28 — Friday, December 25, 1992 — North Shore News

ENVIRONMENT
Yuletide daze

BY THE time you read
this, many of you will be
sitting surrounded by the
evidence of Christmas’ ex-
cess.

Shredded wrapping.- Leftovers
from the turkey. Cardboard
boxes. Crumpled paper hats.
Perhaps some already-broken
toys.

But wasn’t it great?

Even for those people who do
introduce less-wasteful en-
vironmental practices into their
holiday routine, Christmas is still
a time when we indulge ourselves
and others.

But as we come out of the
Yuletide daze and clear off our
desks for the new year, it’s a good
time to take stock of our priorities
and see if there are some positive
changes we could be making to
our daily lives in °93.

Over time, the initial headline-
grabbing impact of environmen-
talism has faded somewhat, but
the problems haven’t diminished.
While it may be harder to muster
the enthusiasm you once had for
composting, recycling, or using
reusable grocery bags, it’s just as
vital that you do so.

We still have to learn how to
cub our consumption. Spending
money in and of itself isn’t bad,
of course — no one wants a
depressed economy ~— but no
society can be healthy if its wealth
is generated through businesses
and industries based on non-sus-
tainable, resource-wasting or
polluting practices.

And many people are already

FUN SWEATERS.

Peggy
Trendell-Whittaker

ECO INFO

up to their eyeballs in personal
debt. They may be helping to keep
society’s economic wheels oiled in
the short term, but become a lia-
bility to themselves and society in
the long term if their spending
remains out of control.

But it’s not easy to curb our
consumerist desires. I had a hard
lesson in that last week, when I
underwent a three-day ‘‘cleans-
ing’’ fast. :

My needs were being served by
a lemon-juice-maple-syrup-water
mixture and some mysterious gel-
atin capsules, so J didn’t have
hunger pangs throughout the three
days. :

But it was pretty tough letting
go of all the other food, which I
found tends to fulfil ‘‘necds’’

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