Save Money, Help Save Mother Nature

by Lawson Schaller

Frugality is good for the environment.  I was going to write this column in November but was concerned about being called a scrooge during the holiday season.  Encouraging my fellow citizens to spend less and conserve more during the biggest time of the retail fiscal calendar could be controversial. Many of you may have noticed the articles and books that were out over the holidays on making (vs. buying) gifts for others, or buying used, and consuming less.

Encouraging people to consume less, spend less, and conserve more can be seen as downright un-patriotic.  Not that long ago we had our highest office in the land encouraging all good citizens to be patriotic and go to the mall, and spend (OMG!).

I am all for a healthy vibrant economy.  Don’t get me wrong.  However, I am also in favor of a strong, healthy, and vibrant environment.  Negatively impacting a healthy, resource rich environment also negatively impacts an economy.  Actually I prefer the term Mother Nature over the environment; it sounds and feels more real and personal.  Less clinical. 

Back to being a scrooge - spend less, save more.  Good for your retirement fund, or your kid’s college fund, or whatever other longer term goals you may have.  Frugality, conserving, and saving may have a short term impact on our economy but the long term benefits are good for all species.    

Can’t we do with a few less miles in the car hurrying to the store for a pint of ice cream or a pint of the finest at the local public house?  Now, I am all for the local creamery and brewery, most certainly.  And by the way, buy local.  Many reports (one in recent business week) have shown that supporting local businesses is way better for the local economy than supporting a large multinational.  Now some may accuse me of not only being a scrooge but also a communist.  Not support the local multinational! What?! Blasphemy!  Well . . . I think your local baker, brewer, café owner, mechanic, etc. would completely understand and support your support of local businesses.

Perhaps we should cut back on our electronic gadgets . . . update every five years instead of three? Or eight years instead of five – you get the point.  Somewhere in the world they are digging very massive holes to get raw material for our stuff. 

For some it can be hard to imagine, but somewhere, everyday, in a not too far off continent there are people (often children) working for wages that are less than our latte budgets - not only working for pennies but working in dangerous and unhealthy conditions.

This raw material is transported across the globe through various channels and mazes of manufacturing, assembling, distribution and retail centers before it gets to us.  That is an awful lot of energy and material there, folks.  We can slow this wear and tear on Mother Nature and give her a chance to recover a wee bit. We can do this by consuming less, conserving more.  Less is more.

Buying used is also good for the budget.  There are tons and tons of embodied energy in used items.  We save all that energy by not having to dig big holes, produce, and transport the goods to market.

We are increasingly living in a disposable society.  Repairing items seems to be moving toward a thing of the past.  Hole in your pant's knees?  Throw em’ out.  Hole in your sweater's elbow? Throw it out.  Zip lock bag for our sandwich at lunch?  Throw it out.  I reuse baggies 10 or twenty times before they start to fall apart.  It was so refreshing to cross paths with an elderly woman who does the same thing.  She reuses her baggies over and over – how cool.  Radios and other electronic items seem to have an increasing level of built in obsolescence.  Let’s see, send it off for repair with $10 in shipping, and another $25 in parts or buy a new one “right now” for $30 . . . hmmm . . . let’s see.  Yes, unfortunately it doesn’t add up so well.  Thank goodness there are a lot of electronic recyclers out there. 

When it’s time to make a purchase consider whether it is a "need" or a "want."  Buy local, buy used if possible, and buy quality.  Quality lasts. Better for you, better for Mother Nature.

Great Horned Owl image on banner courtesy Cleve Nash