By: The Editorial Board
Hippy-dippy, patchouli-burning Earth Mother is kind of Vashon’s thing. And that’s great, especially when we have an island full of such unmatchable natural resources at our organic-buckwheat-bread-baking fingertips.
That having been said, we don’t always do the best job of putting our money, or our time, where our mouths are. As a community, we need to take a step back and realize two things.
First, that intent and execution are not the same thing. And second, that we need to suck it up and make some potentially challenging changes if we want to earn the image we claim.
The heart and future of the island is its students, and the habits we develop now in regards to resource usage and waste management will carry through for the rest of our lives. For teens, the school day and our transportation to and from school have a large-scale impact on our day-to-day routines.
Vashon is not built for easy or efficient transportation, and many students, flushed with the newfound freedom of a driver’s license, find themselves driving everywhere. To school, from school; into town, out of town; to Bill’s house, then Bob’s, then Harry’s — all over the course of one day.
Vashon may not have many options for energy-efficient transportation, but they do exist, and we as young people need to assess the effect our habits may be having on the Vashon of the future. Taking a bike, a bus, or even carpooling, can make a massive difference on both our environmental footprint and our wallets.
The other common issue we face in our day-to-day lives is our mass production of waste. Anybody walking through the halls of the high school after lunch would be hard-pressed not to notice the amount of food, plastic wrappers, paper napkins and general detritus that ends up in (and sometimes out of) our garbage.
We are all in our mid-to-late teens, and in the last stage of our lives before we step out on our own. By this point, we should be capable of packing the amount of food we will actually be able to consume in a 45-minute span — or at least finish some curried cauliflower. Come on.
We also should be capable of taking responsibility for the amount of waste our meals create. If your mother insists on putting your pretzel sticks in a ziplock bag that inevitably ends up in the trash, perhaps you should pack your own lunch and put them in a reusable container, or at the very least, a wax paper bag. They’re more cost-effective in the long run, anyway.
While students do need to start taking responsibility for our choices, we have to learn those positive habits from someone, and often our families are the best source.
Similarly, Vashon families could be taking small steps to improve our island resource use.
Just as teens are spending significantly more time in cars than is strictly necessary, so are Vashon families. For the majority of us, town is several miles away and a trip for a gallon of milk means a drive of up to 20 minutes.
The majority of us also tend to make this trip relatively frequently. Baking a cake, and you have the flour, eggs, milk and sugar, but, oh darn, you’re out of butter? Just run up to the store again. Except that one trip isn’t just one — it’s a way of life, and we all do it all the time.
Being more thoughtful and efficient with our travel is an easy step with massive implications for the health of our planet.
The same goes for the amount of packaging the average household produces on a daily basis. Small changes are easily made, but their implications can be huge.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a four-person household creates an average of 11.5 pounds of non-recycled, non-composted waste every day, and much of this is avoidable. Reconsidering the products we purchase based on the packaging they come in may seem like a lot of pointless upheaval, but the difference it makes in the long run is nearly incalculable.
The same goes for food waste. So much of what is wasted could simply have not been produced in the first place by our being just a little more careful about how much food we purchase and cook in comparison to what we actually eat.
So much of the food we purchase doesn’t even get eaten before it goes bad; between 14 and 25 percent, according to the Washington Post. This means that not only are we wasting hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars worth of food every year, but we are also wasting all the water, gas and time that went into producing it.
Even among individuals, small changes can be made that massively influence the greater community. We take for granted most of the conservation measures Vashon implements, such as our wealth of natural spaces and their incredible health.
These are due to the tireless work of a few choice groups, like the Vashon-Maury Land Trust and the Vashon Nature Center.
Both of these groups do incredible work with very few paid employees, meaning a significant chunk of their workforce comes from volunteer hours. In today’s packed and hurried world, spending a few hours volunteering may not seem like a viable option.
However, the benefits lie not only in the land, but in us. Spending a few hours here and there to make a tangible difference in the health of our island can also make an intangible difference in our emotional connection to the land we all live on.
And those impacts can last for generations to come.
We may see ourselves as the be-all and end-all of conservation and green living, but our reality doesn’t always match up.
By simply spending a few seconds to think about what we need before we leave the grocery store the first time, or offer a few hours volunteering on the land we all have the privilege of enjoying, we will take the first great step towards earning the title we all desire.