Consumer Notice has produced A Consumer’s Guide to Reducing Pollution, a comprehensive, yet easy-to-follow handbook for reducing consumer waste. According to Consumer Notice, We The People account for 60% of greenhouse gas emissions, an enormous and pretty frightening number, but one we can probably make a dent in if we all try a little bit harder to reduce our individual carbon footprints.
The car you drive, the household products you use, the amount of energy it takes to heat and cool your home, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and all the other nasty chemicals that contribute to water pollution, the waste you create, including food waste, all create a problem for the planet that has only been on the rise since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Before that, we all lived in balance with the earth and the earth reciprocated by not sending us snowstorms in April, 100-year storm events every 5 or 10 years, and untenable living conditions in the hottest/wettest climates, something we are beginning to experience with regularity.
That is not to say that it’s all our fault. Who doesn’t want to own the newest and best appliance, automobile, iPhone, etc. We all do — at least that’s what advertisers tell us — but do we need to? My husband still uses a 50-year old John Deere tractor for grass cutting and snow plowing, a simple machine that he can fix himself. My neighbor’s $2,000 dryer broke after one year because the electronic components crapped out. The technician told him it wasn’t fixable. So is it better to have the newest model with bells and whistles that you don’t understand or an old reliable that you can work on yourself? Until you do the math on the waste stream of creation and the carbon footprint of usage for each of item, it’s hard to tell.
Yet as consumers, we should not bear the brunt of the work, but rather be equal partners with government and industry. I’ve been waiting for years for a marketable and widespread alternative to plastic, but unless someone in manufacturing makes one for us consumers to buy, we’re stuck with the fledgling alternatives that can never seem to get traction because no one is forcing corporations to take the highest road. We sure could use more environmentally correct options, but to do that, we need the government to regulate and industry to innovate by providing us with the best available environmental alternatives at all times, whether we are looking to replace big ticket items like automobiles or just trying to buy lunch. Rather than always pointing the consumer in the direction of the lowest hanging fruit — I’m looking at you, recycling — government and industry should be presenting us with the gold standard of what is environmentally achievable in the 21st century.
Take fossil fuels, so 20th century, yet we continue to rely upon them as if they are the Rosetta Stone of energy independence. If government did for nascent technologies such as wind, solar, and remediation of chemical waste in water like it does for the fossil fuel industry we could be out of the climate change conundrum and on to greener pastures, as they say. I mean, does Exxon really need another tax break when they’ve had one after another record-breaking profits in the billions in the years since Covid? Instead we have an Appointment in Samarra and no way to circumvent the climactic changes that are already barreling toward us. (If you haven’t read this classic by John O’Hara, it means a date with Death and it is a fantastic read.) Perhaps you don’t know this, but if we don’t start making some big changes pronto we are going to be facing a myriad of climate-related changes for which we have no template. Translation: things could get pretty dicey over the next couple hundred years — mass starvation, migration, floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, you know, Armaggedon kind of stuff.
I urge you to take a few minutes to review Consumer Notice’s suggestions. Small changes can add up to big changes, meaning even small changes over time multiplied by 8 billion participants can and will have a drastic impact on the overall health of the planet.
Thanks for reading.
Pam Lazos – 4.9.24
Green Life Blue Water 
Thank you! Needs to be said!
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Thank you!
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Right on Pam!
I’ve had my LR rug for 20 years. The cat destroyed it with their claws. I turned it over. Looks great.
Plastic bags that we get for free at the grocery chains (& all single use plastics) were faded out, made illegal in Canada.
People started using these cheap fabric/papery/recyclable bags – .30 at the store.
Or regular totes.
In Nov. 2023, a judge reversed the order. The plastic companies won.
Still, plastic bags remain unpopular, and the chains (all products) have stuck with paper so far. I’ll see what happens.
In this case I saw people doing the right thing, once they had to. People still seem to be doing the right thing, as I don’t see a lot of plastic bags out there.
I’m going to check your link!
Thanks Pam!
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Why oh why would the judge reverse the Order?!?! Craziness!🤪
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I’m clicking over, Pam, to read the report. I try very hard to be good to the planet, but I can always use more ideas. And I agree with you that governments need to step in to make a profound difference, but we can all do our parts. Thanks for the post and the link!
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It takes a village, right, Diana?!
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It was an informative article. I already take a lot of these steps, but can always do better.
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That’s all we can do.
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It’s too bad that most of us only implement the suggestions around Earth Day Pam. In conjunction with the EPA’s new standards for drinking water which was the first item I heard on the national early news today, Michigan’s tests for the levels of “forever chemicals”/PFAS are higher than national averages – well, yay Michigan.
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Ah, it’s terrible, Linda. I also just read that part of the problem is the application of biosolids that are high in PFAS to farm fields. Biosolids are the sludge left over from a wastewater treatment plant, generally accepted as good fertilizer since it’s the remains of the waste stream and high in nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and calcium. Problematically, it’s also high in PFAS!
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That’s terrible Pam and it seems to me until a few years ago, I only heard PFAS associated with fire retardants. All of a sudden, the word PFAS keeps cropping up more and more. Now these plastics that are so bad for you, I am hearing one source is water-repellent clothing. Can you fathom how many people wear water-repellent clothing? We’re doomed.
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Oh my, I hope not Linda!
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I hope not too Pam … most people own at least one item of water-repellent clothing!
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Way more than that, I’m sure!
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Beautiful reflection of a sad planet.
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And getting sadder by the moment, Cindy. :o(
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We are on a sinking ship. Government and business leaders, worldwide, don’t truly care enough to set things right. I’m not optimistic, but am hoping to be proven wrong.
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I’m still environmentally hopeful, Neil. EPA just passed standards for drinking water — finally!
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Pam, thanks for the link to “A Consumer’s Guide to Reducing Pollution.” I’ve been doing a lot of the things mentioned, but I could always do more. I still haven’t found a way of eliminate ALL plastics from regular consumption.
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That’s why we need compostable options, right, Rose? It’s also probably not practical to eliminate all plastic since it’s so ubiquitous but we can eliminate the single use stuff for sure. 👍
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Great post. I’ve been avoiding plastics and doing stuff like that for decades. I may have seemed like a crank then, but I am effing prophet now!
How is retirement? Mmmmmmm, retirement.
Xoxoxoxoxoxooxox, Gina
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Same! I was writing about plastics in law school and we’ve got more plastics now than ever!🤪 And retirement is quite nice. I highly recommend it. Also you could never be a crank. 🤗
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