The following piece originally aired as a commentary on NPR-member station Tri States Public Radio WIUM/WIUW.
When it comes to living single in a couples’ world, commentator Alison McGaughey has some trash talking to do.
I read in the newspaper that when it comes to saving the planet, married people are leaving a lighter carbon footprint than those who are divorced. In other words, if you’re not married, apparently, it ain’t easy being green.
At least that appears to be the claim made by a recent study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
If you’re divorced, chances are greater that you have fewer people living in your home. You might even be living alone.
According to the findings, married people and their families get by with just 2.5 rooms per person, whereas the average divorced household in the U.S. has 3.7 rooms per person.
And living alone means taking up more space and resources for yourself.
This makes it sound like the solitary lifestyle is “equivalent to driving around in a gas guzzler all by yourself with the air conditioner on full blast and a cell phone needlessly plugged into the charger,” as LA Times columnist Meghan Daum put it.
I didn’t like what I read about this study.
I’m not divorced, but I am the only person under my own roof.
And I’m an obsessive recycle-r. A driver of a fuel-efficient vehicle. The way I re-use my cottage cheese cartons would make my Depression-era Grandma proud.
So it stings to have to question my validity as a green-gung-ho goody-goody. But more than that, I really didn’t need anything added to the societal stigma against single people.
When I mentioned that I live alone, people often tell me: “You should get a roommate.”
To be fair, they’re trying to be helpful—because I do tend to complain about the constrictions of living on a single income.
But I still bristle at the suggestion that I shouldn’t be living on my own.
Like many single people, I cherish the luxuries of peace and quiet. But it isn’t just that.
It’s that living independently is non-negotiable for me—as much a part of what counts toward “Official Adulthood” as having to pay taxes.
(Plus, who doesn’t love the freedom to openly double-dip a chip?)
As if it wasn’t bad enough to I read this story in the national news, I was hit on the local level with an environmental slam against my single status.
The little white pamphlet from Waste Management of Macomb, which arrived on Jan. 12, seemed innocuous enough: A helpful review of which kids of items can and cannot be recycled.
(I was perturbed to find that I’d been making an egregious refuse error over the last several months—No plastic plates or black microwave trays“?!? Now I have to feel guilty for for the fact that I subsist off of Lean Cuisines?)
But that would turn out to be the least of my woes.
As the flier reminded me, the City of Macomb has switched to a cart system, meaning that a new 96-gallon cart will be delivered to my home.
I knew right away this behemoth beast would never fit through the door to the storage area where I stash my weekly pile-up.
(I have to protect it from the insanely bold raccoons that prowl my neighborhood at night).
But the new system means you can’t just plop your single bag on the curb. And I can get a smaller one, the pamphlet re-assured me, but I have to go to City Hall to do it.
And within a certain—short—time frame.
And, at least twice when I’ve called to see if I can make the request over the phone, I’ve been received by a recorded voice. The lady who di answer an 800-number at Waste Management the told me to call the same number I’d already called.
Truth is, I’m just annoyed by this little errand because it feels like another way that single people get the short straw.
But if I can ever get anyone to answer the phone and agree to issuing the single-people trash-storage unit, and the the married folk roll out their 96-gallon carts, I’ll proudly put out my little bachelorette bucket: a measly 35 gallons of trash.
I mean, the very idea that single people should feel guilty for living alone?
That’s just a bunch of garbage.
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Tags: city, local_news, Macomb, NPR, radio, recycling, trash
