One of the goals of my Pyr guys in the Dragonfire series is saving the earth. And one of the forces that the earth needs to be saved from in this series is humans and our influence on the planet.
So, maybe it’s pertinent once in a while to talk about “green” issues here. And what I’m going to talk about today is reducing one’s environmental footprint. This is an analogy – an environmental footprint being a measure of how much of a mark your lifestyle has upon the planet. It’s a reference to the idea of leaving a footprint in a wilderness zone, quite possibly to an old saying “Take nothing but a picture; leave nothing but a footprint.” How we choose to live, quite reasonably, influences our energy consumption, our waste generation, our consumption of products, etc. etc. and generally, the size of the mark our presence makes on the earth.
Lots of people these days are talking about diminishing our individual (or household) environmental footprints. Once upon a time, there was a book called FIFTY SIMPLE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE THE EARTH. I liked this book a lot because its core notion was that small gestures add up – it was working for the cumulative effect. So, each change was comparatively minor, but the assumption was that, in unison, the changes would make a difference. The more people who took on those changes, the greater the cumulative influence.
My current issue of choice is the dryer. I don’t like the dryer. I don’t like how clothes smell when they come out of it. I don’t like the static that it puts in fabric, or how hard it is on fabrics. Ours is an old monster, and it’s losing functionality – right now, HOT works, which means everything gets cooked and shrunk. Ick. A new dryer is on the agenda for the future-and-yet-undetermined date when that room gets renovated. For the moment, I live with this one, and quietly despise it. (The feeling is probably mutual.)
Recognizing this, Mr. C. bought and installed a clothesline, one of those ones that works like a square umbrella.
Wow. I love it. I’d forgotten how much I like hanging out the laundry in the sunshine. It also takes longer than I recalled, but it’s good thinking time. The other thing I’d forgotten is how heavy a basket of wet towels is. I get a good workout when I do laundry now. Even if the washing machine was inside the door closest to the clothesline, it would be a bit of work to haul them over there – there’s a set of stairs between my washer and clothesline. It’s clear after a day of doing laundry just how those women in 1950’s ads had teeny tiny wasp-waists!
Plus each time I let that dryer sit and sulk, choosing the clothesline instead, I reduce our environmental footprint. As a bonus, I get some aerobic workout, esp if I take the stairs fast. It’s all good.
How about you? Do you have a clothesline? (Is it true that some neighbourhoods ban them?) Have you made any changes recently to green up your life?
Deborah Cooke & Her Books 
Our neighborhood technially bans clotheslines. It’s written into the covenants of the district. I don’t think that many people actually abide by that rule as I see a few clothes hanging out on a sunny day. I personally have not gotten to that point in being green, mostly because the spousal unit does the laundry much more than I do and I am happy to have his help….
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Oh, Alicia, I wouldn’t mess with his system, either!
d
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Working on getting my clothesline up and running…again. I love drying towels outside as I love them rough and raspy.
If it wasn’t pouring down rain today, I’d be outside hanging a few things to dry.
Maybe tomorrow will be sunny enough.
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Kristen – How fun that you like the towels rough! I’m trying to figure out how to soften mine up a bit.
d
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I’m not quite into the hanging laundry school of greenness, but I have begun saving stuff for recycling, something I never used to do. Now the newspapers, glass, cans, plastics, and cardboard are hauled to the base recycling center ever few weeks.
While plastics take up the majority of my recycling (you’d be surprised at all the plastic you take for granted), I was intrigued to see that cardboard was my second biggest pile. Cardboard cereal boxes, soda boxes, etc. really add up.
Our other nod to environmentalism is to set the thermostat a few degrees higher for the air conditioner this year. But I’m not sure how long I’m willing to hang out at 80 degrees, when 78 is a lot more comfortable for me. (And I know people who keep theirs on 73 in the summer and 78 in the winter. Yikes.)
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You have to take your recycling to a depot? They pick ours up every couple of weeks – and it is amazing how it piles up. Packaging, esp for food items, has become excessive, IMO. Fortunately, we have a nice clean bulk store locally, so I buy a lot of food items in bulk. It’s cheaper and minimizes the packaging waste.
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Yep, love those rough, fresh dried towels.
Heaven for this old wolf. 😉
Taught the kids/hubby to recycle their pop cans and water bottles. Next up, converting them to flatten the pressed cardboard boxes so they can be recycled.
I have to take all the stuff to the burn to energy site, which has a recycling area set up for happy green donations.
Now if it’d just get sunny again so I could line dry some items.
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Deb, We haven’t had a dryer for 16 years or so, we have a nice clothesline and also hang everything indoors in the winter to add humidity. What I also dislike about dryers is the use of dryer sheets and the smell that is not only in the clothes forever but in the great outdoors.
When I was waiting for my ride to work(carpooling) the other morning, I thought I’d check out my front garden and I couldn’t smell anything in the air but Bounce coming from the dryer vents around me.
Just one of the many times the great spring outdoors smell has been overwhelmed.
Cheers, Terri
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Terri –
You’re right about dryer sheets. I dislike that smell, too, and it’s getting harder to find unscented ones.
I need to figure out where to hang things inside, too. Hmmm…
d
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