+ Lynn Landes and Zero Waste (part 2)

What actions are new / currently being done to help solve this problem

I really don’t know that anything’s being done much. I was deep into this subject 5 years ago and to my knowledge nothing much has changed since then. We’re producing more plastic than ever before, were wrapping everything in plastic including fruits and vegetables. While some countries are banning plastic bags and I think San Francisco has put a ban on a certain type of plastic bag…. For the most part our country has walked away from this issue, ‘ they’ve got their head in a landfill or something’ So really I don’t see much happening along these lines. Now of course instead of plastic being produced here were just getting it from overseas in our toys from china and its no better that it is made there instead of here.

I don’t really see a serious effort to reduce and recycle.

What can we do as consumers to help solve these issues?

I think it’s very, very important-- and I do this myself personally, to stop buying things that are not necessary. I do not buy soaps or detergents. I wash my clothes with apple cider vinegar, I wash with a combination of apple cider vinegar, oat flour and peppermint tea—I do different things but I do not use soaps or detergents because I feel that they cause more problems than they solve. Also, I’m more into making my own clothes.

So the first thing is-- don’t buy things you don’t need. And particularly think about what it took to get that product to you. For instance I don’t wear metal jewelry anymore because I’m thinking to myself ‘do I really want to support mining diamonds or gold or anything like that destroying the environment to adorn myself.

I don’t wear makeup because I think to myself: well, would I want to live next door to the factory that made this? Would I want to smell everything that was going on, do I want to have this transported so I can slap it on my face? So I choose to a large degree not to buy a lot of things that I used to buy, I just cut it out of my purchasing. What I do though when I go to the yarn store I buy local or I buy yarn that has not been dyed. What I am trying to do is learn basic skills all over again and it is tough. There is a lot of people can knot but hey often buy yarn that is synthetic, pre-dyed ect…and I try not to do that. I am trying to think through everything I do.

When I go to purchase my food, I used to go to Whole Foods all the time but I don’t do that anymore because I noticed Whole Foods was getting a lot of their vegetables from overseas. I’m thinking this is crazy. So what I tend to do is Ill eat in my time zone, so I don’t eat bananas I don’t eat oranges or that kind of thing. But Ill eat other things with acid or vitamin C in them. When I shop I tend to go to a market in Philadelphia that is staffed by volunteers and all the food is ‘local’ within 100 miles. I grow my own herbs and that sort of thing. So I try over time to do more and more stuff on my own, relearn skills that basically have been lost. I try to buy locally and buy organically.

So if you have a company that wants to do stuff, then the thing is to keep it local. I refuse to buy from any of the big box stores—whatever I do I try to do it locally.