How Green is Green?

So this product floated across my field of vision yesterday. It's claiming to be eco-friendly because it eliminated the need for staplers and staples. Now, I don't know everything, but I really wasn't aware that staples are high on the environmental destruction list...I know you don't want 'em in the microwave. But really, never gave them that much thought. But here is a product that - well, here, I'll let the text from the site tell you:

The Eco Cat Stapler free stapler staples papers together without staples!
No kidding!
Here is how it works:
The Eco Staple Free Stapler cuts out minuscule strips of paper in the corner area of your paper files and uses these strips to "sew up" up to five pages of standard paper together.
No more metal staples (so that's good for the planet and your wallet). Safe and better for paper shredders too.
3 x 3 x 2.5 inches
Environmentally Friendly
Kid Friendly
Stitches up to 5 pages together
Creates no paper waste.

It seems like a cool idea. It super-cute too. And apparently not a new idea, but now in fun shapes and designs. But, "environmentally friendly"? How? It's plastic. There is nothing environmentally friendly about plastic. I questioned it and was told hey it'll last forever and there's no need to buy staples which are made from steel and less packaging and product over time. 

OK. But when it breaks? All things break. And when a plastic thing breaks, it is not repairable and therefore becomes landfill junk. So is that green? Friendly? I think I want my stapler of Wayback, that metal hunk that lasted and lasted and could be used as a weapon, too. 

In the meantime, I am not buying this. That's buying as in literally and intellectually. And the site I saw this on sells all kinds of kitschy plastic crap anyway, so I am doubly not sold. 

Can we all just step back and try to recognize the important? Don't sweat the petty stuff, just pet the sweaty stuff? Yes, there are LOTS of bigger issues out there in the world, and we are dealing with them, (finally) but it's also made up of all the little things, the petty things, we do every day. Wake up. Focus.

And quit buying this sh*t.

Time to Sweat the Small Stuff?

It's nice to give out green tips, and feel like we're helping the world. But sometimes, we just have to let loose and get it off our chests. Guess which I need to do now?

I say it's easy being green, and I really believe it is, but a lot of times it's hard to be a Greenie. Awareness is a terrible thing sometimes. I'll be honest, I get plowed under by the problems of this world really easily. How can we possibly fight the clean coal people? What about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?? Oh no, is that ANOTHER picture of a polar bear on a tiny piece of melting ice??? It's big stuff out there. And I get discouraged.

And then, I see something close to home that REALLY makes me question what the heck I'm doing. I had a "Why Do I Bother" moment just yesterday. Driving to work, I observed 3 teenagers walking somewhere in Hollywood. 2 guys and a girl. The girl pulled an opened bag of Spicy Cheetos out of her massive purse. Mmmm, I love Cheetos. I smiled. Then... THEN... then, she took her gum out of her mouth and, instead of wrapping it in a tiny piece of paper and saving it to throw away later, instead of having made use of one of the millions of trash cans all over Hollywood, 5 of which they just passed, she flung her gum to the sparse grassy area between the sidewalk and the street. She smiled as she did it. She kept chatting as she did it. She didn't think twice. He companions didn't even flinch, didn't even look.

But Green Witch, you ask, why get so bent over such a little thing? I'll tell you why. It's a symptom. It's a tiny little thing that points to much much bigger issues. The complete disregard with which this child littered tells me that she might just throw that Cheetos wrapper on the ground too. Had I been walking and not on my way to work, I might have just followed her to see what happened next. (I know, I know, a little much, a little creepy. Sue me.)

I'll tell you why. Because such utter lack of concern for that piece of gum tells me that she doesn't think anything of what she uses, what she throws away, what is important. It tells me her parents, her school, etc aren't really impressing anything onto her impressionable mind about what manners are and what littering is. The way in which she did it told me she chews gum a lot and this isn't the first time she has flung it heedlessly to the ground for someone to step in. It reminds me that millions of people everywhere every day fling their gum to the Earth without a care. And THAT leads me to realize that it doesn't end with tiny little innocent pieces of gum. No. It STARTS with tiny little innocent pieces of gum. And, because if these kids don't care, these ones that we are working to save from all our bad practices, if they don't care, then why do I bother???

So yeah. It may have been the tiniest littlest thing and it really shouldn't have bugged me so much, but welcome to my head. Sometimes when you keep telling yourself, don't sweat the petty stuff just pet the sweaty stuff, you keep trying and trying... and then the little things, the petty things, sneak on in and just blow the lid off the carefully contained vat of angst/rage/fear/disgust/hopelessness mixture that was only barely controlled anyway....

I think it's time we started sweating the petty stuff. I believe we have ignored it for too long, and now all the little things have landed us in a real big mess.

Clothesline = Poor. Seriously???

Back East, when the Good Green Witch was small enough to duck under the clothesline, Spring and Summer meant we could hang clothes out to dry. We had the room in the back yard, and hanging the bedsheets out there just made sense. Why use the dryer when it was already too warm in the house? It was our yard, no one could really see behind our house, and pretty much everyone did it. Did we equate it with being green? Nope. It just made sense. Did we equate it with being "poor"?? Nah. It was the sensible way to do things. That's all.

Nowadays, people dwell in condos and apartment buildings and pay dues to the neighborhood associations. Such a thing as hanging clothes outside is simply not acceptable. It is unsightly! It would bring down property values! It's downright unseemly! Proper folks just don't do that! Do we want people to think we are poor??? Don't only the "poor" hang out their clothes to dry??

Whoa. Wait a minute. There's something behind this mentality. It is true: it has become a sign of "lower income" to think that one must use a clothesline. Where does this come from?

We have fallen pray to advertising for many years. Think about it: companies don't care how clean your home is or how sanitary your toilet is or even if you have e. coli running around your kitchen counters. They want to SELL you their products. They sell ideas, they sell fear, they sell status. That is how they sell products. Way back whenever, people who were hired to sell dryers had to compete with all the Great Outdoors... However can a drying machine compete with FREE? Challenge the status, of course! If you were well-to-do, you bought a newfangled washer and dryer, which meant you didn't have to work as hard at your laundry and had the leisure time and luxury afforded to such wealth. Only those poor families down the street had to work so hard, because they couldn't AFFORD a dryer. See? Clothesline = poverty.

But today, we can see around and beyond that mentality. We can think for ourselves, and not be ruled by advertising. We realize that hanging clothes outside is better for our electricity bill, gas bill, etc. It's not a sign of poverty, but rather a sign of sustainability, of Green-ness, of concern. Dare we say, frugality? These communities that forbid clotheslines... we need to change that way of thinking and realize why we are bound to these incorrect beliefs. We need to remember that our grandparents really knew what they were doing. We need to realize that convenience is not our best friend.

We need to open our eyes and ears, and start questioning what we see on TV. We can start to ask. "Hmm. Do I REALLY need that?" Sometimes it's OK that the answer is no. We don't need that! And no, just because we like the fresh smell of Sun and wind-dried clothes and to save a little energy, doesn't mean we are poor. It means we're trying, and we are Green.