Seriously green

E: The Environmental Magazine, August, 1995 by Carol Leonetti, Jim Motavalli

It's hardly an original observation to say that environmentalism begins at home. But living in harmony with the Earth involves more than just turning up at the clear-cutting demonstration and mailing annual dues to Greenpeace. The serious environmentalist is green all the way through, not just on the surface. The four families in this story have made a deep and personal commitment to reducing, reusing and recycling -- in some cases, at the cost of considerable domestic comfort.

We're not trying to make our readers feel guilty here. But these paragons can inspire and instruct us with their stories. They've found ingenious and creative solutions to life's more mundane eco-problems. Anyway, relax. Despite all the hard work, they still seem to be having a pretty good time.

The Crandall-Hanifins of Hopkinton, Rhode Island:

Living as Simply as Possible

The chickens are out back feasting on Friday night's stirfry as the worms under the sink munch the morning coffee grounds. Aaron Crandall, 17, is elbow deep in a bag of potato chips, explaining between mouthfuls how it is that a couple of teenagers and their parents throw out only a 30-gallon bag-and-a-half of trash a month.

It's all in what you generate, he says, looking accusingly at the bag that holds the chips.

It once was that the Crandall-Hanifin family of Hopkinton, R.I., had a much harder time keeping their trash in check. For decades they confined their environmentalism to buying their food in bulk at the co-op they founded and ran, reading magazines second-hand, and buying their wares in wide-mouth bottles that could be used over and again.

But a not-so-funny thing happened in the sleepy town in the southwest corner of Rhode Island. In 1992, the Hopkinton landfill shut down. So did the one in nearby Westerly. Townspeople were pitted against each other in the debate over disposal. After much deliberation, the town officials decided that Westerly would build a transfer station for itself. Hopkinton townsfolk could only dispose of their trash in area-sanctioned 30-gallon trash bags that sold for $1.35 apiece at local supermarkets. The money would help pay for costs incurred by the transfer station and would force a direct correlation between what people used and what they paid to get rid of it.

The shortage of dump space also prompted major recycling efforts by the area. Where three years ago the Crandall-Hanifins stockpiled their newspapers for the annual Boy Scout drive, now they keep them in a shed out back for monthly trips to the dump. Magazines go there, too, along with cans, bottles, junk mail, office paper, cardboard and some plastics.

"It's a mindset. You just have to get in the habit," says Crandall's mother, Nancy Hanifin.

Not all people of Hopkinton are as trash-conscious as the Crandall-Hanifin family. Most families of four in the area generate about a 30-gallon bag every three days, says Doug St. Clair, foreman of the Westerly transfer station, who noted that recycling increased more than a third when the town instituted its pay-as-you-dump fee.

But the Crandall-Hanifins are not like most people. They live without running water or electricity in a tiny three-bedroom 250-year-old Cape by an old graveyard on the edge of the woods. Propane gas powers the lights in the kitchen and the refrigerator. The outhouse is, well, outside. An Ashley wood stove in the living room burns all day: heating the water in an old beer keg for the morning's showers, taking the chill out of the nighttime air when the family gathers to watch the black-and-white TV that's powered by the battery in Nancy Hanifin's 1983 Toyota.

"We like to live as simply as possible. To me the luxuries complicate things," says Brian Crandall, 42, a carpenter, who never ceases to be amazed that people are amazed at the way his family lives.

"A lot of my friends are aghast when they first come here, but I think it's great," says Kally Hanifin, 14, who says it's not so hard, really, to live without a hair dryer and other appliances synonymous with being a teenager. "When you grow up without it, you don't miss it as much." She's curled up on the sofa, sketching, chuckling about the frenzy that took over her community during last year's numerous winter power outages. At her house, it was business as usual.

In terms of trash, business as usual at the Crandall-Hanifins' includes "precycling," opting for the right packaging when shopping -- choosing a recyclable plastic milk container instead of a wax one, for example, or opting for recyclable cardboard instead of non-recyclable plastic. And there's less need to worry about food packaging.

With consumption, says Crandall, inevitably comes waste, and the Crandall-Hanifins are trying to keep theirs in check. "There's a whole lot that can be done for the environment. You can do something about it or do nothing,' Crandall says. "It's an individual choice. We're trying to do what we can."

The Burgers of Whitney Point, New York:

Waste Not

Environmental fanatics aren't supposed to have normal suburban three-bedroom homes with all of the modern conveniences, including a dishwasher, microwave and Marantz stereo playing Bob Dylan. Their daughters aren't supposed to be sitting in comfortable armchairs playing Nintendo Gameboys, munching Wise potato chips.