I’ve just finished reading a fascinating account of some personal direct action from a Canadian who is living and working in Morocco. Robbin Yager provides Tours and Treks in Morocco. One day she decided to roll up her sleeves and start clearing plastic trash out of some of the dry riverbeds in that country.

Here is a summary from her page on direct action:

Over the 10 years I’ve been living and working in Morocco, I’ve seen plastic grow from a few bags blowing across the Sahara, to clogged rivers and watersheds everywhere, from a few bags left by roadsides to huge dumps into ravines and gorges. In developing countries where information is not readily available to citizens, it can take governments a long time to develop solutions for problems. I believe people learn and are encouraged by example. Tourism is very important in Morocco. As a tourist anyone can make the problem seen and heard most easily by taking direct action. And I have to add, it feels so very good to pick up that first bag!

I have never undertaken any trash cleanups as ambitious as hers. When I was in Tunisia, I would walk for a few kilometers on the beach and pick up as much as I could carry. I always worried about where this trash went after I placed it in the dumpsters. Recycling in that region was pretty much limited to those few items that were profitable such as corrugated paper and plastic beverage containers. I was once confronted by a guard as I approached the fence of a beach resort while picking up garbage. I didn’t have the command of the language that it would take to make a nuanced response when I was asked what I was doing. This was a tense and awkward moment and it was discouraging.

When I first moved to Malta five years ago, I spent the first month living in a cheap apartment on the outskirts of a resort area. There was a lot of litter. Whenever I was putting our recyclables and garbage on the curb, I would always spend some time adding to our allotment from the stuff that was lying around outside. One day, a British expat across the street was laughing at me and telling me how futile it was to pick up trash. I think his words were ‘You’ll never get t all.”

I will never get it all but I still make a point of getting some of it. I am not a strong swimmer, so when the rest of the family is snorkeling in the deep I dive around in the shallows picking up ice cream cups and coke bottles and plastic bags and bendy straws. When I have gathered an armload of trash, I usually have to walk to a receptacle that is conveniently located next to businesses that cater to tourists. The big sunglasses that are in vogue prevent me from accurately gauging the looks that I get from these tourists. I have never had anyone join me.

Littering is one a a handful of social and environmental issues that I keep my nose out of when I am a guest in a foreign country. I do keep up with the local news and I quietly cheer on any local people who are speaking up about those issues. Tunisia has an official mascot for environmentalism. It is a cartoonish looking fennec fox that is often mistaken as a mouse by tourists. Malta finally has a real tax on plastic bags. Tourists sometime grumble and pay the Euro 0.25 per bag. Locals use reusable bags or sometimes cardboard boxes.

I think spending some time picking up litter while you are on vacation is a great idea. If you want to plan a vacation around cleaning up plastic trash, Hawaii sounds like the perfect place.

Use Less Plastic from TakePart on Vimeo.

This cause is really starting to gain some attention. There is now a big flashy site called Save My Oceans with a page devoted to the issue of plastic waste. I would love to see some statistics later on to see how much real reduction results from all of our efforts.

Back in 2008, I spent far too much time doing research for an elaborate joke about Dennis Kucinich being a ventriloquist’s dummy.  I was surprised to find out that there was a post war boom in dummy manufacturing that was spurred on by a glut in surplus materials.  If we could somehow manage to put an end to the making of war, we would have a similar glut of material, maybe even bigger.  Who knows what cottage industries might spring up to make use if it.  Some materials could be repurposed for alternative energy projects.

First things first. You must know your enemy…

Boredom is an emotional state experienced during periods lacking activity or when individuals are uninterested in the opportunities surrounding them. The first record of the word boredom is in the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens, written in 1852, in which it appears six times, although the expression to be a bore had been used in the sense of “to be tiresome or dull” since 1768. – Wikipedia*

The first line of defense against boredom is to carefully examine the opportunities surrounding you. These opportunities can range from a round of Party Bingo or just a crossword puzzle. Perhaps, you could sign up to local newsletters that include events calendars. Organize your stuff. Read the user manuals of the gadgets that you already have. If you are reading my blog, you obviously have access to the internet. The internet has been an unceasing source of information and entertainment for me for over ten years. We abandoned a gaming console in Africa late last year I thought that the kids would be begging for a replacement. So far, they are keeping boredom at bay with online and outdoor activities. Sometimes they even read BOOKS

I am not a crafty person, but some people certainly are. The greenest way for these people to fight boredom is to make useful and/or decorative items out materials that would otherwise be a burden on landfills or recycling facilities.

I am looking for some allies in this green War on Boredom. If you can think of any great ways to fight boredom without wasting plastic please leave a comment

I’m going to end this post with a few videos advertising plastic crap designed to fight boredom on it’s home turf (the office). I hope you find the videos entertaining, but please don’t buy this crap. I don’t want to pick on Vat19 – they sell some really awesome canvas bags.

They do photo-degrade after many months to the point where they break and become litter. In all likelihood some of them find their way to sea.

Most communities have some kind of postering by-law. Here is the Toronto Postering By-Law as an example. They don’t allow the use of zip ties, but they don’t expressly prohibit them either. I have been in only a handful of large cities in the past decade and my impression is that paste is a pretty common method of securing posters. Staples on wooden utility poles can quickly accumulate and become a dangerous eyesore. Using wheat paste is a better choice than staples or clear plastic tape.

Wheat- Paste Posters – The best video clips are here

Putting up posters is a resource intensive way to promote a cause or event but since it is inexpensive compared to buying time on radio or TV, it is an overused tactic. Word of mouth and social media marketing can probably do more to generate interest.

The affordability of the power tools marketed to the average homeowner is reflected in their quality. I can remember having my Makita drill break when I was foolishly trying to put screws through a piece of Larch without drilling any pilot holes. I kept the non-functioning drill for a few years because the company provides free labor on repairs once a year at its factory outlet. I never got around to taking it. I don’t know if I would have been able to find Makita in the giant industrial park anyway.

I love the idea of tool libraries for a number of reasons. I like anything that reduces the consumption of cheap consumer items that will not last and that will head to a landfill. I like the idea of homeowners having access to good tools.

If you have a handyman on your Christmas shopping list, think twice before you buy them a tool that is not built to last a lifetime. Also, check to see if there is a tool library or even a tool rental shop in your area. I just realized that gift certificates from an equipment rental business would make a great gift for DIY people.

The concept was still rattling around in my head when I went to the kitchen this morning to make the kids some French toast with cooked fruit topping. The apples that I bought on Friday are not perfect. They look like the apples that I used to scrounge from abandoned homesteads in Canada. They taste delicious.

Consumers in the developed world supposedly want perfect apples. The customer is always right, and those customers get pesticides, genetic engineering and lots of protective packaging.

Photo credit: Brett L

If you are stridently anti-walmart and there is a store nearby, why not stop in and pick up one of these bags? When you get home you, or a crafty friend, can add some extra taglines to the logo. It’ll really make a statement at the next local farmer’s market

The author admitted to finding 23 reusable bags in his own home. They take 100s of times more energy to produce than the same number of ‘single use’ plastic bags. Logic dictates that you have to use a bag hundreds of times before it’s supposed environmental benefit is realized. Do you have dozens of reusable bags in your closet?

Here is my advice for people who already have too many reusable shopping bags -

• Start saying thanks, but no thanks to free reusable shopping bags.
• Don’t feel too bad about your accumulated bags. Tell yourself that you were planning ahead for the next few decades.
• Come out of the closet with the bags that you have accumulated. If they are hanging on a hall tree or sitting in a basket by the door, you are more likely to use them.
• Pack food bank donations in a reusable grocery bag and donate the bag along with the food.
• If you have some particularly cute bags that are in like new condition, use them in place of gift wrap when you have occasion to. The popular tradition of regifting might help move surplus reusable shopping bags into the hands of people who actually need them.
• If you drive, pack several bags up as small as you can and put them in your glove compartment. These are your emergency stash for when you forget to bring your everyday bags.
• Consider using your cloth shopping bags to carry items during activities instead of buying purpose specific tote bags.

Here is my advice to people who don’t have too many reusable shopping bags. -

• Check to see if you have any single use plastic bags packed away. They are actually reusable to some degree. I save the ones that appear in my house for dirty jobs like potatoes. I will use the plastic bag to buy bulk potatoes a few times and them use it as a garbage bag.
• If you need to get a few more bags, try to find bags that are made from repurposed material. Buy locally made when possible. Free is also good, but know when to say when.
• Consider making your own bags from available materials.
• Reusable shopping bags are typically larger and stronger than plastic shopping bags. Don’t think that you need 10 cloth shopping bags because you used to buy 10 plastic bags full of groceries on your big grocery run. I walk, so I know that 4 cloth bags is plenty for my market trips. I can’t carry more than that. 6 bags should be adequate for drivers who shop for a family.

I have seen cloth shopping bags in piles of used clothing here in Tunisia. That is definitely a good indicator that they are in surplus in the developed world. I bought new cloth bags from a guy in front of the vegetable market. They are very cheap woven synthetic material. I presently have five of them. I think I have had a handle failure with one bag and I used it to contain a pile of outgrown clothing that I put out on the street for people to take. I don’t know how many times I will have to use these bags in order to realize an environmental benefit.