On Trying to be Green

Trying to be green and eco-friendly is hard for a normal person. The majority of us are just trying to survive our day to day lives, to pay our rent or mortgage and put food on the table. Some of us have families to look after, others are still unable to settle down, or don’t feel capable of or willing to starting a family. At the same time, we’re being told that we need to protect the environment and save our planet, even as we slip further and further towards destruction. Things are depressing.

But we are told that we can make a difference. There’s things we can do to be more ecologically friendly. For example, we are told to try and drive less and use more public transport. Which is fine if you live in a city, where you actually have public transport. But in rural or even sub-urban areas, bus and train services aren’t exactly as reliable. Sometimes you just have to have a car. A motorbike or scooter is technically better than a car, however it very much depends on where you live. I’m lucky and now live in town, meaning I can walk to the shop to do my shopping instead of driving. However my previous home was much further out of town, so I NEEDED to drive a lot.

Around the house, we are told to use less water and electricity, and to recycle. Recycling though is a lot like having a car, it all depends on whether there are recycling bins nearby. Funnily enough, this is the opposite for me, there are no nearby recycling bins, I need to drive to find them. But there’s no point driving much because I use very little that can be recycled. I don’t see a point on holding on to a pile of trash for two weeks or more, just to drive to recycle it. Plus, it’s not like things like packets for pasta and noodles are recyclable anyway. As for water and electricity, I already try to conserve as much as possible. But there’s a limit to how much you can conserve. I turn off lights I don’t need, but I can’t turn all my lights off. And I can try and save water, after all, I haven’t had a bath in years. but I still need to shower occasionally.

And then there’s the matter of buying groceries. Now, I’m actually quite lucky. I can actually buy local fruit and veg and not bankrupt myself. A lot of the meat I can buy is also local, although I try to avoid buying meat because it’s 1. expensive and 2. not as good for the environment. I’d like to buy free-range eggs, but they are double the price of caged eggs, so I try to avoid buying eggs too. But I have to shop on a budget, and that can often mean buying whatever is cheapest. Most people are like this, they can only buy what they can afford, and most of the time, that means not buying organic stuff. Then again, even the term ‘organic’ can be deceiving. The worst thing is chocolate, which I am planning on giving up because, well, turns out most of it is made with a good pinch of child labour, while the farmers growing the cocoa make pennies. It’s unethical, yet there’s nothing normal people can do except for boycotting chocolate, or looking for brands which don’t use child labour. Assuming that people have the knowledge to do so and the money to afford it.

Really though, the pressure to be green is forced on to normal people. Gas companies have known for decades that their products caused problems. Massive businesses have prioritized making money over being sustainable for years. Yet it’s us normal people who have to do all the hard work in order to try and save our planet. Sure, we can try, but we’re basically pissing in the wind. And we’re all just trying to survive.

I don’t like to be all negative, but things are hard. Really, we need to eat the rich. Because that IS ecologically friendly.