Rubbish is Rubbish

Now two-thirds of the way through Richard Girling's book Rubbish: Dirt on our hands and crisis ahead. I'm thinking there's a lot in this book I could have gone without--the entire 20-page section on how great apples and cheese used to be, for example. Then again, it begs the question of how often we need to hear something repeated before we actually do something about it.

I've gotten three implementable ideas out of this book so far.

1. Go to farmer's markets. Buy local. Avoid supermarkets. Not only does this support local economy and (probably) better humanitarian/environmental business practices, it also reduces the transport of the goods you're buying, which helps the environment out a lot.

2. Reduce your personal waste stream. Everything you use goes somewhere. Be more conscious of what you use in a day. For example: how was your lunch packaged? I should be bringing a tupperware container to the restaurant I get kimbop at, but I haven't yet, which means every time I get lunch there, I throw out a plastic bag, a square of tinfoil, and two wooden chopsticks.

3. Do more research about energy production. I don't actually know how feasible wind power is--but I do know that Denmark gets about 20% of its electricity from wind turbines. This book's reminding me of what a false savior nuclear energy is, considering we don't know what to do with it besides bury it (the book is about the UK), and it's going to be around for way longer than we can reasonably guarantee safe storage.

So...my goal of learning about waste disposal and energy production has not been met by reading this book, but it did help me to refine what it is that I want to learn more about. Sweet!