Environmental guilt

Today, I used plastic bags at the grocery store. Despite the fact that I swore not to.

I had The Husband's car. I could use that as an excuse. He doesn't keep reusable bags in his car. That planet killing bastard. But I can't really use that as an excuse, because I had forgotten to put the reusable bags back in my car anyway.

I could have bought another reusable bag at the grocery store. But I wondered about the logic of that. Is it better to use four plastic bags once and recycle them (I did note that Loeb had a recycling bin in their front foyer specifically labelled for plastic bags only - sweet!) or buy yet another huge, reusable plastic bag that may never get used again and rot in the back of my closet because I already have enough?

This is one of the big issues with trying to live sustainably, trying to make deliberate, ethical decisions. It's just so damn easy not to. Dude! Why you illin? Just don't think about it! The easy choice is usually the environmentally hostile one. That one little step, to remember to grab the reusable bags when I run out the door, is so simple it's utterly forgettable. Then what do I do, drive home and burn gas to get the plastic bags? What's the better choice?

It extends to everything. Oh look, that cute little skirt is on sale. That cute skirt, probably manufactured from factory farmed, pesticided-the-shit-out-of-it cotton, sewn by someone making a dollar for working 18 hour days 7 days a week in China before it was trucked and flown across the planet to get to me for the low low face cost of $40.

Or mmm, just imagine crunching in to those lovely shiny yellow apples. Farmed on a factory farm, laced with chemicals, shipped from South America. But goddammit! I just want an apple!!

It's enough to drive you mental.

When do we give ourselves a break on the guilt? We recycle, we put CF lightbulbs in all our lights, we don't drive hummers. We set the air conditioner to 25 during the day, pay our bills online to cut down on paper, unplug the cellphone charger when the phone is full of juice. But the guilt, oh the guilt, it keeps mounting, because we feel like we're not doing enough. You! Consumer! You should fly less. Andw when you do fly, you should buy carbon credits to offset your vacation. Why are you buying that [insert incredibly useful household implement], don't you see all that packaging? Wow, must take most of Edmonton to heat that house of yours in the winter! Look at that car, you could run an 18 wheeler with that engine! And it keeps mounting. Eventually, the guilt could make us throw up our hands and say, fuck it. Nothing I do will ever make a difference. Nobody else cares. I'm swimming upstream here. Why should I care when nobody else does? When does the pressure to do more, stop?

It's a tough trap to avoid. To me, the answer lies in giving yourself a break. Realize that you're already doing OK. Don't oversell it; there is always more to do, more to think of, more choices to make, but just realize that you are doing Something, and Something is a whole lot better than Nothing. Yeah, maybe four plastic bags got used today. I have to remember that I've specifically *not* used close to a hundred of those assholes in the last several months by using reusable bags. All those bags are no longer heading to the landfill. That makes a difference. I'm doing OK. And having that guilt and wondering if I should drive home to pick up my reusable bags, will hopefully ensure I remember them next time.

In the meantime, perhaps I will take up a new pastime: Plastic Bag Art. Sculpt with synthetics. Divert waste from landfills by expressing myself through polyvinyl. I could be on to something.