What does Going Green mean, anyway?

Everybody is going green these days, it seems.  From restaurants touting their “green” paper products to little old ladies toting their cloth bags to the grocery store.  Green is most definitely the new black.

On the one hand, I think “Great! This planet can use all the help it can get!”  On the other hand, I’m starting to think that going green has become window dressing. Two parts marketing ploy, one part environmental movement.

Case in point: I just got home from my sons’ preschool Back-to-School night. The director gleefully announced that, “the preschool is going green!” And just how is the school doing this? By installing a paper recycling bin at the front door.  Parents who don’t have curbside pick up (we don’t) are invited to bring their paper to the school.

It’s a nice idea, right? An opportunity to increase recycling rates while teaching our kids about recycling. And yet something about her ebullient announcement seemed empty.  Empty, perhaps, because on any given day, I receive at least three handouts from the kids’ teacher and four more from the school administration.

Now, I’m all for good communication with parents, but are all these flyers really necessary? Could this information not be shared via e-mail? (The school has all our e-mail addresses, as we also get an e-newsletter once a week.) Or how about posting one copy of the flyer at the door to each classroom and asking parents to initial it once they’ve read it?  Or maybe they could just photocopy on both sides of the paper?

I’m not picking on our preschool, because really, it is a lovely place and does a great job with our kids.  But I do think that their green “initiative” (my word, not the school’s) is rather anemic as far as environmental impact goes. One recycling bin does not “going green” make.

Then again, like I said yesterday, we’re all works in progress. Something is better than nothing and even small changes can make a big impact.

So while I’m pondering how our family can make more small changes, I’m also going to draft a letter to the preschool director — congratulating her for the recycling bin and suggesting some ways the school could reduce paper consumption. After all, if I’m going to complain about it, I’d better be prepared to do something about it.