I'm usually more focused on zero waste and recycling nitty gritty in this diary series, but today I'd like to write about the bigger picture. It's strange how zero waste threads through almost everything in my life. I think it's more of an overarching mindset in how I see the world.
The Saturday before last I received a mild concussion. I did not go to the hospital, and that was partly because I don't trust doctors very much and partly because I was worried it would cause the group health insurance rate to go up at my very small company and I didn't want the increase taken out of our paychecks. I'm handy with herbals, being a witch, so I did what I could for myself. One thing I found after googling was that it was fine to sleep after a concussion as long as someone woke up and checked the person every couple hours. I did not have a person available to me, and instead stayed awake for a good thirty hours. Wanting to stay alert and mostly still, I spent much of the time online, surfing and posting. Usually I enjoy being online very much, but this time when it was my only option, I realized how important it is to have real local people in one's life, whether they are friends or merely acquaintances.
I thought a lot about what involved me with other people face to face, and how important even trivial human interaction is for feeling connected to humanity. And I realized that my quest for zero waste, from the mundane to the profound, was the right path to get connected back to my local community.
First, the trivial. I'm a divorced mom with a somewhat full time job, so my weekends are full of housework and my kids, my weekdays are spent at work, and my days off are spent looking for a better job. I do have friends at work, of course, but I like to keep a certain distance and professionalism there. Certainly that human contact is good for mental health but it's not enough for a feeling of being part of the human community.
Of course my kids are wonderful and I enjoy their company very much. But they are both nearing the age where it's important for them to branch out and be independent, to separate from me and form strong social bonds with their peers. In other words I want to make sure to get out of their hair.
So my tally of non-work, non-kid interactions, no matter how trivial, made me realize that it was precisely zero waste that forced me to be superficially social. Nowadays when going through a checkout line doesn't involve any human contact at all, it is talking to the butcher rather than selecting a shrink-wrapped steak on a styrofoam tray, or talking to the deli counter person slicing my cheese and putting it in my container rather than buying prepackaged, that allows for superficial human contact. Going to the laundromat to do my laundry, rather than buying an expensive washer cheaply made that will soon break and go to a landfill, forces me to get out among my fellow bored human beings with the potential for small talk. Shopping at a yard sale helps me to get to know my neighbors, rather than ordering something online from an AI program and having it magically appear in a box on my doorstep a couple days later. Even going to the annual hazardous waste day, I spoke with volunteers who were sorting and organizing.
With the push for standardization, automation and reduction of the work force, zero waste is a pushback requiring customer service when buying something new. Even more so, it encourages skilled craftsmen and tradesmen who are able to repair. Buying a pair of shoes online, although requiring far-off people in a factory and a FedEx delivery person, is not the same as taking a pair of worn shoes to my local cobbler for repair.
Even more conducive to building local community is the idea of community sharing. While it's true that community sharing takes advantage of online advances and sometimes requires them, for example, Zipcar, there can also be a subtle social pressure even though it doesn't directly involve human interaction:
Robin Chase on the Birth of Zipcar and the Future of Transportation
What is interesting though is that as in individual, when you own your own car, you say to yourself, "I want some ice cream," and you get up and drive and get some ice cream and come back.
But when you do car sharing you say, "I want some ice cream. That is going to cost 10 dollars an hour. I am not going to have ice cream, I am going to have cookies, or I am going to buy ice cream on my way home tomorrow, or I am going to get up and walk because it is not worth 10 dollars to me."
So the more profound environmental impact is that car sharing, by virtue of its pricing mechanism, makes people use a car when it is the correct mode of transportation.
People walking are more likely to get to know their neighbors.
And of course some sharing programs are outright conducive to making local social connections. From that same article:
So I developed GoLoco because I thought, "What about all these other people that can't use ZipCar, for whom car sharing is not appropriate? What can we do to make their transportation cheaper, more fun, and reduce their carbon footprint?"
So with ride-sharing we can think of the same excess capacity. On 86% of all car trips people are alone in their car. So we can think, "Wow. There are three or four extra seats in that car, and yet it is costing people 56 cents a mile to travel, which is not insignificant as it adds up to more than $8,000 a year."
So GoLoco was and is looking at the rise of social networks; the rise of really nice mapping, email alerts, text messaging, and PayPal. And we realized we could take the ride-sharing to a different place.
Why don't people ride-share more? Well they might be afraid of strangers. Don't ride with strangers. Ride with people that you share the same office with, that you share the same neighborhood with, that you share the same universities with, that you have the same things in common with, that are friends of friends, that are in the same groups that you are in.
A great overview of the new movement for collaborative consumerism is a TED talk given by Rachel Bostman.
If you don't want to listen to the whole talk, here is a Treehugger interview with her:
Rachel Botsman Explains How Collaborative Consumerism Will Change Our World
And there are examples like peer-to-peer rental, where people are using platforms such as Neighborgoods or Snapgoods. 'Owners' are realizing they can make money from renting out their assets peer-to-peer and 'renters' are experiencing the benefits of not needing to own. Finally, you have examples like 'swap trading' where people suddenly realize they are surrounded by assets they can swap to get what they want versus buying new stuff. The behaviour becomes addictive.
On a deeper level, zero waste is all about how one person's trash is another person's treasure. The key is matching up the unwanted thing with the person who wants it. It's also about being very selective about what you permit to enter into your life, to make sure that every item is absolutely wanted and will be treasured. And it's about thinking outside the box--ignore the neighbors who might think you are weird to line dry your clothes on your back porch. There are more nonconformists out there than you think.
As I was spending those thirty hours feeling acutely alone, I looked back on my life. I had tried so hard to fit in and be normal, to be the sort of woman that every man valued. I was a failure at that, about which my ex-husband frequently reminded me when we were married. I was defective in being a woman, according to his definition, particularly as my unusual sexual abilities grew stronger. He would say to me, "You are so repulsive and disgusting in what you do, no man would ever want you." And I did learn from hard experience after we divorced, that most men would agree with him. So I was feeling rather like trash.
A couple years ago, I did realize that I wasn't just a freak by nature, but that I also had unusual tastes outside the norm. I like men who like to dress as women. I did start dating and exploring those interests, and I had settled into an on and off relationship over the last couple years. I broke it off because I realized I just wasn't a good fit for her. My inclination was just to settle into being a social recluse and not make the attempt anymore. But my concussion made me realize how important it is for me to have emotional intimacy with someone, and I also realized how important it was simply to represent, to be out and known, to let the many many men out there who have been made to feel all their lives that they are trash, that they are defective or pathological for liking to wear women's clothing and feeling like a woman inside, that there are women like me out there and looking for someone, who think they are perfectly wonderful. And what a waste it would be if I shut myself away and missed out on being someone's love simply out of fear. So I have made the effort to be out there and set up dates, to go to munches and to trans get-togethers. Just because it is more difficult to find someone doesn't mean I shouldn't make the effort. And it's not like I live in a repressive community--I live in a suburb of Boston. There are two lesbian couples who own homes across the street from me. There is a wildly inclusive Unitarian church down the street from me. And in the center of my suburban town, there is a very out witch who runs a very out wiccan bookstore. What do I have to fear?
My full realization is that in my world, everything and everyone is valuable. Nothing is trash. The trick is searching, matching and fitting it all together.