viridis ire

I was just out on the street talking to the Waste Management people; WM is the company that picks up my recycling at my lab (34a Labs). This is a good change if you consider not long ago they would have been here to pick up my trash. So from trash I went to no trash and how did I get here? About 1.5 months ago my city (Concord, NH USA) started a new program where if you wanted to have them do trash pickup then you need to buy trash bags from the city, however, recycling was free. I have to admit that at first I was upset! I ended running into them as they were just picking up my recycling when I was going out for my containers: one large trash can for the bottles, cans, plastic containers and the smaller orange bucket that is used for paper and cardboard.

I went back and put these back on my deck and headed in to get the one soda can and some paper, that I had gathered since the night before, and deposited them into the containers. After doing this I carried some onion scraps and some tomato ends into my new compost bin in my back yard.

I was talking to the Waste management people to tell them that I had one trash bag left (the purple Barney bag) and when it was gone I would not be using them anymore. This is the first in a long list of steps that I had taken to reduce my personal impact on the environment. The list of what I have done includes but is not limited to:

· Insulation of the lab space
· Adding another layer of R-19 insulation in the labs attic space
· Adding Multi Paned insulated windows and storms
· Replacing all light bulbs with energy saving bulbs

So now; having done all of the above I have done the last step, no trash cans at the different workstations just recycle bins. I kind of have the same feeling that I had after I stopped smoking. When I stopped smoking, I wondered for the first year, why did I smoke when I knew it was damaging. I suppose that there is some odd intersection between doing the right thing and the path of least resistance. It was very hard to quit smoking (bad habits are not easily ejected) and it was no easier than turning 34a Labs green. So now I am thinking why or how was I ever so unaware of the waste of resources. I hope I am a better ex resource waster than an ex smoker.

Don’t get me wrong, if I am out at a bar and perhaps had one or two too many glasses of wine, scotch or Guinness I may borrow (borrow loosely used here) a cigarette from you totaling perhaps 10 cigarettes a year compared to the three packs a day that I smoked about eight years ago. So I suppose, I may find myself wasting something here or there, but every time I do, I will not make excuses and I will work to keep it rare.