Clotheslines and cloth bags: How doing good can get you in trouble
I remember back when I was a kid, and people were really starting to pay attention to the environment in my crunchy hippy hometown of Portland, Oregon. I also remember how embarrassed I was that my mom carried ratty cloth bags she'd made to haul our books from the library, our groceries from the market; I remember recoiling at the thought of compost heaps; I remember my anger and frustration at being asked to cut the grass with the mechanical mower. Yup. Back then, being resource-smart wasn't cool. It was stinky, weird, a little desperate. It made you seem poor.I thought things had changed a little. After all, designers are pushing fabulous instead-of-plastic bags to carry around your groceries and library books and iPhones; bottled water is being banned in San Francisco. It's hip to care.
Or not. Yesterday's Wall Street Journal reminded me just how uncool being green still is. Or in this case, entirely against the rules. Susan Taylor, in Awbrey Butte, Oregon (just over the mountains from where I live in Portland, near my mother's childhood home), has her neighbors up in arms -- and threatening legal action -- because she's hanging her laundry up to dry.
She loves hanging up her laundry, and decided to give her old habit a renaissance after she read about how much resources our dryers hog (it's in Time and Vanity Fair for goodness' sake!).
According to her neighbors? The clothesline "bombards the senses," it "doesn't blend."
Perhaps that's the problem: doing the right thing for the future doesn't blend with the American mainstream. We'd rather fill our present with Ford F350s, ultra-capacity dryers, and disposable plastic bottles with "spring water." Forget taking public transit instead of driving: it's embarrassing to be caught at the bus stop! Ick to hanging your laundry and toting your groceries in cloth bags; it "doesn't blend." The compost heap is stinky -- put your kitchen trash in a heavy-duty plastic bag and throw it in a landfill!
Isn't it time to stop blending and start doing the right thing?
According to her neighbors? The clothesline "bombards the senses," it "doesn't blend."
Perhaps that's the problem: doing the right thing for the future doesn't blend with the American mainstream. We'd rather fill our present with Ford F350s, ultra-capacity dryers, and disposable plastic bottles with "spring water." Forget taking public transit instead of driving: it's embarrassing to be caught at the bus stop! Ick to hanging your laundry and toting your groceries in cloth bags; it "doesn't blend." The compost heap is stinky -- put your kitchen trash in a heavy-duty plastic bag and throw it in a landfill!
Isn't it time to stop blending and start doing the right thing?
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