Alive & Unedited

Green like me

By Brittany Kress

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WILL SHILLING PHOTO

You don't have to be a scientist—or a hippie—to have a compost heap and carry canvas shopping bags. Cathy Tiffany wants Columbus' suburban families, singles living Downtown and all those in between to know it's easy to decrease their effect on the environment.

The high-heel-wearing hairstylist has been moving away from the throwaway culture since the early '90s, and as she learns more about the damaging effects of trash, pollution and coffee plantations, she adds more efforts.

She's eyeing a push mower for her Dublin lawn, but her husband has warned that she would have to handle that workout herself.

This spring, Tiffany organized the Central Ohio branch of the Rainforest Action Network as a way to spread word of the little—and big—things people can do to lessen their impact, and thus preserve rain forests. The organization is currently recruiting members; for info, click to ran.org.

What's the goal of the local Rainforest Action Network chapter?

My thing is, not enough regular people know about things you can get involved with locally, things you should and shouldn't buy, things you should and shouldn't do.

And I guess our little slogan is to educate, motivate and inspire people to make positive changes in their own lives that aren't difficult. They're just practical, normal-people stuff that really make a big impact even when you just do some of them.

What are some of those things?

Turn off the water when you brush your teeth, change your light bulbs to those high-efficiency [bulbs], turn off lights when you're not in the room.

You could certainly compost all your yard waste and vegetables, fruits, even egg shells, coffee filters, tea bags—all of that goes into our compost pile. Collecting your rainwater. We don't use any pesticides on our lawn because that all seeps into your water and into the storm drain, and that's just bad.

I think one of the biggest ones is?everybody drinks coffee—rainforests are clear-cut for coffee plantations. So buy shade-grown coffee or certified organic coffee or fair-traded coffee.

How did you get into this?

I had a couple of hippie friends who ... inspired me by the things they were involved with. Although they were—and this is fine, this is just not me—they were the typical hippie, hemp-wearing vegans. And that's fine, it's just not the majority of America.

Our [Rainforest Action Network] chapter, we're all professional people, we have regular cars—I'd love to have a hybrid, but my car's paid for, and I'm driving it until it blows up. So we're trying to show people that you can be a regular person, you can have a regular job, you can live in the suburbs and you can make changes and do your part to be a better environmental steward.

I'll talk about this stuff with my clients, and they're like, what's that? And they're educated, good people, and they have no idea. It's just not reaching those types of people.

Do you think environmental awareness is becoming more mainstream?

It's very frustrating because I'll go into a grocery store—a regular Wal-Mart—and I bring all my own [canvas] bags, and so far, out of like a million times, one cashier got it. One person asked me, "Are you one of those environmental people?"? I shouldn't be treated like I'm an alien. It was very frustrating.

You think these lifestyle changes are manageable?

It's just working that into your daily routine. So whether you have to put a sticky note up or work it into your kids' chores, it's just not that difficult to do. And collecting rain in a rain barrel—would it be easier to put the sprinkler on? Yeah. But it's just not the right thing to do.

I don't find it obtrusive, interrupting? I'm not late for work because I had to compost!

October 18th, 2007

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