Tiny Choices Survey: Siel
By tinychoices | February 29, 2008
Vital statistics (name, age, location, link to website/blog)?
Siel, 29, Santa Monica, Calif., green LA girl and Emerald City
How do you reside (apartment or house, roommates)?
In a cute 1/2 bedroom apartment with a balcony, roommate-free!
Are your housing decisions dictated by choice or necessity? Please explain.
A little of both! I both want and need to have my own place :) Picking Santa Monica too was a bit of both choice and necessity. I wanted to live by the beach (choice), but I also needed to live in an area with great alt transit options (necessity) because I wanted to get rid of my car (choice).
How do you travel (transit, car, etc)?Are your travel decisions dictated by choice or necessity? Please explain.
Mostly, I walk! My neighborhood’s very pedestrian friendly, with nearby grocery stores, restaurants, bars — you name it! I also bike everywhere I need to get to within Santa Monica. To reach other areas of L.A., I take the bus (both Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus system and the L.A. Metro). If I’m out late, I usually take a cab home. And rarely, I rent a car from Enterprise or borrow a friend’s car. Until recently I also used Flexcar from time to time, but the cars near me have been pulled since the company’s merger with Zipcar :(
Tell us about a Tiny Choice you’ve made in your life.
De-car-ing is probably the biggest Tiny Choice I’ve made, considering that I live in the sprawling metropolis that is L.A., where most everyone drives. The good news is that I haven’t seen my mobility or social life diminish as a result. I found that the fears I had about forgoing a personal car was largely psychological.
What is the one environmental dilemma you personally struggle the most with?
Composting — because I don’t do it. Unfortunately, Santa Monica apartment residents don’t get green bins to dispose organic materials in. And because I don’t have a plot of land to call my own, setting up a composting system isn’t as easy as putting a composter in the corner of the yard.
What is one Tiny Choice you can make in that direction?
I plan to look further into balcony composting options. So far, what I’ve found has been discouraging — A number of friends say they’ve tried and failed with such methods. The smell of the compost seems to be the biggest problem; apparently it’s difficult to get the compost not to smell unless one has exactly the right mix of materials (dry vs. wet, etc.). If anyone’s successfully instituted a balcony composting program, I’d love some advice.
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?
No single question really sticks out, but what I’ve found is that many people are eager to defend their current lifestyle in whatever way possible, without bothering to look at the bigger picture. For example, people who never had any passionate love for conventional bulbs will suddenly cite all sorts of tiny reasons for NOT switching to CFLs once they’re told conventional bulbs waste a lot of energy. And people with no real strong feelings about Starbucks, who simply patronized it out of habit and convenience, will suddenly step up to defend the company as one of the most socio-environmentally ethical ones out there once someone points out the company doesn’t pay fair trade prices for most of its coffee. The same goes for recycling, de-car-ing, and many other enviro issues out there. I guess the upside of all of that is that I learn a lot while developing counterarguments for these defenses.
What is the one environmental Tiny Choice you would like every single person to adopt?
Check out your farmers’ market. This’ll support local agriculture, encourage community, and lead to healthier diets.
Do you feel like you make sacrifices for environmentalism? Please explain.
Sometimes, but usually, these are momentary feelings that aren’t quite based on the overall reality of the situation. For example, sometimes I get peeved while waiting for the bus, angry that I’m wasting my time for the sake of the environment. Then I remember that in the past, I was stuck in my car, angry that I’m wasting my time while waiting for traffic to move. At least once the bus arrives, I can read, listen to music, or just zone out instead of staring at the bumper in front of me, willing it to move.
Are you generally: optimistic, pessimistic, neutral about environmentalism and the future?
I’m definitely not neutral, but I veer wildly between optimism and pessimism. I’m optimistic that individuals can enact change in this world, creating both small and big solutions for the problems on hand. I’m pessimistic in that I believe we’ve clearly already done a lot of irrevocable damage to the environment. For example, I think that regardless of what we do at this point to reduce carbon emissions, the polar bears are already f*cked. The current battle over whether or not polar bears should be on the Endangered Species list seems a bit of a moot point, although perhaps an important symbolic act.
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Great post - I get a lot out of these ’surveys’. It’s fun to get a sense of readers ideas, concerns, so on. Gives a great sense of community!
Hey Matt! C’mon, fill out the survey and send it to us!
Yup, liked this one especially since i just subscribed to her green la girl feed recently…fascinating to hear about people’s decisionmaking on the green front. great series.
We’d love to read your answers too, MamaBird! Send us your survey! :)
Hey Siel,
“Hot” composting, where bacteria and fungi do all the work, is the kind that stinks if you get it slightly wrong. “Cold” Composting with Red Worms is an entirely different matter. Different people have different tolerances for different smells, of course, but I have been “Vermicomposting” for 5 months now, and I haven’t experienced any odorific problems. I did have a small problem with some gnatlike flies, but that was a result of my own impatience, and it resolved itself in a couple of weeks.
I highly recommend an “Upward Migration”-style worm bin like the one I got. I don’t want to plug the company I got it from, over here on TC’s blog, but a web search for “Vermiculture” or “Vermicompost” will net you a lot of interesting results.
we are not anti-plug - is it the one that I use in my kitchen? Jenn listed four ways to (non-stinkily) compost indoors too.
Thanks for the kind words people — Wow, TC readers are really nice! :)
Right now, I’m planning to investigate what I can do to get the city to offer apartment dwellers green bins (for leaves, veggie scraps, etc.). The city offers them for homeowners, but not apartment dwellers — Surely there must be a way to change that! I recently met one of my councilmembers, who bikes everywhere and is def. an environmentalist, and so feel a bit emboldened pursuing this route. This way reducing kitchen waste will become easier for every apt dweller in the city, as opposed to just me if I get a composting bin.
But if that doesn’t work, it sounds like I’ll need to make new wormy friends :)
good luck Siel! let us know how it works out!