awesome. Apparently industrial tomato production is bizarrely complex and unnatural, requiring very high energy inputs.

20)And in a way, the biggest thing I do (and I guess this claim is what I'm trying to examine, more directly in a later post) is to put my energy into the home economy, instead of the formal economy. I work at raising my daughter and feeding my family, instead of having a "job-job." I'm pretty sure we would not be doing all the other things on this list if I (or my husband) did not work at home instead of at a job. Of course I will make the obligatory caveat that of course some families do not have this option, and need 2 incomes, and single parents have a different situation entirely. But we do have the option (partly because we're frugal) so the fact that I do this DOES allow our household to be more green overall.


So there's my list. I'm definitely leaving some stuff out, plus I should mention that my husband is passionate about low-consumption and will spare no effort to fix something instead of buying something new. I'll leave my self-evaluation/analysis for another post.