I have been thinking a lot about my "imprint" on the planet lately. Part of this is due to recent conversations with Sandrine, Didier's sister. Part is due to having recently read Vanity Fair's Green Issue. I am an impressionable person and after 200 plus pages of good writing of bad news I felt compelled to review some of my daily habits and see how I can be a better friend of the Earth.
Finally, my new addiction to blogs has led me to some interesting pages. I've a Google alert for "Guatemala" so I am constantly checking blogs and pages that talk about "my country" (insert the accent you know, girls). The other day I came across the blog of some guy who was recently in Guate and among other things talked about litter on the road side . He had an interesting take about living with your litter and that made me think about how much trash we produce every day.
For two years Didier and I bought bottled water. We stored the used bottles and after amassing a significant number we would pack them up and give them to the cleaning guys at work who can sell them for some Francs and make some extra cash. The two guys are always happy to get the bottles, to the point that they offer to come pick them up at home. Bless them. Still, producing all that plastic trash didn't feel good. So finally we dragged ourselves to the water supplier and bought three large "garrafones" like the ones we use in Guate. Refills are ridiculously cheap (about $2 for 3+ gallons). We kept some of the 1.5 lt bottles and now refill them at home.
The next step was to get a yogurt maker. Local yogurt comes only in liquid form. Creamy yogurt has to be imported and is expensive. Also, used containers cannot be reused or recycled like water and soda bottles. I've made one batch of yogurt already and we're on our way to recover the investment. We think it'll take us about two months of homemade yogurt to pay off the machine. Less trash, too.
Two days ago, I thought about vinegar. I did a Google search and found dozens of ideas for using vinegar. Last Tuesday I spent the afternoon at home, determined to follow all the advice I'd found about vinegar. First, I made gazpacho, then I washed the windows, then the counter top, the sink, the tiles, the floor. I wasn't sure about trying it on the laundry (adding it during the rinse cycle) but I'm glad I did. I was on a vinegar roll and vinegar delivered!
So I think I'll be quitting chemical cleaners soon and switching to vinegar (Didier doesn't know this yet).
If we think about how the world consumes and pollutes, the 100 plastic bottles we're not putting out mean little. I think, however, that these changes are not about "the Earth" but "myself in this planet." An experiment to see how far I'm willing to go on my eco-quest.
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3 comments:
I want to hear more about this yogurt-maker! How does it work?
It seems to me that your imprint is probably MUCH MUCH smaller than that of most people. Just by living in Kinshasa, your energy consumption alone is probably so much less than that of my mother's, for example. But I often think about all those plastic water bottles we're throwing out all over the world, every minute. Didn't a certain wise Guatemalan man have some plans for those plastic bottles???
what a surprise? I was checking the visitors on my blog.. saw this link and seeing the title I and thought "oh, someone from congo, i will tell Ale!"...:-)
Yes, the Guate man is still thinking about it, but I'm not sure for when...In the meantime, better reduce what we use.
The yogurt-maker? it is so easy it's funny. The only thing it does is keep the jars with the mix at an even temperature for the hours it takes the cultures to "come alive." You can use active cultures or buy a yogurt that has active cultures and start from that. I haven't found the active cultures here, so I use a commercial one and then mix it with 1 lt part-skimmed milk. Once you mix it, you pour into the glass jars that come with the maker and you turn the thing on and voilà! 8 hours later your yogurt is ready.
The first time I did plain yogurt because I couldn't believe it was that easy and didn't feel like experimenting. Today I did vanilla, I'll let you know how it comes out.
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