Rouse's Point: Banks do it. Dry Cleaners do it. Let's all fall in love with recycling By John Rouse
I'm being shamed into going "green." No, not green with envy or by failing to brush my teeth, but by being environmentally responsible.
Last week I popped into my longtime dry cleaner, Diplomat Cleaners in the Free State Shopping Center, and was told by the proud owners, the Policelli family, that the establishment had become the first "green" dry cleaners of pants, shirts and dresses in Bowie. I was suitably impressed and proud that my shirts were doing their bit to keep air pollution down.
And then Wednesday night Cathy Woods, manager of PNC Bank in the Marketplace, announced at the Greater Bowie Chamber of Commerce's annual chicken dinner and installation of officers at the Comfort Inn that PNC's three local facilities were now "green branches." I thought at first that she meant they had planted trees along the walkways. Nope, the bank's Bowie outlets have become environmentally responsible. Perhaps they now wash off coins with witch hazel. I probably need a further briefing on how a bank goes "green," but Cathy was quite proud of it all. And I'm sure the buffet meal that night was recycled into a nice lunchtime stew at the hotel's restaurant (which, by the way, serves an excellent and bargain-priced afternoon meal for thrifty diners).
And the city, bless its collective heart, recently dedicated a new public works building that is also "green." As I recall, the facility has walls made of hay, or something like that, and produces no toxins into the air above Allen Pond. I'm not too sure, though, just how "green" those big trash trucks that grunt their way along Bowie streets on trash pickup days are. They often stink. I'll have to check with the city manager. Is the air being deionized, or whatever, during toxic debates in the City Council chambers Monday nights? I enjoy the lighting at the old elementary school that struggles to pass for City Hall. When people exit their offices, the lights automatically go out. Needless to say, some offices are darker for longer periods than others. Just an observation, city staff, not a judgment of any kind. I used to have contraptions that turned the lamps, or TV, on and off when you clapped your hands. I'll have to dig those out of the closet as I tend to wander off without switching off. That's naughty.
Our community is emphatically taking environmentalism seriously. During morning walks through the subdivisions (by which I keep my body environmentally sound) I'm constantly dodging and weaving around recycling buckets filled to the brim with Bud Light tins, Coke cans and other items destined for a new life in a processing plant rather than internment at the municipal landfill. Now, if only we could get Mayor Fred Robinson to trade in his SUV for a Prius.
We should all give thought to the fact that America's carbon dioxide emissions per person has reached 19.8 metric tons, compared to 3.9 tons per head for the rest of the world. I think we really need to lower that figure, don't you? We also use 678 pounds of paper per person per year, most of which does not get recycled. The average for the rest of the world is 115 pounds. And out of the 204 million vehicles on U.S. roads, there are 24 million of us who drive SUVs. This country accounts for 37 percent of all the cars in the world and one in seven barrels of the world oil supply. The environmentalists have a point, don't they?
With my banker and dry cleaner going "green" and this country contributing all that pernicious pollution to the planet, I guess it's time to raise my hand and swear allegiance to the environment. First, I'll start separating my tins, bottles and cardboard and put them out on Wednesday morning for the recycling trucks. That will also give me a third day of the week in which I run outside early in the morning to fetch my buckets from the middle of the street, where they often end up as the trash collectors toss them into the air after emptying, or nearly emptying, them. I don't want some driver running over them en route to the Giant for discounted green beans. Have you priced these buckets lately? They're not cheap. Whenever a hole appears in one after rough treatment on trash day, I tape over the hole. Some of my buckets now look like a huge roll of masking tape. Does the city still provide recycling containers? I'll have to look into that.
I'm now conserving energy, too, raising the thermostat temperature at which the air conditioner begins humming away. In addition to using less energy, that little move also lowers my BGE bill from astronomical to merely outrageous. I'll do the same come winter, but in reverse - lowering the temperature so the gas isn't wasted. Sweaters also help. Heating costs considerably less than cooling, but I'll bravely do my duty for mankind and the planet anyway, despite the goose bumps or heat rashes.
I'm also lowering my carbon footprint by driving less, especially when gas keeps rising way above $4 a gallon. Last week it cost me more than $70 to fill up the tank. I detected palpitations of the heart as the gas pump clicked higher and higher and my wallet emptied like one of those recycling buckets full of beer cans. I now walk down to the shopping center for small items, thus killing (so to speak) two birds with one stone - exercise for the aged body and less exhaust fumes for the air of Bowie. I'd use a bike, but the danger of being hit by some dolt driving while talking on a cell phone greatly diminishes the appeal of such activity. I could, of course, transport the bike to Allen Pond by car and pedal away there, but that defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Oh well, come on legs, move merrily along.
I could also stop mowing the lawn and weeding and turn my front yard into a meadow (BGE has turned my back yard into a scary and not terribly scenic place after its tree-trimming project). I don't think the overseers in the city's code compliance office would be in favor of that. And, of course, there are my neighbors to consider; after all, I wouldn't want to be run out of the neighborhood. So, alas, the carbon footprint will have to allow for weekly doses of mower exhaust. The rider-mower might get me to the Giant and back at less cost than the car. I think that might be against the law. Oh well, it was just an idea.
Americans, as we all know, don't take kindly to being told to consume less. We stuff ourselves with 200 billion calories a day, by the way. We need more fuel-efficient cars, better insulated houses and less heavily packaged foods. Until the government gets serious about forcing manufacturers to produce these things, a more rational and less wasteful consumer isn't likely to appear en masse any time soon, not even in greenish Bowie. Heck, a goodly number of the Bush neoconservatives, and others, think global warming is a myth perpetuated by hairy liberals in sandals and funny shirts. Now that's sad.
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The writer is the retired editor of this newspaper.
