“Stop living sustainably, and come eat your breakfast,” said Toby, who was making us some waffles one morning recently and was ready to serve them. Living sustainably in this particular instance meant that I was refilling the wood box. And those waffles Toby were made from scratch, and he very often puts some homemade granola in them, so two more instances of “sustainability” as I experience it. Why, I wondered, did I think that burning wood or making granola meant my way of life was particularly sustainable? What really is sustainable living, anyway?
I am asking this question a lot these days, because, in my little bourgeoisie heart of hearts, I really want a septic system and flush toilet, and I hanker after a garage with a remote door opener. At this point in my life those two things seem incredibly luxurious and not emblematic of sustainability.
For years I have lived with a composting toilet and privy because this old island house had no septic system. Until my husband and I moved in, it did not have running hot water, one of the first modernizations made. Eventually, we created a bathroom so that we did not have to do as I suspect earlier dwellers did: take their Saturday night baths in front of the blazing hot kitchen stove. I used to mooch baths from tolerant friends and neighbors. After several hard marital conversations about flush toilets and the water they consumed, I conceded to a composting toilet. The other owner of the house repeatedly pointed out with pride to all who would listen the great number of gallons of water our practice saved. I have always hated that toilet.
I think that they are perfect for camps or seldom-used locations like summer cottages on islands. I have used public composting toilets like the one at the rest stop off I-95 just over the line in Massachusetts and one in a nature sanctuary. So I know they can tolerate a great deal of use. But even though mine is rated for four adults’ daily use, my toilet wobbles and struggles with two.
I turn it, add carbonaceous stuff, dump it and let the result dry out before emptying the drawer that collects it. The darn thing is moody. When the weather changes it sulks and stinks. It goes through spells when it refuses to evaporate effectively the mass that absorbs the inevitable result of coffee drinking. Turning it raises a stink, dumping it raises a stink. It may be a way to live sustainably, but I find it unsustainable.
Unlike the privy, bless its chilly-in-winter little heart. That privy, perched at the back of the wood room, a three-holer—two adult holes and one child—not, you know, to accommodate simultaneous use, but rather to allow one pile to settle a bit while building the other, is the most sustainable thing going. All it asks of me is a bed of dry leaves far away at the bottom, and layers of peat moss, woodpile sweepings from the barn floor, and some lime in summer to discourage flies. Every couple of years or so, it needs digging out. Whatever bad smell there is wafts away on breezes. I love my privy—except in the dead of the winter, when not even sitting on my hands is sufficient to protect my tender bottom from the cold.
Even when I finally put in a septic system, which I recognize means polluting some water temporarily, I will continue to use the privy. I probably will not flush every time. (If it’s yellow, let it mellow”¦.) And I will continue as long as I am able to do a deep knee bend, to indulge myself in the great pleasure of responding outdoors to nature’s insistent call, which, with the privacy of considerable acreage, gives me some time to listen to birdsong, and at night, see the Milky Way. This would seem to be sustainable. I will, however, lose water conservation bragging rights and a surge of accompanying self-righteousness when I consider the condition of water worldwide.
The garage and door opener seem more self-indulgent, however. I lived for a short while in a house with this feature, and I fell for it. How wonderful not to scrape ice, frost, or ten inches of snow off a windshield. How wonderful to put myself and objects into, and to take things out of, a car in a rainstorm without getting drenched. How grand not to track dirt, mud, or snow onto the car floor mats.
How much electricity will it take the open the garage door and how many resources to build it? I suppose, or hope, not much, at least not enough to smite my conscience painfully.
If I keep on acquiring at least some of my firewood right on my property where I can cut sustainably, and if I keep on cooking from scratch, and keep my consumerism down to a dull roar, actually not too hard for me to do, continue squiggly CF electrical bulb use, insulate windows in winter, and take the train in lieu of flying, I’d like to think that my way of life will be reasonably sustainable.
Can we accept that self-righteousness may be bad for our souls, inflexibility and doctrinaire approaches to life endanger our human relationships, and frivolous self-sacrifice impresses only ourselves? Does sustainable mean holding onto your own precepts at all costs and despite the outcomes in the process? If living sustainably means sustaining large amounts of self-righteousness, indulging in rationalizing about my lack of small, daily comforts or conveniences, or dipping deeply into doctrinaire definitions of sustainable, well, then it doesn’t seem sustainable, does it?
Sandy Oliver is a food historian and food writer who lives and grows food sustainably on Isleboro.