it's not easy bein' green... but it sure is easy spendin' it.

being a useful and neutral member of the natural equilibrium requires the use of common sense, and the rejection of excuses. don't think of a reason why you shouldn't live neutrally, admit the reasons why you should.

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want to do something good for the planet?

stop buying everything that says "green" on the box.

with all the shit going on in the world, it's hard to believe that there aren't more important things for people to worry about than what kind of garbage bags i use.

i do believe that in my life, what kind of garbage bags i use is an important thing for me to worry about. just briefly, however. for about 30 seconds i pondered what kind of garbage bags i use, then the decision was made, and i don't worry about it any more.

i spent 30 seconds thinking about how plastic garbage bags will never biodegrade in a landfill. nope, not even the biodegradable plastic ones. thing about those is, their biodegradation is based on heat. they need to be heated to a certain temperature before the plastics will even begin to "biodegrade". but the problem lies in the reality of their disposal. landfills are moist affairs, and water cools. furthermore, most items dumped in a landfill are either immediately buried in other garbage where they are insulated from the heat of the sun, or they immediately blow away and land in some body of water where the water below keeps them at a low temperature no matter how hot the sun gets. even if biodegradable plastics were afforded the opportunity to bask in a lab perfect atmosphere in which they could break down, they merely break down into toxic gases and tiny little plastic particulates.

so when i thought about it, i realized: i am one man, i create approximately one medium sized bag of garbage every couple of weeks, that equates to about how many paper bags i acquire due to forgetting to bring reusable cloth bags to the grocery store. paper bags are often made of recycled materials, and paper bags will break down in a landfill (in fact even faster if it is buried in moisture), and break down into components that the natural world can currently digest.

decision made: i use paper grocery bags as garbage bags.

my mother, above so many other things about my life that she might be worried about, is appalled by my bag choice.

word on the street is, plastic is simply far superior to paper on the issue of being able to contain a volume of empty space that may be filled by unwanted articles of refuse.

but that mother of mine, like so many others, despite her lifestyle, is down with "going green".

so what solution is there for people who want to go green without changing anything they are doing?

recycled plastic garbage bags, of course.

pause for common sense...

...aaaaand... we're back.

recycled plastic garbage bags? but these are garbage bags. using them to haul trash seals their fate. their cycle will end here. so these bags, a mere 60% recycled, mind you, will quickly end up in a landfill, or ocean, or cuddly baby seal esophagus, where they will be removing 60% of the recyclable plastic from the reuse cycle, and adding 40% more new plastic to the earth.

what's green about this?

this is the opposite of green.

this is red (color wheel humor).

this actually hurts the planet by turning potentially reusable plastics into trash.

so if we can't go green by buying green, how do we go green without changing our lifestyles? how do we go green while remaining consumers?

easy answer: we don't.