Tiny Choices Survey: Linda Permann
By tinychoices | September 14, 2007
Vital statistics (name, age, location)?
Linda Permann, 27,
How do you reside (apartment or house, roommates)? Are your housing decisions dictated by choice or necessity? Please explain.
I live in a 2BR apartment with my boyfriend. It’s what we can afford right now, and nice to have the extra space to craft!
How do you travel (transit, car, etc)? Are your travel decisions dictated by choice or necessity? Please explain.
I’m in between transit situations right now, having just moved from
Tell us about a Tiny Choice you’ve made in your life.
Last year I switched to cloth menstrual pads. Most of my friends cannot comprehend that! I was hesitant at first, but I actually find them much more comfortable and affordable than disposable products. Plus, the amount by which I’m reducing my waste makes me happy every time I think about it.
What is the one environmental dilemma you personally struggle the most with?
I know it’s going to be hard to be a car owner/gas user. Taking the subway was so affordable and environmentally friendly, I will definitely feel some guilt about driving.
What is one Tiny Choice you can make in that direction?
I can look into the bus system, carpool and bike whenever possible.
What is the one environmental Tiny Choice you make that people question (in either a positive educational or a negative hassle way) you the most about?
Store clerks have given me odd looks for years because I bring my own canvas bag. I always end up packing my own bag because they are so befuddled by it.
What is the one environmental Tiny Choice you would like every single person to adopt?
I would like people to recycle at least one thing religiously. Most cities have recycling set up, and even if you have to drive to the center to recycle, it’s not that hard! In my last office, although we had a dumpster for paper recycling, we didn’t have bins under our desks. I easily solved that problem by using a cardboard box as my ‘recycling bin’ and emptied it every week into the dumpster. It was an easy task, plus there was the benefit of being able to dig something up if I accidentally threw it out. Yet people would constantly tell me that they “used to recycle when they had a bin (that was emptied by the cleaning staff)” but now that there were no bins, they just stopped. It was as though since no one collected their recycling, recycling no longer existed. You can’t always wait for the world to make things easier for you, you have to live the way you want to live under the circumstances.
Do you feel like you make sacrifices for environmentalism? Please explain.
No—every switch I’ve made to a more sustainable way of living has actually proven to be easier or better than whatever the disposable method was.
Are you generally: optimistic, pessimistic, neutral about environmentalism and the future?
I’m neutral. I think more people are starting to care but I feel like environmentalism is being offered up as yet another consumeristic thing to buy into. It’s great that you can now buy greener products (clothing, housewares, etc) but you are still buying things, and until people start to think about why we feel like we need to have all of these conveniences, I’m not sure whether there will actually be long term benefits.
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