Tuesday night I took part in a focus group run by CofC communications students working with the Charleston Green Committee. The discussion was quite lively and informative. In fact I barely got to say a word throughout the session, but my mind was racing (as best it could after a long day). The thing I came up with that seemed to unite all the concerns and suggestions brought up was that what is needed is to make being green, easy. Or to put it another way, the easy decisions we make every day should be green. One example that came up was recycling. The City of, and College of, Charleston do not do a very good job of recycling, especially compared to cities and colleges around the world. Right now it's difficult to recycle. In my building, I have to walk down to the end of hall, cross a bridge, down the stairs, to the end of another hall in order to deposit my recyclables in the proper place. Now I don't mind this at all, this is actually some of the little exercise I get in my day. But there are many others that are not willing to go out of their way to recycle - it's much easier to throw things away in the trash. There are trash bins everywhere - I've got one under my desk (which rarely gets used). So I have a simple decision to make - take the easy route and toss my recyclables in the trash can in my office or take a 2 minute walk to properly throw them away. But what if the easy route was to recycle? What if there were recycling bins everywhere and people had to go out of their way to find a regular trash bin? We'd see much more recycling because that would be the easy decision. We can apply the same logic to other decisions. For example, if I were looking to buy a new refrigerator and the more energy-efficient version was also the cheaper one, my decision would be easy. So if the "green" decision was the one that was quicker, simpler, cheaper, etc. it would be much easier being green. So to try to take environmental-friendliness to the mainstream, we need to take a look at each individual issue and find ways to make the green option, the easy option.
In case you're stuck with the old Kermit the Frog song in your head (or maybe you are NOW), here's the video: It's not easy being green. Enjoy.
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Yay for the Kermit video! I agree completely that far more people would participate if recycling was easier and an automatic thought rather than a secondary regard. I really enjoyed seeing the recycling bins on the streets in Madrid, Spain. They looked like huge ghosts from Pac-man with small holes for bottles and cans. Pretty basic. I even saw one of them get emptied by a service truck. It reminded me that it can be done and judging by the loud crash of bottles and cans people will use it if it's available. Simple and wonderful.
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