Spouses may not always agree on wasteful behavior (Image: Wavebreak Media Ltd.)
I have a mixed marriage. Our differences are not racial, religious or ethnic, but rather they are ecological. It has been said that men are from Mars and women from Venus. In our case, I strive to reduce our carbon footprint here on Earth, while my husband seems to be floating in outer space.
To be clear, Mr. Right shares my progressive values and concern about global warming. He takes pride in his car’s fuel efficiency, and favors strong environmental protections and policies. However, while I’m busy reducing, reusing, refusing, repairing, and recycling, his day-to-day habits have not evolved. The result is a constant battle of wits over waste.
The Thermostat Wars
I suspect that we are not the only couple to engage in seasonal Thermostat Wars. I am comfortable living in a house that is a little cool in winter and warm in summer, adjusting my apparel to heat (or chill) my personal space as needed. But as soon as my back is turned, my spouse has flipped the thermostat to make the entire house into a sauna or fridge—not necessarily based on his personal comfort, but on what his mobile weather app tells him about the temperature outside! (I gently remind him that we live indoors.)
Who Turned on the Lights?
Smaller battles are equally frustrating. While I turn off lights when I leave the room, he has been known to turn them on and then leave the room. I carefully use and reuse the smallest portion of a “select-a-size” paper towel, while he employs half a roll to mop up a tiny spill. He can leave the bathroom without responding to the steady drip of a sink or shower faucet that was not completely turned off, or the relentless gurgling of a running toilet. Perhaps most maddening, he subscribes to numerous papers, magazines, and academic journals. Then he reads the articles online and leaves tons of the often-untouched “hard copy” for me to lug down to the curb for recycling.
Old Habits Die Hard
Five paper cups left behind by Fredrica’s wasteful husband (Image credit: Fredrica Rudell)
My husband is very intelligent, so I have tried to reason with him on grounds of efficiency and waste reduction as part of an environmentally responsible (not to mention practical) lifestyle. Not long ago, I brought him into the kitchen and pointed to four paper cups lined up on the counter. He had taken a few drinks of water over the course of a couple of hours, using a fresh cup each time. (By contrast, I simply rinse my morning coffee mug and reuse it for all my beverage consumption during the day.) He understood that it was wasteful to use so many paper cups and admitted that he hadn’t been paying attention when he poured the water. He sounded sincere when he promised to be more careful in the future, and I felt that I had gotten my point across. But an hour later, I returned to the kitchen and found a fifth cup added to the lineup!
I’m happy to report that I do win the occasional skirmish. Mr. Right finally agreed to repair an expensive clock radio rather than buy a new one. But after 42 years of marriage, so many frustrating and seemingly “irreconcilable differences” in habits remain.
How do you deal with a member of the household who doesn’t share your attitude toward waste?
Related Posts via Categories
Fredrica, this sounds exactly like the scene in my apartment! As a conservationist, my boyfriend is well aware of, and genuinely respects, my “hate to waste” philosophy, but once his own comfort is at stake- all bets are off. During the summer, the AC is always on high blast from the minute he gets home from work (which ups our electricity bill $100!) and he is constantly checking the internal vs. external temperature. I understand he runs hotter than I do but I’m starting to believe the only solution to balance our differences is to either put him in an ice jacket or for me to bundle up in a sweatsuit…in August. Anyone have any helpful tips on how to save both energy and sanity?
Great site! I found you via a LinkedIn invite. Lovin’ the green vibes.
jennifer
Great article! I also find it hard to get my boyfriend to adopt more sustainble behaviors. Unfortunately, it usually involves extra work from me such as: listening to when he goes grocery shopping so I can shove reusable bags in his hands; washing the dishes so he won’t use plastic plates and cutlery; and actively monitoring the light switches and air conditioning in the house.
It’s hard to get people to change their behaviors and each person is different. With my previous flatmate, I told her not to flush make-up wipes into the toilet as it would hurt birds and other creatures in the ocean. She responded positively to that. With my boyfriend, it works if I give him reasons of how adopting sustainable behaviors will improve his own life.
A follow up to my comment… My boyfriend offered to take my compost to the NYC Grow stand the other day as it has become a routine for me to take it every Saturday. Am glad I’m educating him into these different habits!
I read this post the other day from We Hate Waste and did think of myself and Fred! LOL.
I grew up with recycling through Mom who believed in and practiced recycling She volunteered with the creation and growth of an early recycling center in Ridgefield, CT.
So I came to the relationship, and the apartment in Hartford…. with boxes, bags and bins for cans, glass, paper, etc, and trips back home to the recycling center when the bulk of it became too overwhelming. Fred was at first resistant and understandably annoyed by all of this stuff, But I have to say, over the years, he has become active and expert in recycling. Some things are still being worked on, by us both, reminding each other about lights, drips, etc. In New Haven we have a wonderful weekly curbside recycling program and a recycling center. We are so lucky!
I love the style, the wry humor. I would read Rudell on any subject, but she is clearly well-versed and passionate on this one. More, please!
I’m happy to report that there are exceptions to the rule. Though differing heat comfort zones can sometimes be an issue, perhaps our biggest eco difference of opinion has been when I suggested we get a worm composter bin. (Keeping compost in the freezer instead resolved that question.)
Convincing the in-laws, though, is another issue. Paper and plastic table goods at every holiday meal, even though we’ve repeatedly offered to take care of getting the dishes into the dishwasher. So there’s a generational version of this marital issue as well.
Yes, I didn’t mean to confine the subject to marital differences. Any waste-related conflict within the household (parents vs. children, siblings, roommates…) or with relatives and close friends might help to generate insights and solutions. Sounds like compromises can be found…
OMG I also have a mixed marriage! So true it’s scary 😉
How do I deal with it? I try to remember that everyone contributes in a different way. My husband, for example, could not care less about recycling left-overs and definitely would never hang clothes outside instead of using a dryer. But on the other hand, he is the one who convinced me to give up our car and use public transportation and car-sharing instead. He also loves to go nearby on week-ends in our community instead of flying over to some insignificant remote house on a beach. So what can I say? The point is to draw the line when it’s just not acceptable.
I love the wasteful spouse idea; really rings home to many of us. But I found this more of a discussion of how the spouse was wasteful instead of how to cure him. The comments above are helpful, but I’m still looking for more practical solutions!
My husband is just like the rest of them, but thru 25 years of badgering, I have gotten him to compost, I refuse to install central air, I come to bed later than he so I turn off the room a/c when I get there and open up all the windows – the only thing I can’t win is the huge flat-screen TV which seems to be on all the time. I never watch TV, so it’s all his. Oh well…..
I have lived with many roomates and family members that have not shared my passion for eliminating waste and proper recycling procedures. Asking them to do so is often met with a look of annoyance or a defensive comment. The tactics that I have found the best are simply by doing it. In my last roommate situation I labeled the different bins to say what should go in there. If he did not I would put out my rubber gloves and pick it out of the garbage while he could see. I would not chastise but demonstrate. Nine times out of ten he would recycle or compost it properly the next time.
Now the thermostat… that is a whole different ball game.
Something I’ve found useful in terms of getting my boyfriend to participate in waste watching is making it more meaningful for HIM. He isn’t so concerned about the environment or wasted resources per se, but he loves to save a dollar! Since that’s his priority, I’ve really made an effort to point out things we can do to not only conserve resources but to save money as well. I might unplug electronics between use because I strive to use less energy for environmental reasons, but he’s now starting to do it because it will shave a little off the electric bill. I might use every last ounce of shampoo simply to not waste it, but for him it’s about decreasing the amount he spends at the drugstore. When he insisted on buying a new flat screen TV (you have to pick your battles…), I did a lot of research and found a quality model that was not only the most energy efficient but ended up being hundreds less than the one he wanted. Knowing his priorities and making them part of the waste-watching process has helped get him involved. The A/C war is a losing battle however – seems many of us have that problem!
Great advice, Debra. In addition to making it more meaningful I’ve found making it ‘easier’ for my partner to reduce waste has been a huge incentive for him to do so (a win-win as it often makes it easier for us both!). For him, despite not sharing my same waste watching enthusiasm he recognizes the importance and importance to me and yet as a busy traveler it is just not the top consideration on his list. Showing the value from a cost savings and/or time savings perspective can be a huge incentive towards adjusting habits.
I have suggested switching to online newspaper and magazine subscriptions that were both cost effective and convenient when traveling as opposed to the stacks of papers that would inevitably accumulate during business trips. With his erratic work schedule he has also become very familiar and fond of late night delivery leading to an unnecessary amount of To-Go container and plastic bag waste.
Whenever I make one of his favorite meals I will double the batch to freeze for later. It is often much easier to quickly heat this up than to wait for delivery to come (saving time and money).
Ultimately, I think it is typical that partners do not share the same level of enthusiasm or passion about the same causes or concerns but what is often important is how you communicate about those topics and why they are important.
As the self appointed environmental steward for my four bedroom, college apartment in Madison, Wisconsin I developed a few strategies to help make my apartment more green. First of all, I made it clear to my three roommates that I was genuinely passionate about sustainability and that I was not willing to let laziness or carelessness get in the way of keeping our apartment as sustainable as possible. Everyone has their passions and issues they care about, and as my friends and roommates I demanded that they respect my passion by making a few simple changes to their daily routines and being more aware of issues I cared about. To get respect, one must give respect, so I dedicated myself to respecting whatever concerns and passions they had. This mutual respect not only made our apartment more friendly and fun, but it kept it civilized and importantly, clean. During our first shopping outing I met some resistance to my green consumer preferences like CFL lights, a separate trash bin for recycling (they are not provided in Madison!), replacement shower heads, only ENERGYSTAR certified electronics, and biodegradable cleaning supplies. Understandably, my roommates were not thrilled to be spending extra money on these eco-friendly goods, but when possible I conveyed the economic benefits of these products. When there was no economic argument, I tried to explain why these purchases were important from an environmental perspective, which leads me to my next strategy, education.
As an Environmental Studies major I was constantly learning about current environmental issues, past disasters, and future problems. My roommates were not oblivious to global warming or the B.P. oil spill, and they knew that recycling was an easy way to help the environment. However, they did not know many details about environmental concerns, nor did they know how they could help limit their own impact on the environment. So, as I learned about new clean technologies and renewable energy I would keep them up to date with the stuff I found most interesting. When I learned more about the potential disasters we face with global warming, and resource scarcity, I would pass these horror tales on. Also, as I learned more about the American industrial food system I would inform them about the facts that would scare them into better practices. By educating my roommates I was able to transform them into environmentally conscious consumers and shape their consumption habits.
After two years of living in my apartment, I am happy to say that we were as green as we could have been. No lights or appliances were ever left on, power strips were unplugged, and we were able to lower our electricity bill by 30% compared to our first month in the apartment. Additionally, we purchased a share in a local farm which delivered fresh vegetables to a nearby dropping point on a weekly basis; we also went to the farmers market whenever possible to do our grocery shopping. Showers were limited to five minutes and our water bill went down as well. Most important is that fact that my roommates saw how easy it was to keep our apartment green, and tell me that they have continued to maintain these habits since. By showing a passion for sustainability, and educating my roommates on how to be sustainable, and why being sustainable is socially responsible and economically beneficial I was able to transform our apartment’s attitude and habits.
Nicely done, Will — and everyone else who patiently demonstrated the personal benefits of not wasting to their spouses or significant live in others. I constantly reinforce this within my consulting practice to clients who want to tout their environmentally preferable products. We need to remember that consumers buy products to meet needs and the way to their hearts — and wallets — is to first demonstrate that the greener products can meet those needs just as well, if not better, than the ‘brown’ alternatives.
For my final year at University in the UK, I lived with three roommates who were all less ecological that I was. Everyone was good about leaving lights off (and using air conditioning was never an issue in cold cold Scotland!), but they never got on my recycling bandwagon. At least not willingly.
I found that they best way for the four of us to live happily was for me to make recycling as easy as possible for them. I set up multiple labeled bins and bags for plastic, metal, paper, and glass recycling, and took them all to the recycling point myself. It was a perfect system – they barely thought about it at all and I felt like I was reducing four carbon footprints instead of just my own!
Like many of you have expressed, I’ve faced the wasteful spouse idea in the form of roommates. Being the “environmental steward”, as Will called it, would often lead me to walk around the apartment turning off lights, moving plastics from the trash to the recycling, and trying to convince them to not use multiple disposal cups. This battle with my friends to get them to tame their wasteful ways was often met with some resistance and claims that they were too tired from class or work to remember. I think they did want to change since they knew it mattered to me, but they were stuck in wasteful habits.
The hardest excuse I faced was the attitude that I found some other friends to have; they would express to me that their recycling one disposal water bottle wouldn’t really make a difference. They would also claim that it doesn’t matter if they change because so many other people will not. After taking a deep breath, I would always kindly explain that they can help make the world better by altering their practices and that having that attitude is no way to go through life. No progress would ever be made if everyone felt this way about other aspects of life. Has anyone else faced this pessimistic and apathetic attitude?
I am glad to report that after four years of college I figured out how to get some of my friends to be less wasteful in some of their habits. First, reminding them that they are poor college students (and now poor college graduates) and that changing their ways saves money helped – this works especially well when I remind them of the new clothes they can buy with the savings! Secondly, giving college-aged women water bottles and reusable cups that they think are cute and want to show off, leads them to find the disposable ones less desirable. I guess living with those girls for so long paid off. I was able to use my knowledge of my friends’ motivations to my advantage and get them to reduce their waste.
Like many of the graduate students’ responses above, I too lived with three other roommates my last year of college. They were less than conscious about recycling, conservation, and sustainability. My three best friends called me the “eco-freak” just because I would give suggestions on how to use less water and electricity, and ultimately create less waste. My constant reiteration of better practices were overlooked so instead, I appealed to something they whined about everyday- how poor they were as college students.
Instead of walking around the apartment turning off lights, politely knocking on doors to stay how unnecessary a thirty minute shower was, turning down the 75 degree thermostat, and separating the recycling from the trash, I offered them sustainable alternatives that could throw them a buck or two back a week. As college students, we had friends over frequently who left copious bottles and cans in our apartment. I brought them all to Wegman’s supermarket to deposit all the cans from our apartment one weekend and received over $5.00 back. Well, after that my friends saved their cans and bottles too and slowly, but surely recycled more and more through both semesters. So with this money we received back, we made it into our milk deposit.
They eventually became accustom to flipping the switches and faucets once I snuck in comments like when they have their own apartments they will have to pay real bills based on their waste. Even more, instead of heading to all the clothing outlets in Waterloo, NY, we hit the Salvation Army and consignment shops, avoiding inflated prices and saving tons. Clothes always brought us together anyway.
Now I am happy to say after graduation, my roommates and best friends really took my advice and save a little more each day now that they are all living on their own. Like the other comments above, I appealed to my roommates, not by drowning them in educational facts, but appealing to their interests- saving money and having fun.
Clearly this seems to be an issue that plagues many individuals. I also live with two roommates who have adopted a “well, we’ll be dead before the planet explodes anyway” attitude. However I truly believe that it is not there lack of concern for the impact that their actions have on the environment that prohibits them from living a more eco-friendly existence. Rather, it seems to be simply their resistance to changing their normal routine. Humans are creatures of habit, and the hardest challenge in starting or ending a behavior is simply breaking that habit. Once you implement recycling into your everyday routine, it no longer feels like a burden that your “eco-eccentric” roommate has forced upon you. Sometimes I think that many people’s hesitation to change their habits stems more from the difficulty of diverting from their normal routine rather than a genuine disinterest in the environment.
Thanks for this great post- it is one that is truly relatable to most, if not all, environmentally-minded people. In both scenarios, roommates and relationships, it can difficult to change the minds of those we share space with, particularly because it is living space where we all want to feel most comfortable and least inconvenienced. I have had positive and negative experiences with roommates and boyfriends who were reluctant to change home life habits in order to benefit the environment. As others above me have also mentioned, marketing sustainable home behaviors in ways that appeal to those we live with tend to be most successful. Saving money and benefiting health are two great causes even the climate skeptic can get behind. These are some home strategies that have also worked for me:
-Paper Prices- When roommates have characteristically overused paper towels and other paper products in the home, I have estimated what is likely spent on it over the course of the year and how that compares with reusable cloth rags. The savings, especially in a four person apartment, can amount to over $150 annually. I have also located eco-friendly paper products, made by such companies as Seventh Generation, that cost the same or less as other products.
-Electricity Estimates- Estimating how much money it costs to leave lights on for 24 hours, which might vary based on where you live, is another way to bring light to the benefits of going green. Using a kilowatt meter can also be an interesting activity to show roommates how much energy even the smallest appliances might use. In one apartment, my roommates and I eventually started placing guesses before measuring each device and made a game out of it.
-Go Above and Beyond- If you’re anywhere near as passionate as I am about sustainable decisions, you are willing to go the extra mile. I have offered to be the roommate who cleans the reusable mugs, cups, and towels so that our home may go without disposable options. This has been generally met with positive responses, and has yet to leave me doing an unruly number of dishes.
-Go Green in Fun Ways- When the less environmentally-focused significant others and roommates hear buzz words like “vegan”, they might not be thrilled. Introducing some fun sustainable products might be met with more approval. An example might be to first introduce vegan food in the form of cookies for everyone. For those in graduate school and beyond, there are many options for purchasing Eco-friendly evening beverages and there is likely a somewhat local beer is available. For redecorating, there also exist many opportunities for sustainable products, such as uniquely colored CFL light bulbs, that can makeover the home while also greening it.
Even with these successes, I have still met challenges in getting roommates and relationships to go green, but at the very least, we know every bit helps! Best of luck to all in mixed marriages and with reluctant roommates!
I have a blog about eco-influence (http://www.eco-fluence.com) if you’re interested. I just posted a short blog about the 3 Stages of Eco-Influence and next I’m going to post about eco-personality types, levels of commitment, and how values hold the key to eco-confusion.
In general, I would say that every person (especially a child) is a unique creature and what influences one will not necessarily work on the other. The best approach is one that is tailored to one person, gives them something they want, and helps them take it step by step.
You can email me any time.
Gratefully, Adam
There’s lots of info out there on how to save on your energy bill (re heating and cooling). This video gives a quick review of how to best use a programmable thermostat. http://su.pr/1iuMoh.
I’m forwarding this to my wife! lol. I grew up in an extremely frugal house. If we were cold in the winter, the thermostat was not changed. We were told to put on an extra layer of clothes. The opposite for the summer. My parents, still to this day, do not change their thermostat from 65 degrees. If we didn’t finish dinner the night before, it would be eaten for dinner within the next few nights. It is frustrating to see 6 cups at the sink before dinner each day. The wasted food thrown out rather than saved to eat later…..arrrgh! So much wasted money down the drain. I find myself constantly quoting my parents, “think of the starving children in Africa.” Just now I threw out an open package of mushrooms in the fridge that had gone bad…..only to find a second one open on a different shelf in the fridge….also bad!
Fredrica, thanks for such an eloquent article voicing a common problem! I think this conflict has occurred everywhere I’ve ever lived, on some scale (and I have to admit as a child, I was the offending party until my parents taught me that fear of the dark wasn’t an excuse to leave a room with the lights still on!). My personal pet peeve: leaving the heat/AC on all day while no one is in the apartment! The momentary comfort of coming in from the snow to a warm apartment is not worth eight hours of heating empty space, if you ask me.
In my experience, you have to find that middle ground between making your concerns heard and a bit of patience. A gentle reminder to your partner/roommate that you’d REALLY prefer the lights not be left on all day is important to keep it fresh on their mind, but you can’t expect them to change overnight!
Thanks for all the great comments and suggestions. Clearly a lot of us are experiencing the same conflicts and finding creative solutions. I recently discovered that NYSERDA launched a humorous “Irreconcilable Temperatures” campaign to promote home energy audits: http://stars.nyserdagreenny.org/
And Michigan is using a similar theme for their energy conservation PSAs: http://www.avoidenergydrama.com/
The most distressing thing about this article is not your husband’s wastefulness, but your shaming him publicly over a disagreement. The title (“Taming a wasteful spouse”) indicates that your foremost concern is bending your husband to your will.
Maybe you should get a dog to tame rather than treating your husband so terribly.
CC – Thank you for your concern, but I think you overreacted to the title of my post. Perhaps you didn’t read the entire text, or the many comments that followed. My goal was to start the conversation about the difficulties of trying to reduce waste when another member of the household (whether spouse, partner, roommate, or child) does not feel as strongly or simply finds it hard to modify a wasteful habit. “Taming” terminology and framing was used for comedic effect, and Mr. Right had no personal problem with my approach.
I want to be wasteful my whole life. I like being wasteful. One time I took one of those ecological footprint tests and it said that my lifestyle consumes almost 6 Earths. LOL!! Do you think that it’s bad that I’m wasteful? I don’t know what started me on this whole being wasteful thing. It’s just when I moved to that apartment in Farmington I just started leaving the lights, tv, radio, and computer on all of the time. Also I would stay in the shower until the hot water turned cold. It didn’t take very long because that hot water heater wasn’t very good and it was for two apartments. Now I can stay in the shower longer. LOL! Do you think that being wasteful really causes pollution natural resources to run out and global warming? Do you think that when global warming happens that we will have summer all year long? Some people say that wasting electricity hurts the environment. That’s hard to believe. For those 5 or 6 years I lived in Farmington I left all of the lights, tv, and computer on all day and night. The environment doesn’t seem like it’s any different that when I first moved to that apartment. If it’s true that wasting electricity hurts the environment, I wonder how much damage I have caused by being so wasteful for so long. I wonder how much water I used when I took a 25 minute shower last night. When I asked a friend she laughed said who cares.
My case is the other way around. I am very conservative…My wife is very wasteful, does not want to work but it’s always about me providing for both of us and our daughters. Ask her about looking for job, she becomes aggressive. She lights the gas and goes to wash dishes then come back to boil whatever she wants to boil leaving the gas to continue to burn for the entire period of dish washing! She fully opens the faucet while brushing and does not stop it until she has finished brushing after 5 or more mins. I have demonstrated to her how many gallons of water that translates to for brushing but she never listens. I pay heavy bills every month for utility… Without working and with my meager salary she wants most expensive thing and now I am jobless yet she wants to continue with the same life style. Both of us are effectively jobless with two daughters to cater for. And I have exhausted my saving…now applying for welfare…On job search, it is all about me getting a job while she is not ready to search for any. Now I am getting tired of our marriage in which my wife is overtly dependent…I had to sponsor her for another master’s degree by her demand and condition for looking for job. After finishing she still does not see any need to look for job… always very defensive and combative… I am simply fed up.
We now have a different budgeting system at home. We have always pooled our money and then operated all expenses, including personal spending from that. Now we have a fund for expenses, bills etc; then the fund for savings, and then our ‘personal allowance’ each month. I googled average utility use. If our bills are over that for no reason except his waste, then the extra comes from his personal allowance. He seems to be somewhat more careful now.
My problem is that my husband sees most of my attempts at keeping a green house as being “messy.” We use way too many paper towels, but he doesn’t want to switch to cloth ones because they get “messy.” My bags of veggie scraps, and the containers of broth that I keep in the freezer not only use up too much space, but they “make a mess.” The coffee grounds I save in a metal bucket to put in the compost bin are too “messy.” I had to switch from washing my face in the sink to using make-up remover wipes because I was “messily” spilling water and warping the finish of the undersink cabinet. I wish he wasn’t so obsessively tidy.