Magickal Realism

Greenwashing first started in 1990, when the US made Earth Day a holiday. Few things are quite as effective in advertising and product promotion as aligning them with holidays, and this opened up whole new venues for corporations to jump on. While the corporations that tried to hop on the environmental wagon were quickly debunked, the entire practice of greenwashing is getting much more slippery now, as this essay over on Alternet points out.

Even those of us who practice naturalism have a somewhat negative effect on the environment. Some of our essential oils are still distilled through the use of a petroleum-based solvent, while others are from plants so rarified that they are on the endangered species list. While the advent of CO2 extractions has helped reduce some of the petroleum use issue, the method doesn’t work for everything and it’s a new enough method that we may not yet have discovered some surprising byproducts of the method.

The hardest part of managing a sustainable business is, ultimately, managing all the paradoxes. Customers want preservative free goodies, but they don’t want the risks that comes with not using preservatives. They want all-natural materials that are animal friendly, yet a lot of those concerned with animal cruelty unthinkingly ask for something “musky.” It’s been a long time since simply promising not to test on Thumper was enough to satisfy consumers that a brand uses ethical practices.

Going natural alone will not be the ultimate solution to the environment’s problems. There’s a lot of unnatural stuff out there that doesn’t biodegrade, so we need to figure out what to do with that, too, especially in cases where recycling alone doesn’t work. The environment really is our entire lives, every single aspect of it right down to our oxygen supply - all we can really do is work on one aspect of it, our own corner of it, at a time.

According to the Environmental News Network, a study at the University of Granada finds housewives much better about recycling than university students.

There are of course some theories being applied to it including the Theory of Planned Behaviour and and some pseudo-philosophic psychological theory including moral makeup, since university students perceived “more obstacles.” It wouldn’t be a study if the students didn’t at least try to get all collegiate about it.

And it wouldn’t be collegiate unless they completely overlooked some obvious factors concerning the people studied.¹ While the study samples are still a bit on the small side - some 500 students to 100 housewives, which is a significant sample but still less than the 1000 plus required for empirical data - it has some merit, espeically if you think about the life of a housewife versus the life of a college student.

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1. Assuming most of these college students lived in dormitories and had meal plans, such activities as meal planning and space planning were not part of their routine activities. To most recycling and similar activites would be “going out of their way” just because so much of the self-management parts of their lives, particularly cleaning and meals, are actually relegated to other parties in a university setting, causing them not to consider it.

Missing information: how many students lived in dormitories? How many commuted? How many were “traditional” aged students? How much crossover was there between “housewives” and increasingly common “nontrad” students?

Also, while it doesn’t seem relevant, I think it would also be highly relevant: how many of these students were prone to hoarding practices? College students are often lousy recyclers, but when it comes to repurposing, they are usually at the front of that brave new world.

2. Housewives are the de factor managers of their households. Any cohabitation is a business arrangement just as much as it is familial, and the women involved will likely be concerned with long-term sustainability of their land and immediate environment, especially if they have children. Recycling advertising is very much directed at homes, and women - it’s almost always a female voiceover in those “please recycle” television advertisments.

Some relevant questions that are missing on the housewives end:
How many have children? How many have part time jobs? How many live in apartments? How many are also students?

I personally am not surprised by this finding - college students believe they have no time, while housewives really do have no time despite the stereotype of them watching soaps and eating bon bons. The housewives don’t have time because they actually are doing all that work of recycling. Heck, I work mostly from home and I never know a moments peace because there’s always something else I need to be doing!

1. Yes, I do have a complete college education, and I graduated cum laude. That’s why I’m making a little fun of this. [↩]
2. image by gordasm on flickr [↩]