The Convenience Factor

One of the hesitations towards moving to “green,” as they say, or living in a more sustainable manner, is the loss of convenience. Often making the move to the sustainable choice means a little more thought and effort on the individual’s part. This may mean walking a few extra blocks, spending a longer commute on public transit, walking out the recycling or actually considering the ingredients at the grocery store.

I think about this loss of convenience pretty much every time I take out the recycling. My apartment actually has single-stream recycling—which means I don’t even need to separate it! And therefore makes it by far one of the easiest things to do in terms of the small steps to more sustainable life-style. I’m not going to lie though, there is an extra step take in the process. Taking out the trash, for example, only requires I walk down the hall to throw it out, but with the recycling I have to take the elevator down to the basement to drop it off. Okay, I know down the elevator is not that much further than down the hall—not complaining here at all… it really is just an extra step in the process. However, it still always dawns on me—the fact that it really does take a little bit more time and I wonder if I were not so worried about it, would I even bother? And for that matter, how many others even bother?

On Saturday, I woke up and decided I wanted to have a small dinner party. After walking to the store and buying ingredients, I spent about three hours cooking. Now, this was exactly what I wanted to do with my gray Saturday afternoon but I realize that cooking from scratch takes a great deal more time than say, ordering out, throwing some frozen treats in the oven, or whatever easier way you choose to go about it. Granted, I was in the mood for cooking, and hence the dinner party—didn’t want to make all that food for just me ☺. I can tell you that the meal I made, although the bread ended a little burned was received very well by my friends and at least they were a little impressed that I had spent extra the time to cook for them!

My point is, it is great to take the extra step: to recycle, to cook from scratch, to live consciously and sustainably… all the things that I do strive to do. However, I get it—it’s not always the easy way out and for those that can make the change, need to let go of that “convenient factor” in the day-to-day activities. What about those people who want the dinner with out the prep-time? What about those who don’t have any prep-time to spare? Of course, not everyone has the option, and those that do can make a choice and losing the convenience of all the modern technology we have today is a hard one to take.

So, if you are able and ready to do so—taking the extra step away from convenience can be rewarding. And who knows, maybe on that trip to the basement recycle bins; something great will happen (something like my recycling not ending in a landfill!)