I'm Dreaming of A Green Christmas

Probably my biggest problem with Christmas, and why I tend to dislike the whole season in general, is because everywhere I look, this holiday is used as justification for senseless over-consumption and irresponsible spending.  Oftentimes people spend large amounts of money that they don't have on things that they don't even need.  In fact, this has become so much of an accepted form of behavior that people can (and do) take out "Christmas loans" in order to afford their glut of spending during the holidays.  Sometimes employers will offer these loans directly to their employees which I suppose is a little bit better than getting one of them from the loan-shark-esque "no credit check" cash advance folks.  But it still boils down to more debt for people who can't really afford it, which is just another form of not living sustainably.

But let's assume that you have plenty of money to spend on Christmas, and can do whatever level of spending that you want without actually increasing your level of debt in the process.  Well what's wrong with that?  At least you're being fiscally responsible right?  Sure, if money is no issue then spending large amounts of it on Christmas is going to be less of an issue as well.  But lots of gifts and decorations still turns into a lot of "things" that one way or the other are going to get thrown away someday and (based on how the world currently works) will likely end up occupying space in a landfill.  I know that my views on this sound very Scrooge-like, but then again, that's exactly how sellers of Christmas kitsch and retailers in general want people to view my perspective. According to them, the "holiday spirit" is all that matters: "Get into the spirit of the season, spread your Christmas joy; and for the next 3 weeks, get a collectors-edition talking plush candy cane with the purchase of $399 or more."

A More Sustainable Christmas

So what can we do to keep the "spirit of Christmas" without being so wasteful with our money and resources?

I'm trying very hard to not discuss the religious underpinnings and meanings of Christmas, because that is not really within the scope of this blog, so lets just say that a relatively general point of Christmas is to come together with family and friends and remind ourselves of our bond with them and with our community (a very noble goal, from a sustainability perspective.)  With this in mind, here are a few suggestions on things we can do to have a more sustainable Christmas and maybe give a gift back to our planet, which has already given us more than we deserve:

1. Christmas Tree:  My friend Megan wrote an excellent piece on deciding between artificial and real Christmas trees, so instead of borrowing from her points and rehashing them, I'll just link you to her blog entry.  Take a look, it's worth a read.
2. Lighting: Buying lights specifically for Christmas decoration has questionable utility in the first place, but if you must string lights inside and outside of where you live, you can at least try to do so more responsibly.  Try to use only LED lights as they use much less power and will last many years longer than lights with tiny bulbs (that seem destined to burn out randomly anyway).  Also look for light strands that utilize few bulbs per linear foot of lighting.  This saves money and electricity in two ways: you can buy fewer strands to suit your needs and less electricity will ultimately be needed to light them.  Finally, turn your light displays off when you go to bed.  That's 6 to 8 hours of electricity that you don't need to be paying for, given the small number of people who might pass by where you live during those hours anyway.
3. Gift wrapping and Cards: This is where everyone has a chance to imbue more meaning on their gifts and Christmas cards.  If you use reused materials to create unique gift-wrapping and personalized cards, I'd say that most people will notice and appreciate that you're giving them something that you made and put your own time and thought into and, as a result, the gift will have greater meaning and significance to them.   And finally, if you have no creative spark, are lazy or just don't have the time to put much thought into wrapping gifts, you can still look for wrapping paper and cards that use post-consumer recycled materials.
• As an interesting side note, I grew up in a household where you NEVER threw away a Christmas bow.  On Christmas morning, there was always a bag for trash (torn up wrapping paper and other packaging) and a smaller one to hold all of the bows that came off of packages.  These would be put away and brought out in later years to be reused on newly wrapped gifts.
4. Gift Giving: This is a topic where there is a lot of room for changing behavior to create a more sustainable Christmas.  There should be no reason to pile tons of expensive gifts onto everyone we know for Christmas.  The more gifts that a person gets, the more difficult it is for them to assign special value to any one of them.  This results in a lot of gifts that have no particular importance and are easier (emotionally) to discard.  This is even more valid for children, whose interests can be fairly fleeting and fickle at times anyway.   So basically what I'm saying is to give fewer gifts, but give gifts with greater meaning.  Quality over quantity.  Here are a few ways to do that:
• Have an understanding between people exchanging gifts that there will be only one gift given.  This puts the onus on the giver to put more thought into what that one gift will be instead of just buying every little thing that pops into their head, while at the same time giving the receiving person the opportunity to focus on and appreciate that single gift.
• Gift exchanges or secret Santa exchanges are another way to cut down on the volume of gifts that are exchanged within a set group of people, as it's understood that you will only be giving and receiving a gift from one other person in the group.  Oftentimes there is a value limit imposed as well, which subtly encourages adding personal touches that don't have a quantifiable monetary value but that can add sentimental value.
• Altruistic gifts are probably one of my favorite forms of gift giving.  This just what it sounds like:  Instead of giving a gift to someone, you donate the money you would have spent to a charitable cause that they care about.  This is an especially powerful gift because your money is going to someone or some issue that needs it more and can make a more valuable use of it than if you'd have just bought and wrapped another "thing" to give someone.  Christmas is about being selfless and giving, and I honestly can't think of a better example of that than doing this.
5. Food: Besides the normal recommendations of trying to buy organic and locally-sources ingredients, I like food a bit too much (especially Christmas cookies, and desserts of all kinds) to advise not making as many of these as you can get away with.  I'm not one to advocate over-eating, but I'll gladly help dispose of excess Christmas cookies, so that they aren't wasted.  (Post in the comments if you need my address to send excess holiday cookies to.)

There are likely hundreds  more ways to have a "green" Christmas and I've only highlighted a few of them (none of them revolutionary).  So I'll leave you with this:

Christmas is only a consumer holiday if you actively let it be one.  If you keep it simple and distill more meaning of the holiday into simple and elegant gestures your memories of it will ultimately be more vivid, nostalgic, and heart-warming as will those of everyone around you.  And your planet will be a better place for it.

Final Thoughts

At the beginning of the Fall 2011 semester in Sustainable Communities, I chose to focus my attention, for my individual project, on learning about and beginning to compost.  That has had it's own interesting set backs and refinements throughout the semester and will no doubt continue to evolve.  However, I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some final developments and thoughts on this project.


A Change In Scope

My initial plan was to build a composting system from scratch in order to process compostable waste that was generated by my roommate and me.  Originally this even included using red wigglers do develop a full blown vermicomposting system.  This was a nice and ambitious idea that proved to actually not be the best and most sustainable one for my situation, for the following reasons:

1. Living in a small apartment with another roommate where space is at a premium, there was really no good place within our apartments for a vermicomposting system to go, where it wouldn't be a huge inconvenience to live around while at the same time being convenient enough to remember to use all of the time.
2. I personally have no use for compost, being that I live in a third floor apartment and have no plants/gardens to speak of.  Thus if I were to start generating nice nutrient rich compost, it would still be necessary to take it somewhere where it could be useful to someone else.
3. Given the consideration of item 2 (above) and that it would require extra money and resources to do that in a manner that would be durable and last a long time, it made more sense to use containers I already have and store compostable items until such time as I have the time and inclination to transport them to a place with a more robust composting system already in place.  After careful consideration and thought, this seemed like the most sustainable option to me, and is what I ended up doing.

Hiccups Along the Way

So there were a couple issues I hadn't thought of when setting my revised plan into action, that make for interesting stories now, but weren't so much fun to deal with at the time:

1. The containers I originally planned on using for this and the location I stored them in did not lend themselves well to the job of storing organic matter in a way that would remain unmolested.  I know now that we have a squirrel who likes to make his rounds over the roof of our building and down onto our porch to check things out, such as our sliding glass door and what's on the other side of it, and exploration of "random" containers that are left on our porch.  (It's unfortunate that I wasn't more on the ball with my camera, when seeing it outside playing around, but the only picture I managed to take was just of my flash reflected off of the glass of the door; no squirrel to be seen.)  Anyway, said squirrel liked to help himself to the toy box of messy things that was now available for him.
2. The containers I used were not water-tight, and over the course of a few rains, filled up with water, creating an unpleasant "soup" of coffee grinds, banana peals, apple cores, and cardboard sludge that was not in the least bit funny or cute to have to deal with disposing off or trying to drain water off of without turning our porch into one big soggy compost heap.

So, in order to deal with both of these issues, I found a 5 gallon bucket (The kind that large quantities of paint come in) with an airtight lid and have begun re-storing appropriate materials in that.  This seems like a much more logical solution, which makes me feel kind of silly that I hadn't started out with that in the first place.  Live and learn, i suppose.

Adoption and Buy-In

The final hurdle that I was initially concerned with was gaining the participation of my roommate in this endeavor.  This actually turned out to be not such a big deal.  As long as I was responsible for removing the slow build-up of refuse, he seems more than happy to expend the tiny extra effort to separate recyclables and compostables into the appropriate places.

Final Thoughts

So while this had originally started out as an experiment in vermicomposting, it eventually evolved into a more general education excercise (teaching my roommate about how things should be done) and behavior experiment.  If I had to distill down what I've learned from this into just a couple sentences it would be something like this:

There are many solutions for most problems, in all different magnitudes.  The most sustainable ones aren't always those that are the most glorious, fun to look at, or ambitious (sometimes they are), but are sometimes the ones that are most efficient and easiest to incorporate into existing behavior patterns.

Sustainability Related Events

Throughout my 1st semester in Sustainable Communities, I had many unique opportunities to attend, participate and even help out with several events related to sustainability.  They were all different and consequently exposed me to different sustainability focused issues and perspectives.  So, without further adieu, here are some of the events I participated in:


Bloomington Commission On Sustainability monthly meeting - August 2011 

Shortly after the beginning of my first semester at SPEA, I had the opportunity to attend the August meeting of the City of Bloomington Commission On Sustainability at Bloomington City Hall.  This provided me a unique perspective on how Bloomington is attempting to incorporate sustainable practices and ideas into how the city is run.  What I remember most about this meeting was that BCOS was discussing two proposed roundabouts that had been approved by the city and were scheduled to begin construction shortly.  

A few people on the Commission were very strongly opposed to these roundabouts, claiming that they would contribute to growth of high speed traffic and suburban sprawl in the areas that they were being built in.  Within the confines of civil discussion, there was pretty vehement opinions expressed from BCOS and from the city engineer that had come to answer questions about the plans for the roundabout.  My read on the situation was that the BCOS member that expressed the most opposition to was concerned for actual issues of sustainability, while the city engineer's main argument for going forward with it was because the federal government was funding a large portion of it, and so it was necessary to do it so that we wouldn't "miss out" on those funds.  The problem I see with the engineer's perspective was that Bloomington still has to spend a significant portion of its budget on this project in order to get the federal funds.


This particular agenda item brought to light another issue regarding BCOS and its role with the greater city government.  Even though BCOS was concerned about whether the roundabouts are a good idea at all, the roundabouts had already been approved by the city and slated for construction prior to BCOS having even heard about the proposed construction.  So while it seems like a progressive move for Bloomington to have a whole department devoted to sustainability issues, it is also pretty clear that the new department has yet to be fully integrated into the structure of the city to the point that they have a chance to do much that is actually useful towards moving Bloomington in a more sustainable direction.  Until BCOS can pull more weight with big decisions regarding the Bloomington community, it will unfortunately only serve as so much green-washing for the city.


Big Red Eats Green

I volunteered to help out with the Big Red Eats Green event that was held in the fall as well.  The idea behind this event was to have local farmers and restaurants that try to use food from local sources in their dishes come together and showcase their menus with small sample that cost between $1 and $3.  

Due to the potential for rain it was moved at the last minute from Dunn Meadow to the Alumni Hall of the Indiana Memorial Union.  I helped the various organizations set up their tables and then walked around and checked everything out after I was finished setting up. 

I heard many comments from people attending the event as to how cool of an event it was and how they should have it as a monthly event.  It was really cool to see such a positive reactions by the student body in general.  By all accounts it was a great success with a lot of student traffic, even though the location had been moved.
 

Green Drinks - Bloomington


Throughout my semester, I'd heard about and wanted to attend one of the Green Drinks events at Upland Brewery, but always seemed to have a schedule conflict or something else going on.  Luckily I was able to attend the last one of the year on October 26th.  The speaker for this event was none other my esteemed profession Bill Brown; Director of Indiana University's Office of Sustainability.  He spoke on what the various sustainability interns were accomplishing at IU.


The biggest personal benefit that came of attending this event was that I meat Jami Scholl a food policy blogger and author, and got to have an enlightening conversation with her about food, sustainability and many things that fall between the two.  From what I've read of it (admitted not much, yet) My Edible Eden (Jami Scholl's blog) is interesting and has a lot of good information on it.  I would recommend checking it out and contacting her directly if you have more detailed questions for her.  She is a very amiable and smart person.  

I'd been slowly learning more about food policy and it's effect on sustainability throughout the semester due to a couple of my classmates being particularly interested in it.  When you talk to someone about something they care deeply about, you can't help but learn more about it and become more interested yourself.  After meeting Jami, I made sure to put those friends in contact with her, since they would definitely benefit with talking to her about what she does and writes about.


Cider Fest


The last event that I attended was Cider Fest at the Bloomington Community Orchard.  It was a brisk Halloween morning, which turned out to be a perfect day to enjoy hot, freshly made apple cider and all sorts of delicious homemade goodies that were brought by various people.  The Orchard was started in large part due to the devotion and work of Amy Countryman, a fellow classmate of mine.  While the orchard is still in its infancy, it's a cool idea that I hope continues to get support from the community.  The whole idea of the Community Orchard ("Free Fruit For All") is intriguing and completely worthy of it's own post, but what I found most interesting about this event was the sense of community that was present among those in attendance.  There was face painting and apple bobbing available (although I didn't really see anyone taking advantage of the bobbing) and was just generally a neat event.  Wassailing took place as well but I abstained due to earplugs not being available for everyone in attendance.

Here are a few of the pictures that I took at the event.  I'm in the center picture with Megan.   Thanks to Megan and Mary for being so photogenic.  The face painting seemed to be a hit with everyone.