As a child, I was always fascinated with the three-inch diameter wooden ball my mother kept in her sewing basket. Surely, if something looked like a toy, it needed to be played with. However, she did not see it that way. She was rather protective of the wooden ball.
Her own mother had taught her the skill of knitting wool socks when she was a young adult, and now, with a family of her own, she took advantage of the talent, making socks for her husband and three sons.
What amazed me was her ability to knit at a furious pace while keeping up a perfectly good conversation or watching a movie on TV. It was an ingenious combination of running a particular aspect of the household while being engaged in one of her hobbies.
The wooden ball came into play when, due to frequent use, the inevitable hole appeared in the sock. She placed it inside where it provided a smooth surface on which to darn. Her ability to mend was such that after a few minutes, it was hard to tell where the defect had been. Our socks were hardly ever retired because of damage, but for lack of keeping pace with our growing feet.
Modern economies are capable of producing huge quantities of clothes at very low cost. This leads us, the consumers, to regard these goods as little more than commodities that can be discarded quickly and without much thought. The list of products that we used to keep for years and now dispose of almost instantaneously is increasing. As well as clothing, our desire for disposable items such as tissues, diapers, and electronics all contribute to an expanding throwaway culture.
When washed and soggy and weather allowing, our wool socks would be hung outside, one-by-one on the clothes lines in our yard. There, they were dried with the finest and healthiest ingredients, at no cost at all – sunshine and air. I remember playing hide and seek between the many sheets of linens and garments swaying in the wind, or chasing through the maze-like, narrow spaces. I miss the clothes lines. Where did they go?
Another memory revolves around the chore of buying food at the local grocery stores. Our town of approximately 10,000 people had three medium-size grocers, an equal number of bakeries, one butcher and the other usual suspects, which are primarily serving the needs of local residents. They were all within walking distance, and we shopped for food at least once every other day.
At the checkout lines of the grocery stores, plastic bags were not available, and paper bags could be purchased for 20 cents each.
Per the UN Environment Program, the average plastic bag takes less than one second to manufacture, is 20 minutes in use, and takes 100 to 400 years to degrade naturally. Around four to five trillion are currently produced every year.
Most of these bags are used only once before being thrown away, damaging the environment. In the U.S. it is estimated that 100 billion bags are thrown away every year with only .6 percent being recycled. Not only do they add to waste in landfill, but they have been blamed for flooding in places like India and Bangladesh, where thousands of bags clog up storm water drainage systems.
We cannot turn back the clock, and neither should we. The world today is more technologically advanced than it has ever been before, yet our progress and way of life have also developed unwanted side effects on the environment. We are now seeing, unequivocally supported by science, the limits of our ability to live in harmony with nature. We have become the invasive species.
I have always liked the term Mother Earth, as it so accurately captures the essence of nature’s role and importance: she nurtures, energizes, and enables us. She is the very foundation of humanity’s existence. After four decades of growing up, and counting, and in light of the environmental challenges ahead, I reflect on my own mother and father today with a renewed recognition in the inherent wisdom in the many seemingly ordinary things they did.
Tom Jacobs is an architect with Krueck & Sexton in Chicago and an adjunct assistant professor at UIC. He is on the board of the Frederick Law Olmsted Society of Riverside. In 2008, he founded the Riverside Sustainability Council.
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