Aging with Pizzazz

I have some courses I teach to help people like me get a handle on their lives. This serves two purposes: it allows me to connect other people to my lessons learned, and it reminds me what I need to be doing more consistently.

Probably the most relevant course for my generation, that 76-million pig-in-a-python Baby Boomer bubble, is Aging with Pizzazz. Aging is a good thing; it means we are still alive. But of course, it has its downsides. How do we deal with them in a way that enriches our lives and those around us? This class has probably undergone the most evolution over time as, coincidentally, I have aged.

Pizzazz is a relative word and means different things to different people. For one person, it may be looking 40 at 60. (Does Joan Rivers come to mind?) For another, a tattoo. For many of us, it means having the vitality and health to do what we want, to keep physical limitations at bay. That certainly is a viable definition of pizzazz and one inherent in my life philosophy. Recently I had an “Aha!” revelation for another dimension of pizzazz.

My new slant on pizzazz impacts this scary old world in which we find ourselves. We must become more involved with long-overdue change, whether we’re talking about the lonely senior up the street, health care reform, immigration, global warming, homelessness, or foreign wars. We seem to have abdicated all that to special-interest-embroiled lawmakers. What happened to the government of the people, by the people, and for the people? According to the system, we choose legislators who represent our wishes and send them off to Washington, (or Jefferson City, or Sacramento, or wherever). There, they discover that to get anything done, they have to scratch a lot of backs.

We can’t leave real change to our legislators. We need massive grass roots involvement, starting with one person, to let special interests know what they can do with their pork barrels. Which brings me to Aging with Pizzazz: We are former hippies, children of the 60s and 70s. We understand the power of activism. We also understand that part of our ongoing responsibility is to embarrass our children (and now our grandchildren), but also to teach them that activism is not age-defined. We can use our 60s heritage to make our mark.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from my older students is that to younger people, they are invisible. Now is our time to be visible, to return to our activist roots. Let’s let this country know the power of 76 million “I’m mad and I’m not taking it anymore” Boomers. We can truly age with pizzazz by caring enough to fight for our passionate issues, to raise awareness, and to ignite our smoldering frustration in a way that can have real effect for us and generations to come. It starts by finding and channeling our passions into something that has a positive effect on other people. It starts by letting our pizzazz shine, one person at a time.

Competing Causes

Focus is essential. There is a lot in our world that needs fixing, especially if you live in the United States. Other countries have their own problems; ours just seem to be more visible. After having visited remote tribes living for generations on atolls that are three inches above sea level, I returned from the South Pacific passionate about combating global warming and our changing our administration’s pigheaded blind eye to the doom awaiting us. I was even more passionate because of the effect on other places I’ve been, rare and precious places. When I climbed Kilimanjaro 13 years ago, I had to tromp across a dense snow and ice field to reach the top. The snow is almost gone. Antarctica had breathtaking icebergs and floes which now pose a threat to penguins and other Antarctic fauna because they get separated from the land and carry them far out to sea. Yes, global warming is indeed a good cause.

I’m a nurse and a health educator/medical writer. I write about all the new technology and research breakthroughs that could save people’s lives if they could afford them. But 24% of our population is either minimally or uninsured. The technologies that could save their lives are out of reach. A record number of bankruptcies were filled last year because of medical bills. For some people on Medicare, the Medicare Part D “benefit” actually costs them more for prescriptions than before. And hey, I have a pre-existing condition. If my insurer drops me, as they are doing at a record pace, I couldn’t get coverage. We hear Medicare will run out of money just about the time I’m eligible. Health care reform: another cause I could really get behind.

While the administration attempts to distract us by playing on public fears of a flu pandemics and frivolous spending, we are giving all our tax money away to hundreds of other countries, and supporting all their citizens who sneak into the U.S. to get a better life. What about our homeless, our destitute, our lost children, and disenfranchised citizens? Boy! That really gets my dander up! We need to do something about that.

The point is there are countless good causes worthy of our hearts and souls and efforts. But meanwhile life goes on. There are jobs to do, houses to be relocated, grandchildren to be cared for, vacations calling. So whose job is it to fight all these big fights? How do we focus on one at the exclusion of the others? By making a choice. If we choose just one, a cause or a person we can help; if we all are vocal about our vision--however small--of a better world, and if enough people share that vision, change will happen. It has to be small enough and defined enough that we can realistically make a difference. The alternative is that we will all sink together.

So in order to put my money where my mouth was, I had to choose. I decided I could do two things besides my American Red Cross volunteer work: I could improve every daily encounter for the other person, and I could get people to lose the plastic (bags, not credit cards). So I started the Plastic Bag Lady blog to give tips (I am a writer, after all) on how to painlessly move toward reusables in our daily lives. I practice what I preach. We have cloth bags everywhere. Never do I walk into any kind of store without one. I take my own coffee mug to Starbucks, and carry a reusable water bottle. Stay tuned here for upcoming tips on decreasing waste for the holidays.

I believe we are here for a reason and for a very short time in the whole cosmic scheme of things. That belief and the power of even one person’s action can keep our lives from ever being inconsequential. People who take action are never invisible. # # #

Let’s Talk about Plastic Bottles

According to Reusit.com, one of the leading sources of reusable everything:

• An estimated 2,480,000 tons of plastic bottles and jars were disposed of in 2008. (EPA)

• Store-bought bottled water is a rip off. Tap water is often subject to more stringent regulation and testing than bottled water. It costs a fraction of the cost from the tap. It is cleaner, cheaper, and thus healthier. (Natural Resources Defense Council)

• As of 2006, and estimated 60 billion PET single-use beverage containers were bought. Approximately 45 billion of these were discarded after use. (Container Recycling Institute)

• Another estimation put bottled water spending at a collective $100 billion in the US for 2006. (OneWorld.net)

• Every square mile of the ocean has 46,000 pieces of floating plastic in it. (UN, 2006)

• Ten percent of the plastic produced every year worldwide winds up in the ocean. 70% of which finds its way to the ocean floor, where it will likely never degrade. (UN, 2006)

The above statistics come directly from their site. If you want to know more, sign up to receive their newsletter at: http://www.reuseit.com/learn-more/top-facts/plastic-bottle-facts. The right sidebar has the sign-up slot.

The fact is: plastic waste is literally swamping this planet, whether it’s plastic bags, my personal favorite, or all things disposable plastic. How hard is it for us to make a little extra effort to reuse and wash? Reusit.com has thermal coffee mugs and a variety of water bottles that are BPA-free, dishwasher and microwave safe. No excuses.

Second Oceanic Plastic Bag Island Discovered

I’ve written about the huge Pacific plastic garbage island twice the size of Texas. Now, as reported in an April 15th, 2010 AP article, researchers have discovered an Atlantic island of waste plastic, most of which comes from land. Researchers are warning that this new blight on the ocean stretches over thousands of square miles between Bermuda and Portugal's Azores islands.

The debris is harmful for fish and sea mammals. There is no real way to clean the oceans, so we have to do what we can by keeping disposable plastics out of circulation. It’s a global problem — it unfortunately is not confined to a single patch," Cummins said. Still more data are needed to assess the dimensions of the North Atlantic patch.

“Charles Moore, an ocean researcher credited with discovering the Pacific garbage patch in 1997, said the Atlantic undoubtedly has comparable amounts of plastic. The east coast of the United States has more people and more rivers to funnel garbage into the sea. But since the Atlantic is stormier, debris there likely is more diffuse, he said."Humanity's plastic footprint is probably more dangerous than its carbon footprint," he said.

A paper cited by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says as many as 100,000 marine mammals could die trash-related deaths each year.

Spring and Trash: Go Ask Alice

With the last vestiges of snow fading away, we are emerging from our winter cocoons and recommitting to our fitness programs. Here’s an idea: how about a trash pick-up fit-walk? In the immortal words of that famous song, Alice’s Restaurant:

You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick ….. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both (strange)…. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people [picking up trash] and singin’ a bar of Alice's Restaurant, …... They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day [picking up trash and] singin’ a bar of Alice's Restaurant? And friends they may think it's a movement.

So why not start a neighborhood clean-up movement? First of all, the people who read this are not the ones depositing the trash. I get that. But if I can get people all over the country to start their own fit-walk pick-ups, we could start a trend. All you need are three things:

• Walking shoes
• A grungy old cloth bag with a shoulder strap (not plastic, puleez!)
• Wet wipes

Once a week, you get some friends together and you go out, armed with the above paraphernalia and start race-walking to the first piece of trash. The goal is how fast you can pick up trash and move on to the next piece. It gets your pulse rate up; you get to bend and stoop; use your arms and shoulders; and move those legs. After an hour, you dump your bags of trash in a bonafide trash receptacle, clean off your hands, and reward yourselves with a cup of joe. Then in between your competitive trash walks, when you go out on your own, just stuff a small cloth bag in your pocket and pick up trash as you go. If you happen to see a plastic trash bag as litter, use that to collect your trash. That, my friends is single-person activism at its best! And the adult equivalent of making exercise a game.

Progress is Slow but Steady

Gleaned from the watchdogs at Reusablebags.com, some hopeful progress on plastic bag litter, and some posturing to watch out for….

October 2, 2009, USA Today reported an announcement by Target that it would start offering a 5-cent discount for every reusable bag customers use to pack their purchases. An earlier pilot test with 100 Target stores showed a 58% reduction in the number of plastic bags used.

Also in October, CVS Pharmacies started offering customers incentives for bringing reusable bags, their green bag card system. For every four shopping trips with a cloth reusable bag, customers get a coupon for $1.

Because the plastic bag industry is big business, in Canada, the Environment and Plastics Industry Council published an alarming report that your eco-friendly shopping bag could be making you sick. Consider the source.

The report concluded that reusable grocery bags are "a breeding ground for bacteria and pose a public health risk" because of high counts of yeast, molds and bacteria. Duh! Our clothes have high levels of bacteria if we don’t wash them. Common sense practices like washing your reusable bag and using plastic with leaky meats can reduce contaminants. When you're choosing a reusable shopping bag, avoid the cheap ones and select-or make-durable bags that withstand washing.

The Worldwide Threat from Plastic Bags Marches On

According to an article posted in 2004, even at that time, there was growing international recognition of the threat of plastic bag use on the environment.

The handy plastic shopping bag, so handy for everything from toting groceries to disposing of doggie doo, came into widespread use in the early 1980s. By 2004, environmental groups estimated that 500 billion to 1 trillion of the bags were being used worldwide every year.

Said one critic: "Every time we use a new plastic bag they go and get more petroleum from the Middle East and bring it over in tankers. We are extracting and destroying the Earth to use a plastic bag for 10 minutes…”

To read more from this article, check out the link below:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0721-04.htm

Imagine how that would feel as you walk through an urban area and see plastic bags wafting from a nearby bush, or drive through a pristine countryside to have your vision drawn jarringly to a plastic bag snapped on a western fence. Then think about those eyesores killing wildlife. According to Planet Ark, about 100,000 whales, seals, turtles and other marine animals are killed by plastic bags each year worldwide.

If each of us makes sure we have a supply of washable, reusable bags in our cars, and we don’t enter a single store without them, or don’t fail to stuff one in a pocket when we walk to a store, we will gradually win over converts. The ripple effect will cause businesses to stop offering them. If eliminating plastic bags from our lives is the only environmental change we make, it’s a good one.

Responsible Recycling Eases Strain on Landfills

Besides not using plastic throw-aways, we can reduce waste everywhere by responsible recycling. Surprisingly, landfill capacity has increased at the same time the number of landfills has drastically decreased. The EPA reports that the number of landfills in the United States has fallen 77 percent since 1988. In its 2006 MSW study, the EPA reports that while the number of U.S. landfills has steadily declined over the years, the average landfill size has increased. It goes on to report that in 2006, compared to 1990, the total volume of waste going to landfills dropped by 4 million tons, at the same time that the U.S. population increased by more than 50 million people.

During the past five decades American attitudes toward recycling and ecology radically changed. Environmental concerns also influenced landfill policies and materials recovery. The newer landfills are better controlled and protected, and considerably larger with more efficient compacting. We not only have much larger landfills and are putting less in them, we also use them more efficiently. A given amount of landfill space will hold about 30 percent more content today than in the past. The three main waste hauling companies in the U.S. say they have a long-term capacity of 26-38 years.

Bottom Line: Despite a vast population increase, nationwide landfill use is down and materials recovery is up. Our larger population is sending less to landfills. Efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle are paying off.

Some examples of the trends between 1960 and 2006 include:
• Recovery and reuse of trash has gone from 5.6 to 81.1 million tons.
• Discards going to landfills as a percentage, has gone from 93.6% to 54.9%.
• Population in the millions has gone from 179,979 to 299,398.
Source: Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in
the United States: Facts and Figures for 2006, EPA, page 9

How do we contribute to making this trend even better?
• Reduce the type and numbers of disposables we use: plastic bags, bottled water, paper plates, food baggies
• Download the recycling guidelines for your community and make sure you are recycling everything they take.
• If your community doesn’t recycle something you use a lot of, like glass, then find another source for those.
• Take the time when cooking dinner or doing dishes to wash out those disposable containers and put them in the recycling bin