Celebrating Earth Day with an Obvious Cry for Attention

I'll be honest with you: I've never been a big fan of Earth Day. For one thing, I don't have dreads. And for another, I can't stand drum circles.

I kid. I kid. (Sort of.) The real reason I don't buy into this yearly hullabaloo is that EVERY day should be Earth Day. I like to imagine us waking up every morning smiling at the chirping birds, stretching our arms in the sunshine, and committing ourselves to reducing our impact.

...
Or at least every day but Monday.

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Or at least after we've had some caffeine.

...

Okay, so maybe Earth Day has a point.

Then we can at least use this day to remind ourselves of our commitment. For Earth Day 2008, that's what I've decided to do.

Following in the footsteps of these brave souls (and this one and this one), I'm going to carry my trash around on my person for the next week.

Actually, I prefer to say I'll be accessorizing with it.


[Already collected my first piece: the bastard plug from my egg whites carton]

One of the most insidious environmental factors in buying new stuff is packaging. I'm managing to avoid a lot of it this year with my Not New pledge, but because consumables like food, beverage and beauty prod don't count, I'm not avoiding all of it. I'm still producing trash, and that bums me out.

I'll be following the main rules the Frog Design crowd established:

- Participants must remove all garbage cans from your house/ desk.
o If the participant has a partner, they do not have to participate in this exercise (but may!)
- Participants may not use public garbage cans/ or anyone else’s garbage can.
- Participants cannot give garbage to someone and ask them to throw it away for you.
- Participants may recycle.
- Participants may compost.
- When participants eat in a restaurant, unless it states that it composts, they must finish everything on their plate or take it to a compost facility.
- Participants may flush your toilet.
- Participants may donate objects to Goodwill or other charity organizations.
- Any garbage created must stay on him/her (in a purse, bag etc) or within five feet at all times.

But in homage to Beth at Fake Plastic Fish, I'm adding a rule: ANY plastic, recyclable or not, goes in the "accessories" bag. Because recycling plastic is really DOWNcycling plastic, and that's not very eco-friendly after all.

Thankfully, HCB and I have Ugly Betty pretty dialed when it comes to responsible waste management. But don't take it from me: wait and ask everybody I'm gonna hang out with this week.

I'll do my best to videotape the proceedings, because I know you won't want to miss the natfoolery.

Yours in detritus...