Being Green – It’s Different Here On The East Coast.
Posting has been light these last few days because I am in Boston visiting family for a few days. But I had a few minutes to write something down that has been bothering me, and maybe some of you east coasters can correct me if I am way off base here. It seems as though people here (where I am, not up and down the entire seaboard) are not all that interested in being green, recycling, buying organic foods, etc. It’s all about prepackaged meals, frozen veggies, high fructose corn syrup this and that…it’s…different.
Yea, it is an incredibly large over-generalization to make, but from where I am sitting, I am seeing that it’s more important to save time and save money than it is to recycle an aluminum can, bring your own bag to the grocery store or buy a fresh vegetable. And it’s not just people in my immediate family, it seems to be most other places as well.
There are no e-waste recycling centers and nowhere to recycle plastic (just glass, aluminum and newspaper). It’s weird and kind of time-warpish…
So please, if you are an east coaster (I am currently near Boston), let me in on your thoughts on the state of the “green” movement here on this coast. Is it just me and my current surroundings, or are people pretty lax about the environment?
You may also like:
- Do One Thing: Recycle For Others Who Don’t Have Recycling Options.
- Thinking Outside The Green Box.
- What It Doesn’t Mean To Be Green.
- The Six R’s Of Being Green.
- Do One Thing: Buy It In Glass Instead.
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It might be where you are. Each city in CT has it’s own recycling policies. For instance, the town I live in does not have mandatory recycling, however the condo I live in has an outside company handle our waste, and we have a good recycling program here. The big box grocers have just started offering reusable bags and discounts for bringing your own. It’s slow, but it’s progress.
My best friend lives in New Hampshire and for a state with such a reputation for cunchy granola tree hugging hippies (love you all) they have a terrible recycling program.
I am currently in Buffalo, NY. in the complex I live currently they have a small outdoor shed with holes in the wall for you to drop in stuff for recycling, but it is mostly ignored for the three massive dumpsters next to it.
back at home in Central NY we have individual recycling bins in our homes for plastics, paper, glass, cardboard and such, then at the market we can return plastic and paper bags in addition to your usual soft drink cans. it does really depend on where you are.
on the other hand I just took a long trip from Oregon to NY and can say here things do seem a little more lax in opting-in on recycling, it seems second nature on the west coast.
I grew up in VA before moving out to LA. I found it easier to recycle out there than here. We just had blue recycle bins we put out by the curb. It was required in my NC college town with fines to the university if we didn’t recycle recycleables. Moving out here I had to wade through traffic to find a crap shack in front of a run down grocery store. Mindfulness and green-ness out west is a consumerist sham to me–a lot of talk among a very small part of the population that still insists on driving gas guzzlers and eating take out in styrofoam.
Hear ye, hear ye! This landlocked midwest has very little interest in “being green”. I am seen as a Little Green Alien each time I take reusable bags to the store.
Thanks everyone for your comments, appreciate them. I did find some small havens of green-ness after I wrote this post and it will make some good blog entries in the coming days. Thanks all!
Unfortunately, being “green” is not as common on the east coast… especially depending on where you are! There are, obviously, certain places, and certain folks, that are more educated in the knowledge of buying eco and organic… but it is not so much of a “lifestyle” as, for example, in California. Our business started as an “eco-everything” department store over 15 years ago, and within the first year we became a mail order catalog. Why? Because we are based out of Virginia, and most of our customers are West Coast or Northeast and New England. BUT, we have defintitely noticed a BIG difference in the last decade. We now have local customers who actually know what the word organic means! Little steps can make a big difference. Hopefully, with all the information about environmentally-smart choices, more and more people will begin to embrace the ideals and benefits they can contribute to make our world a better place. We shall see, I guess.
Go Solar! So Wind! Go Organic! It’s awesome.
-c
[...] know I kind of went off a little about how the east coast does not seem to be as concerned with all things green, but I did manage to find a little haven while visiting Boston…O’Naturals, an organic [...]