We all remember the popular children’s fable, The Tortoise and the Hare – a story that teaches us the virtue of setting and maintaining a pace to achieve our goals. In it, a turtle becomes tired of listening to a nearby rabbit brag about how quick he is and challenges him to a race. The rabbit sprints away at the start, taunting the turtle for being so slow. Soon, though, the rabbit becomes tired. Looking back to see that the turtle is so far behind him, he decides to rest under a tree, falling asleep. He is later awakened by the cheers of the other woodland creatures as the turtle crosses the finish line, realizing that he’d slept too long and allowed the turtle to pass him.
It’s a simple and classic tale, the moral being, “slow and steady wins the race.” Such basic and wise words, but many times we find ourselves living as the hare rather than the tortoise. We define goals for ourselves, become excited, pursue them with fervor, and, all too often, quickly become tired and unmotivated, abandoning what we’d started and moving onto the next flash in the pan. On the other hand, it’s just as easy to become disenchanted with our goals when we slow down. We’re excited and we want to see results. When they don’t materialize as soon as we had hoped, it’s easy to think that we just won’t ever get there, and give up trying.
Slow & steady wins the race
Here at Frugally Green, I (and many of you) are on a quest for self-improvement on two fronts, and frugality and sustainability are two really broad targets! I’ve written before about balancing multiple goals and how important it is to find opportunities to achieve them simultaneously, but how do we stay on track? How do we balance the pursuit of our dreams between speeding away and burning out like the hare and plodding along like the tortoise, afraid we won’t ever get there? I think we all know deep down the tortoise is, undoubtedly the winner of the race, but the hare has its place, too. The fundamental task in achieving our goals is breaking them down into many smaller goals and assigning “tortoise” or “hare” characteristics to them.
The role of the Tortoise
In becoming frugal and green, the tortoise represents our overall, long-term goals and the planning that is required to achieve them. We’re all different, so this could be anything from starting an international business or foundation committed to sustainability and becoming a financially independent philanthropist to simply reducing your energy consumption and recycling more than you throw away. Whatever your ultimate goal is, the tortoise represents the careful and deliberate planning that must take place to realize these achievements. These are not goals that can be completed tomorrow. You must set a pace for yourself to reach these landmarks by breaking them down into smaller, more easily attainable goals. It is through this slow and calculated process that you will build the framework that will guide your decisions towards the end goal.
So now you have an outline of how you are going to attain your highest goals. You may still feel like you haven’t actually done anything yet, but you have! You’ve given yourself a reference guide that will tell you when you’re on the right track and when you aren’t. It might be pages long or it might just be a few items, but now that you’ve really thought about it, you’ve got a strong focal point. Einstein once cleverly stated, “If I had only 1 hour to save the world, I would spend the first 55 minutes defining the problem.”
The role of the Hare
We know, certainly, that we can’t sustain ourselves trying to sprint our way to a finish line that could be years away, so where does the hare and his hyperactive tendencies come into play for us? Well, since we took our time when we started off and carefully pieced together an outline that breaks down our goals into bite size pieces, we can now pursue each of them, one by one, with lightning quickness.
Now, don’t get carried away like our rabbit friend did in the story. What I mean to say is, from our example above, maybe a few of the first steps that you lay out for yourself are to remember to turn off your computer every night, change all your light bulbs to CFLs, and only run your dishwasher when it’s full. Pick one of these basic tasks, like turning your computer off every night, and throw yourself at it! Spend every day focusing on it until the action is ingrained into your habits. Don’t worry about the other goals until this happens, then move on to the next. It won’t take a lot of effort because it’s simple and you know how it will contribute to your long-term success. Continue on this path until you’ve satisfied all your base goals. Then, give yourself a pat on the back and move onto the next rung of the ladder. You’ll probably find that your ability to adapt becomes quicker and quicker as you travel down the course you’ve set for yourself.
Putting it all together
The Tortoise and the Hare is a timeless classic that reinforces a lesson that we learn at a young age, but is often forgotten by adults as the demands of life in a modern world bear down upon them. The tortoise teaches us that a slow, methodical pace is what will efficiently take us long distances. The hare teaches us that quickness is useful for short durations.
Whether we vocalize them or not, we all have goals. We all have dreams. Attaining them depends upon the system of support we create that will ensure success. State your dreams without fear and pursue them the same. Be it big or small, make it a point to take one step forward every day.
Ever since we terrestrials decided long ago to cover our loins with leaves, we’ve been on a mission to set ourselves apart with our clothing. If you work in a professional environment, dress code or not, you’ve likely found yourself the proud (or frustrated) owner of at least a few “dry clean only” garments. Myself? I do everything I can to avoid them for simplicity’s sake, but I do admit to owning a few pairs of pants that must be cleaned by a “professional.”
Once every few months (I don’t wear them often), I begrudgingly gather up these pants and march down the street to the local dry cleaner. Little did I know, the main ingredient in this process is a chemical called perchloroethylene or, more affectionately abbreviated, “perc.” Turns out, perc is a nasty toxin, classified as a Group 2A carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. In other words, it’s likely carcinogenic to humans. We already know it does nasty things to fish and other wildlife, causes skin irritations for many people, and is heavy enough to seep under the water table, making it a soil contaminant that is very difficult to clean. Did you know you might live next door to a future Superfund site?
Enter the Eco Cleaner
Given my increased awareness of these sorts of issues and an intense desire to avoid itchy legs, I decided to take my bi-annual load of dry clean only pants to a new eco-friendly shop that just opened up a few more blocks away. They call themselves ecodrycleaner and shops just like them seem to be popping up all over the country. They bill themselves as sustainable for these reasons:
Their cleaning solution is a liquid silicone that breaks down into water, CO2, and sand – no potentially harmful chemicals involved.
Their newer, efficient equipment allows them to harvest and recycle cleaning solution so that very little is wasted in the process.
They offset their electricity needs with investment in renewable energy.
Recycling of metal hangers, cuff clips, collar supports, and poly garment bags is heavily encouraged and promoted through their customer recycling program.
They reduce auto emissions by offering a free pick-up and delivery service that maximizes the efficiency of car trips to their business.
After chatting with the girl at the counter for a bit, she handed me my receipt and I was impressed to see that the cost was pretty comparable to other dry cleaners I’ve used around town. I suppose they might be better able to compete by being able to reuse more solution (most traditional dry cleaning shops I’ve frequented have pretty antiquated equipment) and by cutting costs on new expendables by encouraging their patrons to drop off unneeded hangers, garment bags, and other accessories.
Either way, now that I know that they exist and are competitively priced , I’ll continue to give my business to ecodrycleaner for my bi-annual laundry dump.
Cut down on your trips to the cleaner
At this point, you might be wondering how I manage to make such infrequent trips to the cleaners. Like I said above, I have very few dry clean only garments and I don’t wear them all that often, but I also wash them myself from time to time. That’s right, if it isn’t stained and just needs to be “freshened up,” I’ll hand wash an item to prevent a trip to the dry cleaners.
You might be surprised to know that many clothing manufacturers will label a piece as dry clean only when delicate hand washing is more than adequate. This is a marketing tactic they use because people are more likely to buy something they perceive to be less work to maintain. Turns out, most people consider going to the dry cleaner less work than hand washing. Now, you can’t do this with every item and different materials will require different types of care, but for many typical garments, some delicate elbow grease will do the trick. Check out this article for a more in depth explanation of how you can care for your dry clean only clothes.
All in all, we should act within our means whenever possible to reduce our impact on the environment. This is especially true when alternatives to what we are used to exist but require just a small investment of time to discover and implement. By rejecting the status-quo and committing ourselves to life long learning, we will continuously improve ourselves and the world around us.
Well, summer is in full swing here in the great state of Oregon, and as usual, I’m looking for new opportunities to save money on my electricity bill. A few weeks ago, our old clothes dryer started making a (really annoying) high pitched squeal while running and I just haven’t bothered to put on the appliance repairman hat yet. My first idea was to just never get my clothes dirty again. After that fantasy came and went, I thought that, given the great weather, I might use this summer as an opportunity to learn more about air drying my laundry and kicking that dryer to the curb once and for all.
How much can I save?
Before I started, though, I needed to know just how much I could save for my efforts. After wrestling my dryer around in the basement for a few minutes, I wiped the sweat from my brow and discovered that the little plate that states all the electrical characteristics of my machine was inside the door. Oh well, I got a little extra exercise. Turns out, our behemoth in the basement uses 5600 watts! I typically do one load of laundry a week. The drying time for each load is, conveniently, about an hour.
Assuming a few odd loads here and there, we’ll say I do 60 loads of laundry every year. That’s 336 kwh (kilowatt hours) per year used to dry laundry (5600 ÷ 1000)*60. Multiply that number by my utility rate (about $0.11 per kwh) and I come up with a whopping $37 annual savings if I air dry every single load. If you’re thinking, “Hmm, is that it? $37 a year?,” I thought the same thing. Is it really worth the trouble? Try to remember that I am only 1 person – 1 person that does laundry rather infrequently. If you handle laundry for the typical American family, you’ll likely save somewhere closer to $500. Now that’s more like it! If you want to get into the real nitty-gritty, the folks over at Project Laundry List offer a pretty interesting and rather comprehensive Excel calculator that you can download here.
As you can see, air drying the laundry won’t be a very lucrative venture for me, but it very well could be for you. This just reinforces the fact that the ideas and solutions that I address here at Frugally Green are not one-size-fits-all. Everyone’s situation is different and lots of ideas can be implemented to varying degrees. Decide what’s best for you and pursue with fervor!
How do I get started?
So, for the last month, I’ve kept a brief journal of my effort to resist the dryer and air dry my clothes. I’ll share a few lessons I’ve learned along the way as well as some tips I’ve compiled from around the internet to help make your transition to air drying a little less rocky.
Week 1 - Not a warm or windy day. Hung the clothes out under the covered porch and took off to run other errands. Kind of nice not having to wait for the dryer to stop to prevent wrinkles. Took everything down about 6 hours later when it was “mostly” dry. Socks, underwear, and towels were all a bit…um…crunchy? Will have to figure out a solution for that.
Week 2 – Did not air dry this week. Feeling guilty. Came home from a camping trip Sunday evening and needed some of my dirty clothes for work the next day. Looks like budgeting drying time will have to move up the priority list a bit. Next week, if it’s nice out, I’ll try drying in the sunlight to see if that improves things.
Week 3 – Perfect weather. Hung the clothes out on the fence behind the house. The sun and a steady wind dried them out much quicker – probably only about 2 hour, though I wasn’t timing. Read an article saying that drying in the sun can fade colors. Tip: turn clothes inside out while drying to prevent this. Bought a bottle of fabric softener for the wash. It helped a little bit with the “crunchiness,” but I’m still not totally satisfied.
Week 4 - Not satisfied with the stiffness of my clothing, I posted a question in the comments of a related post over on one of my favorite blogs, Get Rich Slowly. Several of the awesome readers there suggested I try tumbling them in the dryer for 5-10 minutes on low heat once they’re almost dry. Gave this a shot and bingo! No more stiff, crunchy socks.
After a month, I think I’ve finally got this figured out. Feel free to learn much faster now that you know some of the tips I didn’t.
More useful tricks
Here are a few more tips and tricks I’ve picked up a long the way that you might find useful in your adventure to ditch your dryer:
Hang immediately after washing – The quicker your clothes come out of the washing machine, the more wrinkle free they will be after drying. Consider turning down the speed of your spin cycle if your washer allows. It will take a bit longer to fully dry, but will also help tremendously with wrinkles.
Buy (or build) an indoor hanging rack – Most indoor racks today can hold an entire load of laundry. Drying indoors will take longer than outdoors, but probably not if it’s raining! They’ll also provide some humidity if your house tends to dry out in the winter. I’ve seen many for sale on my local Craigslist and at garage sales around town.
Substitute vinegar for fabric softener – I’m going to start doing this as soon as I use up the bottle of softener I already bought. Vinegar is a lot cheaper and leaves no smell once dry. It’s a great substitute if you’re sensitive to perfumes. Vinegar can also play a vital role in many other aspects of your laundry care. Read about them here.
Go forth and dry with the breeze!
Do you air dry your laundry already? Have any other tips Frugally Green readers might find useful?
Three weeks ago, President Obama signed into law the Cash for Clunkers Program that has been working its way through Congress over the last several months. The gist of the program: trade in your old gas-guzzler for a shiny, new efficient automobile and get an instant rebate from the government to the tune of $4,500. Cash for Clunkers is being billed as a win for consumers who want to trade in an old, inefficient vehicle, the auto industry which will see a boost to their sales numbers, and for society at large who will benefit by an increase to the average fuel economy of our nation’s auto fleet, reducing CO2 emissions and our dependence on foreign oil. How could we go wrong?
My little, old Ford Ranger still putters along just fine, but I’m afraid it likely won’t last too much longer. I’ve implemented all the hypermiling tricks I can, but I still worry that it might be on its way out. With dollar signs in my eyes, a-researching I went to see if there is any feasible way that I could benefit from this program. Here’s what I uncovered about the program:
Does my current car qualify?
There are few hoops Ol’ Bessy’ll have to jump through before you’re riding the rebate train to motor city. These are the most important ones you should know about:
Your car needs to be less than 25 years old. If your auto was manufactured before 1984, you can’t feed at this government trough. I can’t say that I understand this requirement. If we’re aiming to improve efficiency, shouldn’t we accept any inefficient car still running, regardless of age? Either way, the Ranger qualifies here.
Qualifying autos must get 18 mpg or less. If you were responsible to begin with and bought a more efficient vehicle, it will not qualify for this program. This number is based on the new EPA ratings found here. The midle number in redis what you’re looking for. The Ranger qualifies here as well at exactly 18 mpg.
You can’t go buy a clunker and trade it in. When you show up at the dealership, you must provide proof that your car has been continuously owned, registered, and insured in your name for the last year. This is where poor, ol’ Ranger falls out of eligibility. I have owned, operated, and insured my truck for some time now, but my dad originally bought it when I was 18. The title is still in his name. A technicality, but I doubt any exceptions will be made for such circumstances in a federal program.
What new cars qualify?
If your current vehicle qualifies, you can move on to the next step of figuring out what new cars you can buy and still qualify for the incentive. These are the most notable rules:
The MSRP must be less than $45,000.This figure seems just high enough to allow you to buy most of the latest and greatest efficiency technology, but bars you from trading up to some ridiculous luxury auto. Fair enough, I guess.
It must be brand spankin’ new.You cannot trade your clunker in for any kind of used automobile and qualify for this program. We’re trying to spur consumerism and save our beloved auto-makers here, people! I don’t like this rule. I think we’re sending the wrong message by implying that we can only support the economy by buying something new. I would like to see a program like this cover late model, used vehicles that meet all the other critera.
Your new car’s rating must be at least 4 mpg better. But consider that 4 mpg will only get you an allowance of $3,500. To receive the full $4,500 rebate you must improve your milage by 10 mpg. This only applies to passenger cars, though. The chart below demonstrates the fuel economy requirements for different types of vehicles.
The various fuel economy requirements for different types of new vehicles
What should I know if I’m going to take advantage of this?
There are a few more things you should know about the Cash for Clunkers Program if you’ve decided that you need a new car and will be eligible to participate.
Rebates won’t take effect until late July. All the final details of how this program is going to work are still being figured out. Currently, the scheduled date for implementation is “sometime next week.”
They won’t last long. The language of the program states that there will be $1 billion to fund these rebates and the program will expire in October or when the program runs out of money, whichever comes first. Current estimates expect the money to last only through August. However, my skeptical mind tells me this might just be hype to get people to act fast. The economy is still in really bad shape, unfortunately.
You won’t get full trade in value for your current car. Since the rules of the Cash for Clunkers program states that all cars collected must be scrapped, you will likely only be able to recieve the scrap value for your trade-in. So, if your current car qualifies, but is still worth more than the rebate you’ll get, it would make little financial sense to take it.
Should I participate?
I don’t know. How’s that for an answer? Everybody is different. Weigh your options and your actual needs and do what’s best for you. On a more general note, a program like this brings up some mixed feelings for me. I ask myself questions like:
Is this really a good way to improve our nation’s fuel economy? The cars taken off the road by this program will be scrapped and you can only trade-in for a new vehicle. Something just feels irresponsible about throwing out something that still works (trade-ins must be in drivable condition) and only rewarding those that purchase something new.
Are we really gaining that much? It seems like the program’s mpg improvement rules are a bit lax. I understand that there were a lot of complex issues to address when deciding to implement a program like this and probably a lot of political trade-offs to make it happen, but how much good are we really doing ourselves by giving $3,500 to someone who only improves their gas mileage by 2 mpg (minimum requirement for a light duty truck)
I’m not saying that this was the right or wrong thing for Congress to do, but these kinds of questions weigh heavily on my mind when I think about what we’re really getting for our money. For all the current rules of the program and a (somewhat) comprehensive list of FAQs, check out the official website at cars.gov.
What do you think? Is this going to help us out of our recession? Is it going to improve the efficiency of our nation’s auto fleet? Are you going to take advantage of the program? What will you trade in?
Last summer was a huge wake up call for millions of Americans. Gas prices soared to record highs and many families found themselves involuntarily reducing their travel or, worse, having to choose between buying gas or other necessities like groceries. Now, this all-encompassing global recession has gone a long way to reset gas prices to more reasonable levels, but using that as an excuse to ignore our mega-dependence on fossil fuel would be awfully short sighted given such an opportunity to improve. As self-proclaimed frugalites and stewards of our environment, we owe it to ourselves and those around us to continually find ways to lead more sustainable lives. Sometimes, implementing changes in our lives to achieve this can be difficult, but sometimes it can be easy. Saving gas (and consequently money) is easy. Let’s find out how.
After spending the previous 8 years driving without a care in the world, I found myself with less and less expendable income as I faced higher and higher prices at the pump. I finally got sick of it and decided to pick up a new hobby – hypermiling – increasing fuel efficiency through improved driving habits. Anyone can do it in any automobile, it’s free, and there are tons of tricks out there to squeeze every last inch out of every drop of gas. There are even whole web-communities dedicated to hypermiling, like CleanMPG. I picked a few specific items to focus on and managed to increase the fuel economy of my trusty old Ford Ranger from a paltry 17 mpg to a still paltry, yet more respectable, 24 mpg – a 7 mpg increase! At today’s fuel price ($2.75 at the station down the street) that works out to a savings of $46 a month for the average driver traveling 1000 miles per month. Extend that out 12 months and I’m looking at saving $550 and 4,000 pounds of CO2 emissions every year. Would you make a few easy changes to your habits if it meant saving $550 a year? Here’s what I do (in order of importance):
Slow down: Cruising down the freeway at 75 mph is a lot more fun than at 55, but chilling out and slowing down a bit will net you the biggest gains in fuel economy. Many cars are the most efficient between 45 & 55 mph.
Accelerate slowly: Replace that lead foot with an aluminum one! Foot 2.0. Lighter! Stronger! Smarter! Make it a point to accelerate slowly from a stop instead of blasting off the line like you’re going for a new quarter mile record. If you have a manual transmission, pay attention to the RPMs when shifting as you’re accelerating. I like to shift around 2,250 RPM. That may seem low to most drivers, but I have discovered it’s optimum for my Ranger. Your car may be slightly different. If you drive an automatic vehicle, simply focus on depressing the accelerator slower.
Coast to stops: Rather than maintaining speed up to a stop light and then slamming on your brakes like most drivers seem to do, try to anticipate how much momentum you need to come to a stop without using any pedals. The easiest way to do it is usually just to take your foot off the gas as soon as you see the light ahead of you turn yellow. If you’re too close, you’ll have to use your brakes anyway. If you’re too far away, you’ll realize you’re not going to make it and have to accelerate a little. You’ll almost never get it perfect, but just trying will improve your fuel efficiency. When I lived in downtown Portland, I used this strategy to figure out that if I cruised at a consistent 15 mph, I could get all the way across town without ever using my brakes.
Use cruise control: When using cruise control on long trips it becomes obvious very quickly how bad people are at moderating their speed. Get in the right hand lane, set your speed for 55 mph and let it do all the work.
Turn off your car in the drive-thru: You can do this at long stop lights too, but pay attention. If you’re motor is off and the light turns green, you might find yourself wasting gas trying to accelerate too quickly to compensate. The general rule is that if you anticipate being stopped for longer than 10 seconds, turn your engine off. This tip gets debated incessantly. People argue whether you actually save gas (it’s been proven you do) and whether you wear out your starter, alternator, and engine faster by turning on and off more frequently. I won’t tell you to use this tip as I cannot vouch for the possible extra wear on your engine, but I will say that once I started doing this, I did notice a reasonable, sustained bump in my average fuel economy (just under 1 mpg). If you’re not comfortable doing this in traffic and you don’t spend any time waiting in drive-thru lines, you won’t get much out of this one.
So there you have it, 5 extremely simple behavior changes that I made to increase my fuel economy by 7 mpg and save $550 a year. Of course, everyone is different and so is every car. You may not achieve the exact same results that I did, but if you make a conscious effort to change your behavior, I highly doubt you will be disappointed no matter what vehicle you drive. You might do better than me! And don’t forget that these tips become more and more lucrative as gas prices go up. They’re relatively low right now, but there’s no doubt that they are headed up in the long term. If gas goes back to $4.50 a gallon like it did last summer, my savings increases to $912 per year.
The projected savings for my Ranger increases substantially as the price of gas climbs.
In order to track your progress you’ll need to regularly calculate your fuel efficiency. You can easily do this the caveman way by dividing total miles traveled by the number of gallons replenished at each fill up (you’ll always need to fill up all the way for this to work), or you can join me on this cool new website, Fuelly.com and input the data from your receipt after each fill-up and Fuelly will make lots of pretty tables and graphs about your fuel consumption for you to be amazed by. Honestly, it is a neat website. If you decide to sign up, add me as a friend (username: CombatWombat) and we can follow each other’s progress.
Don’t stop here! There are so many more gas saving tips out there that you can use to improve your mileage. Roll down your windows and turn off your A/C. Unload heavy objects that you don’t need. Plan your trips better. The list goes on and on. Spend some time on the CleanMPG site that I mentioned earlier if you want to become a hypermiling nutjob (that’s a compliment where I come from).
Do you practice hypermiling? Can you offer any other “high value” tips? What goals could you accomplish with an extra $500 or more a year? Share your hypermiling story if you have one!
Hey all! I’m a slow learner when it comes to this interwebz stuff, but I have been working hard lately to update Frugally Green, adding features to improve your experience here. And I won’t stop until this is the best environmentally focused money blog (money focused environmental blog?) on the web! Just so you know what’s changed recently:
I’ve added a subscribe section to the sidebar so that you’re never but one click away from getting all the latest Frugally Green updates (like this one!).
If you look to the top right of the site, you’ll notice there is now an archives page where you can find any post no longer held in the “Recent Posts” section of the sidebar.
Right next to that archives link you will also find a contact link. I can’t believe it took me so long to add it, but now you can feel free to buzz me with any questions, concerns, or story ideas you might like to share. I also accept fashion tips, Thai food recipes and pictures of cute, furry animals.
In the event that you feel one of my posts is worth sharing, you may now click on the little green button that says “Share This Post” at the bottom of each article to submit it to your favorite social bookmarking site. Spread the word! Drink the kool-aid! Or just spread the word.
Finally, I’ve added a section to the sidebar to link to current blog carnivals that Frugally Green articles are featured in. Check ‘em out. There are tons of great writers out there just waiting for you to find them. These carnivals will help you find them faster.
That’s all for now folks. In the coming weeks you may stumble upon (like how I did that?) a whole new look to the site as well as a freshly designed logo. The current theme that’s been around for about two months (longer than most of my ex-girlfriends) is just not going to work out in the long run (recurring theme!?). Like I said, though, I’m a slow learner with this cyber-geek stuff.
In late 2007, Annie Leonard (short bio here) decided that the world needed to know more about our consumer driven culture here in the U.S. and how it is affecting those around us and those that will follow us in future generations. To do so, she decided to create a 20 minute video titled The Story of Stuff to concisely document all the processes of the materials economy that we’ve created for ourselves. And she does it quite well. For someone intimately familiar with consumerism and product life cycles, the film could be considered overly simplistic, but for the average Joe (like me) who is just starting to become fully aware of the culture that he supports and its ill effects on our planet, The Story of Stuff presents a very complex problem in a comprehensive way that is both informative with all of the statistics cited and catchy with the presentation of the “bigger picture” issues that contribute to them.
After watching a few times to absorb it all (there’s a lot of info packed in 20 minutes!), I decided to go through and reflect on the scenes and passages that impacted me the most. I thought this would be a great way to get myself thinking a bit more critically about the media that I consume. Considering Annie’s overall message, I don’t think she would mind. Go ahead and watch it below. If you’ve got the time, you might even watch it twice to make sure you catch it all.
The introduction
1:52 -- “Well, let’s start with the government. Now my friends tell me I should use a tank to symbolize the government and that’s true in many countries and increasingly in our own, afterall more than 50% of our federal tax money is now going to the military…”
Ok Annie. Some of us may have expected that. Lots of us probably agree but let’s stay on topic. Otherwise, you’re just preaching to the converted.
2:23 -- “The reason that the corporation looks bigger than the government is that the corportation is bigger than the government. Of the 100 largest economies on Earth now, 51 are corporations.”
Wow. I can certainly say that I had never considered that before. Of course, I’ve always known that large corporations are extremely influential, but the idea that they are bigger than most governments is sort of a hard-hitting afterthought for me.
Extraction
3:07 -- “In the past three decades alone, one third of the planet’s natural resource space has been consumed. Gone. We are cutting and mining and hauling and trashing the place so fast that we’re undermining the planet’s very ability for people to live here.”
There’s no doubt about it. There’s definitely a growing concern among even the most skeptical that we can’t sustain ourselves on the path that we are on. However, this statistic seems to imply that we will completely wipe ourselves out in 60 years or less if we don’t change the course we’re on. I don’t think I buy that. Even recognizing the severity of the problem we face, it seems very overstated. Annie sites a book called Natural Capitalism as her source. I’m going to have to check that out.
3:33 -- “…our problem is not that we’re just using too much Stuff, but we’re using more than our share. We have 5% of the world’s population, but we’re using 30% of the world’s resources and creating 30% of the world’s waste.”
I believe it. After traveling to Europe last year with my girlfriend, I saw first hand how much Stuff I had compared to everyone I met. It was truly eye opening, and I don’t even have all that much. Most of the people I know have quite a lot more!
4:30 -- “And what about the people who live here [in the third world]? Well, according to these guys [government and corporations], they don’t own these resources even if they’ve been living there for generations. They don’t own the means of production and they’re not buying a lot of Stuff. And in this system, if you don’t own or buy a lot of Stuff, you don’t have value.”
I’m not sure how I feel about this. I know that I completely disagree with the use of sweat shops to exploit human capital and highly polluting tactics that degrade the environments of the nations that we operate in. We are supposed to be above this. Just because there are no laws in these countries to prevent us from doing these things does not mean that we should. The argument that I hear all the time on the other side of the coin is that our involvement in these third world countries provides technology where it couldn’t have been obtained before and helps to build these places into more developed nations. But do we really want that? Do they really want that? The evidence in this video pretty clearly points out that we’re not helping anyone by doing that. And will we still care about these impoverished nations once we’ve depleted their resources? I sort of doubt it.
Production
4:50 -- “We use energy to mix toxic chemicals in with the natural resources to make toxin contaminated products.”
We all seem to know it, but nobody seems to care that much.I mean, look at what we do with Botox today. People shoot poison into their face just to fit in with today’s “younger is better” mentality.
6:37 -- “Breast is Best.”
No argument there.
7:28 -- “…it’s not just resources that are wasted along this system, but people too.”
This quote is regarding the toxic work that people of the third world are forced into as a result of the degradation of their environment for our benefit. It struck a chord in me.
8:00 -- “So what do they do? Move the dirty factories overseas. Pollute someone else’s land. But surprise, a lot of that pollution is coming right back at us carried by wind currents.”
Another testament to the fact that nothing about our global eco-system works independently. We can work to reduce pollution here at home all we want, but in the long run, it won’t make a difference if we don’t address it globally. Even if you don’t care about what’s going on overseas, know that mother nature is making sure that you’re still affected by it.
Distribution
8:35 -- “It’s all about externalizing the costs. What that means is that the real costs of making Stuff aren’t captured in the price. In other words, we’re not paying for the Stuff we buy.”
I think about this kind of thing all the time when I see some product that catches my eye because it costs so much less than I would expect to pay for it. I start thinking of all the resources, energy, labor, and transportation that went into creating this object and I am at a loss for how they can sell it to me so cheaply. Now, I understand the theory behind economies of scale and God knows I love to get a great product for a great price, but if I’m not paying for the actual cost of producing it, who is?
10:37 -- “We have become a nation of consumers…The primary way that our value is measured and demonstrated is by how much we contribute to this [golden] arrow [of consumption]”
Annie’s right and we all know it. People judge us by the Stuff we have. If you’re frugal like me, you probably don’t have a lot of Stuff. But what do most people think when they see someone that doesn’t have a lot of things? They think that she’s poor and can’t partake in the pleasures that they can. It’s hard to tell the difference between someone who’s poor and can’t afford the things they want and someone who chooses to live a simpler life just by looking at them. And what’s so inherently wrong with being poor? In the system we’ve created, the poor are who we depend on to manufacture and sell us our Stuff.
11:03 -- “Guess what percentage of total material flow through this system is still in product or use six months after their date of sale in North America. 50%? 20? No, one percent. One. In other words, 99% of the Stuff we harvest, mine, process, transport – 99% of the Stuff we run through this system is trashed within 6 months!”
Frightening. It seems impossible that this could be factually correct, but after you consider the first half of film and all the waste generated in the steps a product goes through to get to you, it becomes more obvious where this number comes from. You don’t throw away 99% of the Stuff you buy. Someone else does it for you. Not very frugally green if you ask me.
Consumption
12:40 -- “Planned obsolescence is another word for ‘designed for the dump.’ It means they actually make Stuff that is designed to be useless as quickly as possible so we will chuck it and go buy a new one. It’s obvious with Stuff like plastic bags and coffee cups, but now it’s even big Stuff: mops, DVDs, cameras, barbeques even, everything!”
If this concept isn’t something you’re familiar with, you should really look into it. Planned obsolescence infuriates me. The fact that some companies will spend their research dollars figuring out how to make your gadget break faster rather than on providing you with the best value they can is nearly theft in my frugal opinion. This is why I never judge a product by it’s packaging no matter how warm and fuzzy it makes me feel. This article has a good example of how to identify high quality products.
13:50 -- “But Stuff can not break fast enough to keep this arrow afloat, so there’s also ‘perceived obsolescence.’ Now perceived obsolescence convinces us to throw away Stuff that is still perfectly useful. How do they do that? Well, they change the way the Stuff looks so if you bought your Stuff a couple years ago, everyone can tell that you haven’t contributed to this [consumerism] arrow recently and since the way we demonstrate our value is by contributing to this arrow, it can be embarrassing.”
I am a walking anti-billboard for this concept. The computer I’m writing this post on is over 6 years old, I drive a little 20-year-old pickup, and 90% of my clothing comes from thrift stores. Now, I have respect for myself and keep clean and well-groomed, but if you saw me briefly on the street, walking to the auto parts store on Saturday, you might take me for a hobo! But I don’t care. I have more meaningful goals for my money. I say that, but I still struggle with this from time to time, worrying what others might think of my appearance. There’s a lot of truth to first impressions, but there’s a lot wrong with them too.
15:45 -- “So, in the U.S. we have more Stuff than ever before, but polls show that our national happiness is actually declining. Our national happiness peaked sometime in the 1950s, the same time as this consumption mania exploded. Hmmm. Interesting coincidence.”
Interesting indeed. Though I’m a firm believer in hard work, it seems that it’s more and more common these days to feel like we owe ourselves fleeting pleasures for all of our hard work. There’s nothing wrong with rewarding yourself for a job well done, but the problem is that it can become so habit forming. If you find yourself trading away all your resources for things that aren’t going to bring you true, lasting joy, it’s time for a cold, hard look at your spending habits. Maybe even your working habits! Check out this article if you’re interested in learning how to want what you already have.
Disposal
17:42 -- “Dioxin is the most toxic man made substance known to science. And incinerators are the number one source of dioxin. That means that we could stop the number one source of the most toxic man-made substance known just by stopping burning the trash. We could stop it today.”
Could we? I mean, that sounds great and we could, literally, just stop burning trash today. But where would we put it? The reason we burn trash is to make it fit into a smaller space. Unless we fervently tackle production and consumption first, the only alternative to burning trash is to create bigger landfills. Burning trash sucks, but so do bigger landfills!
Another way
19:28 – “But the good thing about such an all pervasive problem is that there are so many points of intervention. There are people working here on saving forests and here on clean production. People working on labor rights and fair trade and conscious consuming and blocking landfills and incinerators and, very importantly, on taking back our government so it really is by the people, for the people.”
This is a breath of fresh air after what seemed like a bottomless pit of despair. There certainly does seem to be a heightened awareness around these issues now and there are all sorts of bright people trying to figure out how to fix them. However, Annie’s last comment about taking back the government rubbed me just a little bit, umm, not wrong, but…funny. Early on in the film, Annie mentioned that corporations have become larger than government, insinuating that it’s the will of the corporation that manifests itself on society.
It’s all true, but I take issue with the popular notion that big business is to blame for all of our problems. To me, this is a cop out for personal reflection and change. Big business responds to what we as a collective people demand. If our environment is being destroyed by these massive companies, we need to look at ourselves and realize that we are the problem and corporations are the symptom. It’s easy to spread blame. It’s much harder to take responsibility. But this is exactly what we must do by demanding the change we desire!
Final words
All in all, Annie really excels at taking a multifaceted, complex issue and breaking it down into interesting, digestible pieces for someone like me, who might get lost in a text book trying to understand it all. Though she makes some statements that cause me to raise my eyebrow a bit, I feel the overall content is genuine and well intentioned. By looking a bit deeper at the concepts that she presents, it’s easy to make the connections between frugality and sustainability.
This reflection process has proven very helpful to me. Too often I see a video, read an article, or hear a program and simply accept the content or completely dismiss it. It’s a reaction to this fast paced world that often leaves me with sensory overload. It’s so important, though, to slow down and think critically about the information that we consume. It’s through self-awareness that we can come together to solve these kinds of “larger than life” problems. As Annie mentions at the end, the problems we face today were created by people. There is no reason to believe that people can’t solve them.
What did you think of the Story of Stuff? Any strong reactions to it? Did anything in particular ring true? Did you find yourself disagreeing with any parts of it?
We all remember the popular children’s fable, The Tortoise and the Hare – a story that teaches us the virtue of setting and maintaining a pace to achieve our goals. In it, a turtle becomes tired of listening to a nearby rabbit brag about how quick he is and challenges him to a race. The rabbit sprints away at the start, taunting the turtle for being so slow. Soon, though, the rabbit becomes tired. Looking back to see that the turtle is so far behind him, he decides to rest under a tree, falling asleep. He is later awakened by the cheers of the other woodland creatures as the turtle crosses the finish line, realizing that he’d slept too long and allowed the turtle to pass him.
