WASTEFUL

The past couple days have really opened my eyes to a major problem; how environmentally wasteful we as human beings are:

• Hundreds of trees chopped down in stacks of shaved and ready to send off loads bigger than trucks.
• The mass amounts of fuel we use despite the rising costs.
• A lone tall-tree surrounded by smaller unnatural rows of little shrubs.
• The back of our Puffins box finally got to me, on how our global warming and oil spills are causing those poor little helpless things to go extinct.
• How easily disturbed I was about the Styrofoam take-out boxes from our sushi last night
• The amount of paper, cardboard and trash shuffled around each day, and the explosion of junk in my mailbox. Multiply that by millions- it’s devastating.
• How artificial our cities and life structures have become.

And the matter of the fact is, there was one key item I read that really opened up my eyes to how big of negative impact we are creating on our planet. Nike presented an impressive list of their extreme efforts taken in order to reduce their company environmental impact. And then the one item that got me was that just by using 75% recycled cardboard for their shoe boxes, they save 200,000 trees annually. That’s a lot of trees; and this is just one company. Can you imagine all other larger corporations and how much paper and waste gets processed through each company? If you need an immediate example, as a triathlete, just look at the aftermath of a half Ironman or a triathlon along the feed zones or aide stations; wrappers, cups, sponges, bottles... We leave marks too.

I’ve been a hoarder and a complete user-upper ever since I was little. I still find it very uncustomary to throw away a bottle that still has product left in it. I fully empty jars of their food contents with a spatula and then put it in the recycling. Lessening your trash impact is the biggest step you take in making a difference. It’s a lifestyle choice and as well as an attitude. How you view disposable everyday items besides your beloved laptop or cell phone takes more thought, effort and understanding that your responsibility doesn’t just stop there. It’s an effort everyone should take, but one that most are too lazy and selfish to care about his or her impact on the environment. Can you imagine more and more individuals reducing their overall trash consumption?

I don’t know about you, but living in a place where nature is appreciated and taken care of by humans makes you see how big of a difference it really makes. It also makes you see how easy a resourceful life can be- where urban sprawl, air pollution, trash and big name companies are in the minority. Oregon is one of the few places on earth where I see little to no trash on the roads. It’s where I can train and escape the artificial American life.

More companies need to start focusing on supporting our living- our earth. Without it, we won’t survive. There’ll be no more beautiful escapes on the bike through national forests, clear lakes to swim in, clean air to breathe, cedar trails to run along. Sport is pure; pollution isn’t. Here are some companies that are making the triathlon and sport purer. I hope that triathlon companies are seeing the future of the sport and of our lives and adapting to what needs to be done to preserve our gorgeous race and training playgrounds.

• Trek has their carbon recycling program to recycle used and or broken bikes.
• Trisports is uber ecofriendly by making every effort to recycle everything and offers a “green” bike box.
• Tinkerlog.com recycles your old wetsuits and turns them into laptop sleeves and more!
• Clif Bar wrappers are recyclable!

Recycling bins are now being distributed at races so that bottles and race gear can be recycled. More and more people are donating used running shoes to those who can’t afford them. The Big Creek Triathlon located in Iowa were one of the first to pioneer the reusable bags, make hats from ecofriendly recyclable products, distribute reusable nalgene water bottles verses plastic and have those recycling bins everywhere. We need to continue and mainstream these efforts to be mandatory in triathlon. This weekend, the woodstock of triathlons, Wildflower, is now providing recycling bins for the thousands of racers- this is a huge, positive step forward!

Make it your goal to simplify your life by reducing, reusing and being resourceful.