Elizabeth Rogers, co-writer of The Green Book, The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet, One Simple Step at a Time
Last week, to celebrate my 42nd birthday, I did the "green mom, back-to-basics, connect-with-nature, be-at-peace-with-my-laugh-lines" trek to beautiful Joshua Tree, with three of my girlfriends and their kids.
The thing about Joshua Tree on the cusp of summer is that it is close to 100 degrees. But I was prepared for the heat -- and prepared to keep my birthday group prepared (and hydrated) -- with reusable water bottles for each one. No piles of sparkletts minis were going to fill our rooms -- there was just no way I was going to make needless waste on the day of my birth.
The first day was a scorcher -- climbing at 7:30 am, the mercury moved past 82. We were well armed: hats, sunscreen and of course our trusty water bottles. But then my son started complaining that his bottle was leaking -- which in fact it was -- leaving him atop a rock panting from thirst.
Here was the problem: we had two days left and we were down a water bottle. To most people, this would be an easily solved dilemma: go buy a few packaged water bottles from the canteen and call it a day. But for me, well aware that we Americans throw away 60 million plastic water bottles per day, I had a hard time doing this. A really hard time. But I had to get over it -- and for that weekend, I shamelessly contributed to this shocking number, knowing full well that you can't stop drinking water in the desert.
The next plastic challenge during my birthday weekend came when one of my girlfriends presented the kids with gleaming new, PLASTIC, battery-operated water guns...
I know it sounds petty, but I truly believe there must be alternatives to plastic toys. I happen to know for a fact that if every child under 12 received just one alternative to a plastic birthday gift this year, we would save an estimated 25 million pounds of plastic from going into our landfills AND the total energy saved by not making those plastic toys could instead be used to bake 31 million birthday cakes.
Yes, this information I have in my head is at times overwhelming -- but more often it stops me in my tracks and makes me look at everything in my life a little differently.
So what's a mother to do with 4 kids and 4 plastic water guns in the sweltering heat? For this weekend, I let them play with the godforsaken guns. This isn't the first time -- and it certainly won't be the last -- that I am straddling the worlds of evangelical environmentalist and mom... that I'm walking the fine line between trying to show people the power of a small shift of habit, and becoming a reclusive on a stationary bike pedaling to generate the power needed to run my house.
I shake it off and try to enjoy my weekend.
译文:
一个词：塑料
作者：《绿色书籍》，《每天指南——拯救地球》，《每次一小步》的合著者伊丽莎白. 罗杰斯
上个星期为了庆祝我的42岁生日，我秉着“环保母亲，回归本色，亲近自然，平和微笑”的心态和三个我的女朋友以及她们的孩子经长途跋涉来到美丽的约书亚树。
约书亚树的种种，在夏季炎热时，温度近乎达到100度。但是对于酷热，我已经做好了准备——即保证我生日团的组员，每人准备了可装水喝的瓶子（和水）。生日那天，我不会在房间挂很多小型的亮晶晶的小物件，不会做任何没有必要的浪费。
第一天很热，早上7:30开始爬山，体温计的水银已经超过了82度。我们都全副武装：带有帽子，防晒霜，当然还有我们离不开的水瓶。但不久我儿子就开始抱怨他的瓶子漏水—他瓶子确实是漏水，使得口渴的他在岩石上喘气。
问题是：我们只剩下两天的时间，而且我们还弄丢了一瓶水。对大部分人来说，这个可能是一个很容易解决的问题：可以去小卖部买一些包装好的瓶矿泉水，然后就好了。但是对于我来说，即我很清楚我们美国人每天扔6千万个矿泉水塑料瓶，我是不能那样做的，确实不能这样做。我必须克服它——不过那个周末我惭愧的加大了这个令人震惊的数据，要知道在荒漠中人们是不能不喝水的。
在我生日的周末期间，我们遇上了下一个塑料难题，即我的一个女友给了小孩们新的闪闪发光的电池操作的水枪，这些水枪是由塑料做成的。
我知道这听起来很细微，但我确信我们的确得把塑料玩具替换掉。我碰巧得知，今年，如果每个12岁以下的小孩只得到一件生日礼物——替换塑料的礼物，那么我们可以省下大约25万磅的塑料扔进垃圾填埋场。而且我们可以拿这些制造塑料玩具省下的能源来烘烤3.1亿个生日蛋糕。
的确，这个想法在我的脑海里，有时候非常强烈—但更多时候我的思绪会被这种想法打断，使我对生活的种种产生了不同的看法。
那么在这酷热的天气里，面对着四个孩子以及他们的四支塑料水枪，母亲是怎么做的呢？这个周末，我让他们玩这些丑陋的枪。这已经不是第一次了，当然也不会是最后一次—我在福音环保者和母亲这两个身份之间僵持着···我一直艰难的徘徊在两者之间，一是试图向世人展示改变一个小习惯的力量，或是做一个不问世事的人，在稳定的环境中集中精力来经营我的家庭。