Project Goal #3: Increase community, decrease our consumerism

Our 3 part composting bin,

built by David & Alex

As a family, we wish to increase our community involvement and decrease corporate consumerism. How?

A) By joining local organizations that focus on green living, organic farming, and the local slow life.
B) By regularly visiting our local farm resources to reconnect to the human food chain.
C) By reducing, reusing, and recycling on a family level.
D) By trading and borrowing over buying.
E) By buying used over new.

What local organizations? One of the first we've joined is the Northwest Earth Institute, an awesome resource that has courses in many areas of green living. I've taken classes in simplicity, food choices, and sustainability. See the links for more info.

Which farms? We are blessed to have over 70 local farms within our 100 mile area. One of our closest favorites to visit is the South 47 Farm. Here you can snip your own herbs, cut some fresh flowers, pick berries, dig potatoes, and purchase loads of fresh fruits and veggies.

What do you mean reducing, reusing, and recycling on the family level? We'll we have awesome county recycling programs in the Seattle area, but that's not quite good enough. Too many resources are lost when a high grade product ends up in a low end filler at the end of the recycle process. Sure, low end filler is better than the land fill, but there's a better option. First reduce, use less; less packaging, less disposables, and less overall. Then reuse. Be creative at the home level! Pop bottles make awesome bird feeders. Glass jars are nonreactive food containers. Finally recycle. Newspaper becomes worm fodder and food scraps become compost for the garden.

What do you mean by trading or borrowing instead of buying? The world is too driven by money. Sometimes we can take it out of the equation and still meet our needs. My neighbor's plums are often exchanged for our tomatoes. We're tired of storing and maintaining tools that we only need a few times a year. We're trying to start a community tool closet for those tillers, hedgers, and thinganmajigs.

Buying used? Are we serious? You bet! New stuff is really expensive and takes lots of new resources to make, ship, and sell. Used stuff reuses existing resources. It's often funky and fun to boot. Searching for used stuff is like a treasure hunt and usually benefits an individual or small local business owner rather than a megacorp.

Goal 4 tomorrow