One side-effect of my effort to become a Greenius is that I have become a Greench; that is a Green Grinch. I try hard to reduce, reuse, and recycle. At work I try to be aware of the resources I use. For example, I think whether a note requires a mini sticky note, a full-size sticky note, a printed page, or will suffice to stay purely in electronic format. Instead of replacing the shredder with a new garbage bag every time it gets full, I dump the shredded paper and reuse the bag. I’m not perfect of course and when the proverbial shit hits the fan and I’m busy multitasking these efforts often fall to the wayside. The point though is that I do make a concerted effort to reduce my environmental impact.
As I’ve ranted about in a previous post, my co-workers are not so thoughtful. Many of them still throw recyclables in the trash, go through paper like hungry goats, drink 3 bottles of water per day, and generally just don’t care about reducing waste. It’s not as if they don’t know better. I try to educate them and make it as easy as possible to do the green thing. It really comes down to not being aware of and trying to change their wasteful habits, something we all are guilty of at times
Despite this realization that nobody is perfect, I can’t help but feel that I am the only one who gives a damn about our home the earth. I feel as if I am surrounded by uncaring houseguests who leave their crap out, eat all my food, and feel they are entitled to do so. I have often been tempted to remove the 20 oz soda bottle from the garbage can and lob it at the head of the offender. Fortunately for my job security I have to this point been able to control my spurts of rage.
I don’t want to become a Greench, whose heart has shrunk and who has given up on his fellow humans. I want to continue believing that mankind will realize that you shouldn’t trash your home, especially when you have 7 billion roommates and trillions of pets. What do you guys and gals think? Besides our efforts here on the blog, what else can we do to get others to buy into green?
