Green as Carrots

So my question was: “going green…is it trendy or will it stick around?”. And so I will tell you about my neighbor’s friend. Now I should know the name of said neighbor, but I don’t. And I don’t think I’d ever met her friend outside of this one encounter. But apparently this neighbor’s friend was familiar with my trash.

In Germany, “green” isn’t really a popular trend…it’s more of a…commandment. If I remember correctly, there were seven different bins at our apartment – only one was for actual trash. Our office building was powered entirely by solar panels (and enough power was left over to sell and make a profit on). And while many people own cars, most rely on public transportation (at least in Berlin). Which is why, when the operators of these lovely modes of transportation go on strike, no one can get anywhere, because those of us on foot have to walk or bike across the city of 3.5 million to get to our destination, and those with cars suddenly brought them all out at once and created total gridlock.

Anyway, it took me awhile to really live into this “green commandment” while I was over there. One doesn’t really think a whole lot about these things while living in the middle-of-nowhere Nebraska (and really, it would be a lot of effort on the part of the rural person who wanted to be environmentally conscious), and neither college nor seminary really taught me the importance of it. So a few months into my stay there, I came out of my apartment and was greeted by this very small, very animated, and somewhat elderly, woman. She wasn’t really yelling at me, but was very firm and direct in telling me that I wasn’t separating my trash correctly and I needed to start doing that. I got a lecture, in German, about how important it was to make sure that I was doing my part for the environment. That meant, in this case, that it wasn’t enough to separate out pop bottles and paper from trash. There’s also compost, metal, other plastics, and…well, a few others that I can’t remember right now. And many, many more for the truly dedicated. Now, I have no idea how they knew that I wasn’t separating out compost and metals (tin foil and staples and such). And I was not the most gracious of recipients to this particular woman’s lecture. But it did make me more careful and more “accurate” with my trash.

So then I came back to the States, and found that no one really even recycles paper. Public transportation is horrendous, and I don’t know of a single building in my area that uses solar panels. So it’s a “trend” that’s still in severe need of some love and attention.

Therefore, in an effort to encourage one small thing people can do here, I’m going to direct you to the website of an absolutely FABULOUS organization called Carrotmob. Here, businesses compete with one another about how much “good” they will do environmentally if their business “wins”. Carrotmob picks the best store each time, sends out email notifications to you, the consumer, and then you commit to buying (what you would already normally buy) at that particular store. The store gets publicity, profit, and they help the environment. It came about as an alternative to protests, rallies, and boycotts. There’s a fun, animated video at this site and there are tabs at the top for FAQs, “about” it, organizing, etc. Check it out! http://carrotmob.org