Environmental Impact Tag

Matty Boy tagged me with this Thang about Improving My Environmental Impact in the year 2008.

When the Lovely Mona and I lived in San José, California, we recycled and we had a compost pit. I think that was the extent of our environmental efforts.

Of course, once we moved to Berkeley, we separated every bottle, can, and plastic container. We used canvas sacks for our groceries (and received $.05 for each sack). I walked all over Berkeley and we used BART to go to the city and even to go to the South Bay.

However, when we moved to Panamá, everything was different. The neighbors asked me why I was separating my trash, since the garbage collectors simply threw it all into the truck anyway. A good point. There really isn't much in the way of recycling here, outside of aluminum cans, which I still separate for the can collectors. We don't have a yard, and a compost pit in the Tropics attracts All Manner of Interesting Life Forms, so we stopped that. When we lived in Paraíso, in the Former Canal Zone, we used to take all our vegetable and fruit cuttings to what we called the Jungle Altar, a slab of concrete on the edge of the Tropical Forest, to feed all the iguanas and other Crawly Thangs.


I walk to the church everyday except Wednesdays and Sundays, as those are the days when I wear my clerical collar, and it is inconvenient to wander about the streets in the collar as everyone thinks I should give them money. Also, I get very warm walking to work and wearing all black really doesn't help. We both have been known to use public transportation, which is a little different than that where you live (except for Leonardo and Luiz).

We don't watch much television; we use the set to watch DVDs primarily. But it can get really hot, especially now that it is Summer, or Dry Season, so we will be using the AC at times. So I guess we use a lot of electricity.


We do eat locally, except I like lamb and that comes from New Zealand. We don't eat many processed foods (the Lovely Mona hardly eats any, being a Raw Food Vegan and all). Also, I do drink the local coffee and rum, but I really like Jamesons and it is relatively inexpensive here, and I'm not gonna stop, so I guess I'm destroying the planet fer my whisky.


Last year I flew to the U.S twice. So I'll try not to fly there this year. That will be my major attempt to improve my environmental impact. Oh yeah, I'll stop clear-cutting the tropical forest while I'm at it.

I tag Janis at Juanichi's Way.