Good Steward, also, Less TV

My Day Off yesterday was a rousing success...I got through several movies and cut out the pattern for my suit of clothes. Today when I came home from church, I contemplated the long hours ahead of me before militia, thinking about how I was going to resume my TV watching, maybe, ya know, surf the Internet...

Then I realised that I would be totally wasting three or four uninterrupted hours of potential writing time and felt embarassed. My writing time has gone down to nothing and my TV-watching time has gone up exponentially for some reason. I come home hot and exhausted no matter what, and instantly collapse into the sofa with a glass of water. And don't move for several hours. This is bad. This is a habit that needs breaking.

So instead of watching telly today I'm writing. First I'm blogging, then I'm writing. Then there will be cheese.

As I wandered through Blogland, I stumbled across a blog about a man who lives in NYC, and who's gone green: No Impact Man. Some of the things he talks about is difficult for an apartment dweller, but some of the ideas he has for going green hit home. Prime example: there's no recycling at our apartment. Nothing. This contributes to the riches that the dumpster continues to yield, but it makes for very, very bad earth-stewardship. At the base level, the very beginning level, the easiest damme thing you can do is recycle. I know there are people out there who say it doesn't work well--it doesn't work if you don't participate. In Chicago, the city reported an 80% increase in the number of people who recycled once they instituted bin collection.

And I go out of my way to use recyclables: before "The Dark Knight" there was an advertisment for a Bertolli product that comes in a plastic pouch. "How lazy," I said, "do you have to be to use one of these pouches? They're so bad for the environment! Hello--glass jar?! Which you can recycle?" (That question, btw, was quickly answered when my companion turned, glared, and said to me--"hey, I use the Bertolli pouches, they're good!" Oops.) My point is. Recycling is second nature to me, and it kills me that there's no recycling here at my apartment.

I'm trying to be a better steward of the earth. I had an idea for a book that was about a group of people who went digging through old landfills for materials they could sell to companies. And that could be our planet. The amount of stuff I throw away--just me, myself--is embarassing. Do I really need to put tomatoes in a plastic bag so I can put them in another plastic bag and carry them home?

So my goal for next week--my "no impact" goal for next week--is to call the landlord, call the recycling center here in Williamsburg, and see if I can get something set up. I'm sure if there was a recycling bin at my apartment, the spotty college students would be more than willing to fill it up with their malt-beverages and their Admiral Nelson's Rum bottles.

And if that won't work, I'll just have to surreptiously toss my recyclables into someone's green bin on a Wednesday, when they're not looking.