These days I see a lot of urban middle class people talking about frugal living.
Image Courtesy: Investment Zen/ Flickr (Creative Commons)
They join “green clubs” and spend time going out for nature trails, volunteering with NGOs etc. They even volunteer a weekend at time for a good cause, like say a beach clean up drive. However, a worrying trend is their tendency to think they are actually doing their part. But let us be honest. We are barely doing our part. This is a bitter truth I face on a daily basis. But how many accept this and decide to work towards addressing this issue is another story.
Let me elaborate, here is what I hear from people: I am a middle class urban citizen. I segregate my waste, I do not litter, I carry my trash with me, I upcycle plastic waste, I always use cloth bags.
Many feel by doing this, they are pretty much doing their part to save the environment. Ok, it is a contribution, no doubt but in all honestly it is a negligible contribution.
As an urban middle class citizen, here is where you contribute substantially: Reducing air travel/flights, not using personal vehicle/car, shopping locally (especially food), using public transport regularly, and not be a voracious consumer of any electronic product, and reducing shopping to bare necessities. But the truth of the matter is you are likely to be an urban middle class citizen who vacations internationally, owns your own vehicle, lives with all the luxuries of life, have an energy intensive lifestyle (ACs / dish washers/ automated gadgets) and quite materialist (shops online often, changes mobile phones and electronic goods often, own a camera or 2).
Just by ensuring that the plastic packaging that arrives with your online shopped parcel is recycled, or you buy only (expensive and you can afford it) organic food, dedicate a day in a month to a noble cause (clean up drives, urban farming, etc)- you think you have done your part. Sigh.
Hell, I am no saint. I may not fit the description of the person above… but I do not think I am doing my part either. That guilt hurts. I don’t know what to do about it.
lessonsfromlife123 