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A Day in the Life |
It's 5:30 am.
The CD player in the other room begins playing Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis. The pre-dawn lethargy and the chill in the house conspire to discourage, and I take another hour to rise.
Downstairs the thermometer reads 57 F; outside it's in the low 40's. The house is cold, in part, because I don't mind, and in part because it is too expensive: my house is poorly insulated, drafty, with single-pane plate glass windows--and heated by an old electric furnace. And although here in the northwestern US we have some of the cheapest electricity anywhere, I still can't justify the cost.
Every appliance I will use today is powered by the falling waters of the Columbia and Skagit rivers.
My only concession to the cold, I turn on a space-heater in the bathroom. I shave. But in the late 20th Century here in the technophilic US, I shave strangely: I use a straight razor and brush. It's the one habit I have that doesn't produce trash: no shaving cream cans, no disposable razors, nothing--even the soap is wrapped in just a plain, recyclable cardboard band. It does use a little water, and a little electricity (to heat the water), but not much of either.
From here the day gets consumptive rather quickly.
I take a hot shower. The shampoo bottle has the reduce-reuse-recycle triangle on the bottom with the number 2 inscribed in it. Below that are the letters HDPE. "High-density polyethylene" comes to mind, but I have no idea if that's what they stand for.
But that's not the point.
This container is recyclable and I know it. But I also know that every shampoo bottle I've ever emptied is lying - still in much the same condition as when I discarded it - in some nearby landfill. Of course, there's all that falling water in the Columbia and Skagit rivers that isn't helping salmon spawn; it's too busy making electricity to heat my shower.
I brush, dress, and I'm out the door on the way to work.
I had thought of bicycling to work today, but sloth got the better of me. So that's another gallon of gasoline out my car's tailpipe and into everyone's lungs. Oh, well. At least I'm comfortable on my stop-and-go, twenty mile commute.
On entering my office, I see the four desk lamps, two monitors, and two Pentium-powered PCs that are on continuously. It's just more fish water lighting my life. I should know better and turn all of that off when I leave in the evening.
No. I do know better, I just don't do better.
In the cafeteria, my lunch comes on a polystyrene plate. At least that is recyclable, and I even recycle it, since my company has numerous clearly-marked bins. Once upon a time the plates were disposable, but a lot of people complained and the food service vendor switched to polystyrene. I can't think of anything that I've bought that was made out of recycled polystyrene, but I'm sure someone has. I hope.
After work, I'm back in my car for another twenty miles of slow, polluting comfort. One quick phone call, and I'm off again, running an errand to a friend's house. It's ten miles each way; that makes it three gallons for the day.
I get home just before 11 pm. It's too late to cook dinner, and I'm too tired anyway. It's probably better for the fishes that way - I have an electric stove.
I brush my teeth and notice that the Tom's of Maine toothpaste tube is recyclable. I can't recall ever recycling one. With one last flourish, I add another two foot strand of dental floss to my landfill-destined wastebasket.
Lying in bed, I think that tomorrow's going to be much the same: another three gallons of gas, thirty or forty gallons of water, many kilowatts of electricity, trash, pollutants. Ugh.
A sustainable life seems so remote. But I try not to think about it, or I'll be up all night (again). So I fall asleep, ignoring the cost of my disposable habits.
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