Now if you're going to get mad at me for this article, sure, just read it first.

Basically, Green Living, or Sustainable Living, is a way to live your life where you try to minimize your impact on the world. Some of the more extreme styles are Zero Waste Lifestyle in which individuals attempt not to produce any waste for the rest of their lives, the Minimalist lifestyle where people strive to keep their material things to a minimum, pun intended. The more tame styles being recycling and watching your water waste.

I'm not necessarily against this. I, personally, adore minimalist lifestyle, and before I was living on my own in Orlando, I didn't use single-use plastic. I have been looking into Tiny House Living, having everything you need in a house in 500 square feet and under, and its something I have been considering for the past three years. I think we should recycle and like I said I avoid as much single-use plastic as I can.

However, I have a significant issue with the rhetoric of Green Living, which is that we the masses are responsible for the death or healing of the planet. I'm not saying that we don't play a role, with 325 million people in the United States it would be challenging to claim that we don't make an impact on the environment. I also think that we have a duty to give back to nature, if you harvest the fruits of a tree you should plant the seeds you gain from that fruit. One cannot take without also giving back, not in relationships, not in ones work, and not in nature. So whats my problem? Mainly it's that this idea that we as singular people or households are the only and most significant cause of damages to our world.

Let's take a look at water waste. The average human wastes around 80-100 gallons of water per day, which is a roughly the size of a big trash can. However, when comparing that to the water waste for the Fashion industry and how much water it takes to make one cotton t-shirt, 715 gallons of water, it becomes evident that our 80-100 gallons are a small amount of water. Especially when you realize that no company is going to make just one cotton t-shirt per day, that is such a ridiculous concept I can't stop laughing.

This is just one type of shirt in one industry. The agricultural industry uses about 70% of water worldwide, which we could argue that it should. I like food. I want to continue to eat it.

My point with this article is that when media and industry tell us that it's our responsibility to clean up everyone's mess. Of course, it would probably help if every individual in America started practicing Zero-Waste but, wouldn't it be better and more accessible and cheaper, in the long run, if companies stopped using so much plastic and watched the amount of water they waste? It seems to me that no one is actively calling out companies for their waste. While water conservation for day to day Americans is viable, we still wouldn't make the same dent that companies would if they tried to be more green.

I think the best thing for a day-to-day American to do is to try ab be aware of your impact, try to live as Zero-Waste as plausible for your lifestyle, Sustainable Living is easier for the rich, but as you try to lessen your impact call out the companies that don't.