Frugality vs Waste

I'm just as guilty of it as the next person but hell, we're such a wasteful society, aren't we? I was just reading this and this, and it made me think about something that crosses my mind from time to time.

I'm writing this from my desk, about to go home for the evening. Usually come this time I have one or two coffee cups next to me. Usually with something in, cold. I don't think I've ever drunk a full cup of coffee in the three years that I've worked here.

And that's just one example. We all know where coffee comes from, and the ethics surrounding it. And I'm just wasting it. Thankfully, we have huge recycling points all over the office so I make an effort to recycle everything I can.

However, at my house we don't have a recycling bin. I don't know why this is, and I've not looked into it. Pretty much all my food packaging is recyclable, so here again, I'm wasting it. Not just wasting paper, wasting the earth's resources.

Everytime I throw something away - a bottle with a bit of shampoo left, an eyeshadow with barely any powder left...I'm so wasteful. We're so lucky (no matter how much you moan about the state of the country, would you like to be in Libya right now? Or how about Somalia? Darfur? Didn't think so) in our consumerous lives, so living in the NOW and never really thinking about the impact of anything beyond its taste on our lips.

I never throw clothes away though, my charity shop passion works both ways. And I never litter - seeing people's cigarette butts on the pavement riles me. I keep carrier bags to reuse (even if for the most part we just have a full drawer of plastic). But if something is broken, it has to be filed under BIN.

Why is it broken though? Because I didn't take enough care of it, because everything we own is so disposable - we can always buy a new one. This even goes as far as leaving the lights on in a room, leaving my laptop charging overnight when it only takes two hours...I'll be thinking about this at Earth Hour in a few weeks. Earth Hour is at 8.30pm on Saturday 26th March and encourages people to think about their commitment to the future of the planet we camp upon.

Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, when 2.2 million individuals and more than 2,000 businesses turned their lights off for one hour to take a stand against climate change. Only a year later and Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries participating. Global landmarks such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, CN Tower in Toronto, Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Colosseum, all stood in darkness, as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour. And I'll be joining them, sitting in the dark.

We're not bad people, we don't mean to be. After the World Wars and rationing, our families didn't want their offspring to want for anything - we had the childhood that perhaps they never could. But it's gone too far. And it worries me - if I'm thinking this, so many other people are like this too in their laissez-faire attitude. And their children are born into this wasteful lifestyle.

When you leave the room you're in, hit the light switch on the way out. Your planet will thank you for it.