As a plant-based diet become more popular (3.4 percent of Americans are vegetarian or vegan, at last count), so do their representations in fiction. Don’t believe us? Here are nine fictional vegans and vegetarians fighting the good fight – whether it’s between the pages of a novel or onscreen.

1. Hazel Lancaster, “The Fault In Our Stars,” by John Green

The protagonist of the young adult novel and critical and commercial success “The Fault in Our Stars” suffers from stage four cancer throughout the story. As she comes face to face with her own mortality, as well as the mortality of those around her, she remains a stalwart vegetarian because, as she says she “wants to minimize the number of deaths (she) is responsible for.”

2. Jonathan Safran Foer, “Everything is Illuminated,” by Jonathan Safran Foer

Author Foer not only named the protagonist of his debut novel after himself; he also made the character Jonathan a vegetarian, something that emerges, rather uncomfortably, when Jonathan is dining in Ukraine and, after succumbing to a battery of questions about his diet, ends up having to order “a potato on a plate.”

3. Temperance Brennan, “Bones”

Temperance Brennan, nicknamed “Bones,” is a forensic anthropologist at the fictional Jeffersonian Institute in Washington D.C. After seeing how pigs are slaughtered over the course of a criminal investigation, Brennan vows to become a vegetarian.

One wonders if her portrayer, Emily Deschanel, had anything to do with this character decision as Deschanel herself has eaten a vegan diet since high school, when she read John Robbins’ “Diet for a New America.”

4. Rachel Berry, “Glee”

Rachel Berry may be another character whose portrayer had something to say about her diet, as both Rachel and Lea Michele are nominally vegan. Fans have noticed some inconsistencies on the show, when Rachel, for example, eats pizza or prepares duck, but Lea Michele has admitted to Shape that she’s an “on-and-off” vegan, too.

5. April Burns, “Pieces of April”

Usually, vegetarianism or veganism in a fictional context is just one part of a character, but in “Pieces of April,” it’s an essential part not only of Katie Holmes’ April but of the plot as a whole: the film tells the story of the vegetarian April’s journey to cook Thanksgiving dinner for the family she has never gotten along with. Her vegetarianism is just one of many things that makes April stand out from the rest of her family.

6. Ian Miller, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”

The highly quotable “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” features John Corbett as Ian Miller, the vegetarian fiancé of Nia Vardalos’ Toula. While his diet poses no problem for Toula, her “big fat Greek” family is horrified, particularly her Aunt Voula, who then, suddenly, seems placated and says, “That’s OK, I make lamb.”

7. Phoebe Buffay, “Friends”

Phoebe has long been one of our favorite TV vegans, from her songs in favor of plant-based living (“The cow in the meadow goes moo/Then the farmer hits him on the head and grinds him up, and that’s how we get hamburgers.”) to the stress of dealing with people who don’t care about her lifestyle, including future husband Mike’s family, who make veal for dinner when she comes to visit.

While Phoebe briefly deviates from her vegan diet while pregnant (but only after Joey becomes a vegetarian, so that she can consume only what he would normally be eating and thus feel like she isn’t contributing too much to the global meat consumption average), Phoebe is generally a stalwart supporter of the plant-based way of life.

8. Mr. Copeland, “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” by Carson McCullers

Mr. Copeland’s vegetarian character in “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” actually very interestingly makes a concession that many plant-based eaters wouldn’t. When asked if he minds if his collard greens are cooked in meat, he says that while “for purely private reasons” he is a vegetarian, he is not bothered by this.

This reminds us of a lot of times when people have offered to serve us a portion of chicken soup without chicken in it, and it says a lot about Mr. Copeland’s character that he accepts rather than argues.

9. Mr. Spock, “Star Trek”

Apparently, the plant-based way of eating transcends interplanetary borders: Vulcan Mr. Spock was a vegetarian – makes sense, when you know that the Vulcans live with a philosophy of logic and nonviolence. It also makes sense that Spock was rather upset when he realized he had “eaten animal flesh and enjoyed it” in the episode, “All Our Yesterdays.”

Did we miss any of your favorite TV or book vegetarians or vegans? Share them with us on Facebook!

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ColumnRead a book. Sustain your mind.

In yet another new chapter of “What’s Going on Upstairs,” it seems that scientists have had a virtual breakthrough in figuring out what fiction does to our brains. Recent studies show that reading about a made-up event can trigger the same neuro-bells and whistles as does taking part in an actual event. That is to say, when we read, “See Spot run,” we in some ways experience Spot running. With this in mind, given that it’s Earth Month, let us consider how certain stories can make us feel as if we’re soaring through the air, splashing in the sea or, for the more grounded among us, happily playing in the dirt.

But first, let’s agree with our friends in the lab (no deniers here). There’s no doubt that certain words and well-crafted sentences can have a similar effect on our minds as does the smell of fresh-baked bread, taking us to a time and place far beyond where we are when the reading experience occurs. And that’s the point, right? We often read books to escape our current experience and trade it in for another. Moreover, in many of the best novels, place functions as a character in and of itself, complete with attributes that go beyond backdrop to both embody and tease all five senses; whether it be Paris or Pi’s pontoon, the venue of a novel informs how we “feel” about a story and allows us to “go along” with the action.

So let’s celebrate novels that take us outside – tales that get our tails off the couch, out of the library and up from our lounge chair (yes, a beach read implies that you’re outside, but you know what we mean) and take us someplace else—namely, someplace without a roof. Enclosed please find deserts, jungles and mountains, oceans and rivers, blue skies and lush valleys…

1. Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather (1927)

A natural and majestic silence pervades Willa Cather’s story of Bishop Jean Marie Latour and Josh Vaillant’s humble mid-19th century journey from the Midwest to a newly established Catholic diocese in New Mexico Territory. From the onset, as the two travel first to the Gulf of Mexico before heading out into the Native American frontier, Death Comes for the Archbishop captures a feeling that is pristine, nascent and dry – a pure presentation of the American West on the eve of conquest. Reading the novel, you get a deep sense of (mis?)guided faith as you witness the two men’s plodding entrance into a new and largely undisturbed world. Every village, mesa, path and stone along the way is offered up for examination and contemplation. In contrast to later, typical Western novels where the outward thrust is violent and clumsily unobservant, Cather allows us to clearly see the trail upon which our nation was to tread.

2. The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac (1958)

Dash, gallop and hop-skip from San Francisco to the Sierra Nevada with Ray Smith (Kerouac) and Japhy Ryder (based on the author’s friend, Zen Buddhist and Beat poet Gary Snyder) as they whoop and hike their way out of city life in a search of transcendence. Booted and ruck-sacked, these are perhaps Kerouac’s most “holy” characters. The plot of The Dharma Bums rises up, almost panting, as Kerouac’s signature freestyle prose is ideal for delivering the air and sounds of those epiphanies that only happen in nature. Even at rest, you’re there with them to catch your breath: “The yard was full of tomato plants about to ripen, and mint, mint, everything smelling of mint, and one fine old tree that I loved to sit under on those cool perfect starry California October nights unmatched anywhere in the world.”

3. Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach (1970)

“It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea.” This is the poetic and unforgettable opening to this beautiful tale of rebellion, self-seeking and joyous aerial defiance. Jonathan Livingston Seagull flies both with and against the wind, and has touched millions of readers in that unforgettable, “I remember exactly where and when I read it” way. Richard Bach’s simple tale of the young hero bird is perhaps the closest you’ll ever to come to flying without leaving the ground. Each time he ascends from the confines of the earth, he takes us along with him to feel the assistance and challenge of every breeze and gust that affects his every… single… feather.

4. The Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean Auel (1980)

Twenty-thousand years fail to distance us from the rich natural textures and challenges described by Jean Auel in her story of a chance coming together of a Cro-Magnon girl and a tribe of Neanderthals. You can almost smell the dank caves, primal mud and lush forests of the prehistoric landscape that hosts Ayla and her adoptive clan, as they navigate the edge of the era’s Ice Age. The first of the author’s Earth’s Children series, The Clan of the Cave Bear was based, according to Auel, on a great deal of research, with resulting language that allows us to trust (some have said too much so) the story’s historical backdrop and crawl into the cave of prehistory to enjoy a page-turning plot that, given the success of the series’ ensuing novels, may likely leave you craving more.

5. Water Music, T.C. Boyle (1982)

The first novel of the always funny and insanely observant T. Coraghessan Boyle, Water Music is an historical and satirical examination of two sadly misguided, yet somehow majestic and even glorious tragic heroes—conman Ned Rise and the great adventurer Mungo Park. Taking place largely in Imperial British West Africa, the novel’s lavish language and plot are as twisted as its main characters who come together in the late-1770s/early-1800s in a quest to find fame and fortune—and the source of the Niger River. Tapping into the imagination of discovery, the relationship between the reader and the novel’s landscape—notably the river itself—is cemented early on and lasts through to the (fabulously) bitter end. Guaranteed you’ll find yourself more than once wiping the sweat off your brow in heat of the African day.

6. Galápagos, Kurt Vonnegut (1985)

Back to the sea. That’s where our “big brains” have gotten us in this ghostly accounted, post-apocalyptic tale of the last humans (among them Mick Jagger and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) and the evolutionary de-evolution that follows our gravest mistakes. What have we become? Wiser perhaps, but mercifully less brainy, the new humans of Galápagos are flippered creatures who hunt with their snouts, and are generally less capable than their ancestors who were, needless to say, occupied with ill-advised tasks like bomb making and facilitating global warming. Like all great Vonnegut tomes, we’re treated here to his rare form of fanciful pessimism, which in some weird way rings optimistic. A maestro of simplicity and irony, the author’s language transports us ethically and emotionally in terms of our relationship with our natural world.

7. Ishmael, Daniel Quinn (1992)

With the natural world embodied in the form of a giant Gorilla/Socratic instructor, Ishmael is Daniel Quinn’s philosophical manifesto as much as it is a novel. The story retells history through a stunningly fresh and clear lens that exposes, point-by point, the illusion of human greatness and superiority as a fantastic and cataclysmic lie. Zeroing directly in on the Bible and the great stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, the book’s teacher unfurls for the narrator new explanations and interpretations of events and roles that allow him (and us) to rethink humanity’s relationship with the environment. While this story doesn’t so much take us outside, per se, it offers a new view of who we are here on this earth and our role in sustaining what is not ours.

8. Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer (1996)

A biography that reads like a mystery (sorry for foray out of fiction here, but you can file this one under “you cannot make this stuff up”), the great chronicler Jon Krakauer invites us to join him in his effort to understand the life of Christopher McCandless. Later made into a truly great movie (in 2007), Into the Wild takes us along on the 24-year-old’s life walkabout, which culminated in his disappearing into the Alaskan wilderness with a 10-pound bag of rice. The journey is one of self-actualization attained by pushing, poking and prodding the natural world a in way that calls upon the painful alchemy of exposure and danger. Somehow this cautionary tale both beckons and warns, presenting the dichotomy of risk and reward in a way that leaves us breathless and wondering what self-discovery is worth.

9. Last Night in Twisted River, John Irving (2009)

Probably too often (and sloppily) referred to as the American Charles Dickens (and a more symbolic and postmodern writer than he would like to admit), John Irving is known for plot brilliance and character development nonpareil. His powerful talents, when turned upon the natural world and how we negotiate it – namely here, New Hampshire’s Androscoggin River and the logging professionals who work on its shores and in its waters – are a literary force to be reckoned with. Last Night in Twisted River’s time on and along the water drives the story forward with Irving’s characteristic power and engagement. While there, we are inside the camps, towns and forests of the Northeast for the plot-developing twists and turns of the author’s 12th and perhaps most natural world-oriented novel.

10. State of Wonder, Ann Patchett (2011)

Reading this story of a Minnesota physician who chases her past and future up the Amazon River, one cannot help but think of the great Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (if you haven’t read it, think Apocalypse Now without the napalm). Indeed, we feel in our guts the upriver suction that possesses Marina Singh as she searches for answers surrounding the fever-caused death of a colleague who succumbed while searching for a mysterious and brilliant pharmaceutical specialist who has disappeared into her “research.” Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder is a page-turner (the plot flows as deliberately as the river itself), and you’re sure to feel the heat and bugs and hot rain as you see “civilization drop away again and again” into a jungle that breathes a single color: “The sky, the water, the bark of the trees: everything that wasn’t green became green.”

Editor’s note: News & Culture contributor Scott Adelson’s biweekly feature, InPRINT, reviews and discusses books new and old, as well as examines issues in publishing.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

InPrint: Gatsby, Paradise and the 1% – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Pre-Occupation

InPrint: Not for Kids Only – 10 Young Adult Novels You Need to Read

InPrint: On the Road, Again – Revisiting Jack Kerouac

InPrint: Les Histoires De Paris & Two Novel Additions

Top image: Zach Welty

The post InPRINT: 10 Novels That Make You Want to Play Outside appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnRead a short book. Sustain your mind.

When I was a teenager, I related more to books than I did to most other kids – and certainly to most adults. There was something about Huck and Holden and Ponyboy and their stories that was more real to my inner thought-space than were the characters who populated my adolescent landscape – teachers who didn’t get it, kids and cliques who judged without so much as a hint of eye contact, adults who seemed to have long forgotten the angst of their own youth.

Great fiction (whose net was cast wide enough to include my age group) didn’t talk down to me. It didn’t mock or tease or obfuscate. The characters were my comrades – respectful, smart and compassionate, and in some private way, just between them and me, they seemed to have my back. They respected both my sensibilities and civil rights. They were mature like me, of course, and they spoke the way I spoke inside my head – indignantly, sometimes with rage, yet often with a fearlessness that I didn’t possess. They unraveled their worlds to understand the wrongness of their shame and guilt and I was grateful to have them to show me the way through difficult times.

Great fiction is just that – great fiction. And great characters, regardless of their age or yours, always illuminate your way. Speaking on behalf of my inner kid and his fictional comrades, what was and is now designated as “Young Adult” literature is not, contrary to popular belief, a genre that’s dumbed down, a mere pat on the head for all those precious little readers out there. What it is is literature that happens to examine subject matter through characters that appeal to teens.

What does this mean? According to Katie MacBride, of the Mill Valley [CA] Public Library, who helped me compile the list below, what adults don’t get (especially those engaged in the twisted and ongoing battle to censor what teens see and read, including virtually every book included here) is that young adults live – wait for it – here on Earth, just like us, and not in some sterilized prep-room for “real” life. “Personal crises, sex and gender issues, violence, class warfare, politics – they experience and have to process it all,” she says. “If a book truly reaches young people, it’s a great book – and it will likely reach you too.” Amen. Unless of course, you somehow lost your depth as you grew older. (A concept that perhaps is more common than we’d like to admit.)

Arresting plotline? Universal themes? Relatable characters? Forget the “target age group” and dig in. Here are 10 books (an insanely partial list) even mature adults need to read – or reread, as the case may be. I know not every Young Adult title (specifically, for ages 12-17) is right for “Adult” Adults, but these are. (Oh, and we don’t do spoilers here. So read on…)

Some Stalwarts: Three Classics

Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger (1951) – Mark Twain’s Huck Finn aside, Salinger’s masterpiece is perhaps the greatest “crossover” novel of all time. Here, in a work not specifically directed at a young audience, we see through the eyes of the everlasting and ultimately relatable 17-year-old Holden Caulfield, the embodiment of teenage angst and alienation. His flashback story exposes cultural and interpersonal superficiality, and explores the challenge of maintaining authenticity in a postmodern world.

Lord of the Flies, William Golding (1954) – The story of a group of young boys forced to create their own civilization on a deserted island is a perfect lens for the examination of the greatest and most horrifying human impulses. The struggle between the urges to live and function as a society and the lure of power and corruption is front and center in this classic novel that’s as much about grand human needs, desires and flaws as it is about anything specific to teenage years.

The Chosen, Chiam Potok (1967) – Set in the insular microcosm of the Jewish community of 1940s Brooklyn, New York, this celebrated novel explores issues of friendship, family and diversity, and the struggle to find oneself in a world where entrenched forces have the power to lock in an individual’s destiny. Fifteen-year-olds Bobby and Danny represent a sort of yin and yang existence, and the trials of their relationship offer timeless insights that reach far beyond their age and culture.

New Tales for New Times: Three More for the Canon

The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993) – Joining the lofty ranks of 1984, Brave New World and A Handmaid’s Tale, this great dystopian achievement presents a bleak future as seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy named Jonas. Occupying a pivotal role in his pathologically calculated society, Jonas functions as a bridge between the memories of the old world and the blankness of the new as it is forcibly transitioned to a horrifying “Sameness.” Like it’s heralded predecessors, this novel offers us a look at where we are as a society and what we are becoming.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky (1999) – A series of letters written by a high school freshman reveals the challenges he faces as he tries to merge a complicated and confusing personal life into a mainstream world. The story deals with issues ranging from homosexuality to rape and suicide, and examines how the painful details and idiosyncrasies of one’s life can lead from withdrawal to participation and back again – a challenge not uncommon to anyone, at any age, in any culture.

Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson, 1999 – It’s hard to speak about Speak without “spoiling” the plot. Suffice to say that Melinda Sordino enters high school with a secret – a secret so deeply painful that she cannot even think it to herself, let alone share it with the world around her, which is now threatening to leave her behind. A novel that takes on issues that far outscope adolescence, Speak seeks to adjust our vocabulary and thinking around suffering and self-blame. For this, it has become a favorite target of censors across the country – efforts that are, in this case (and in this writer’s opinion), criminal in their own right.

Read On: The 2000s

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak (2006) – “Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. It’s the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me.” So says Death, who knows all and tells a tale of young Liesel Meminger (alternating with her own accounts) as she navigates Nazi Germany in this story of survival and discovery. Somewhere in the abstract sadness (Death likes to distill feelings and happenings to a macabre and basic color scheme) and primal reality of the events that swirl around her, Liesel scratches out a life for herself that features some semblance of humanity. Among her coping skills is her budding relationship with books, some of which she rescues from Nazi book burnings as she dares to feel in the face of fate.

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins, 2008 – Okay, okay, calm down, I’ll say it. Yes, this is a great book. A killer read, in fact. This dystopian bestseller, the first of a trilogy that’s taking the world by storm, is the first person account of a great heroine – the “girl on fire,” Katniss Everdeen – who is one of many children forced to pay for the sins of their parents (daring to rise up against a post-apocalyptic Totalitarian regime) in a annual, government-sponsored, unspeakably horrifying spectacle. Thick with cultural symbolism and metaphor (everything from consumer and celebrity culture to class warfare and environmental degradation comes to mind), The Hunger Games is also a spectacular thriller of a novel. Put it down. Dare you… and “may the odds be ever in your favor.”

Jumpstart the World, Catherine Ryan Hyde, 2010 – Thrust into an adult living situation (that is to say, living alone) while still in high school, Elle faces an all-too-sudden and accelerated need to occupy into her own emotional self. A literal cast-off, she’s forced to quickly react and assign meaning to unfamiliar relationships and people and their roles (gender and otherwise) in her jumpstarted life. “Independence has no reverse gear. Fear or no fear,” realizes Elle. The struggle then becomes to “just be as close to yourself as you can possibly bring yourself to be.” Sound wise? Simple, almost effortless prose belies life’s certain complications in this great read from the author of Pay it Forward.

The Fault in Our Stars, John Green, 2012 – Suffering, dignity, destiny, coping with the diminishing returns of life. Alas, “the world is not a wish-granting factory” and cancer survivor (for the time being), 16-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster must deal with that fact. A deep and intensely philosophical book, The Fault in Our Stars boldly submits that “some infinites are bigger than others” and then crawls inside a few unfortunately smaller ones, bravely exploring shortened lifespans from the inside looking out – without the polite pulling of punches. How does love and life appear through such a prism?  How can such a read shed light on your own life experience? In a world where life is “a side effect of dying,” you might ask, what’s it worth to you? Yong Adult fiction? Read it and you tell me.

Editor’s note: News & Culture contributor Scott Adelson’s biweekly feature, InPRINT, reviews and discusses books new and old, as well as examines issues in publishing.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

InPrint: On the Road, Again – Revisiting Jack Kerouac

InPrint: Les Histoires De Paris & Two Novel Additions

Between the Lines: The Power of the Written Word

InPrint: Small Presses, Big Fiction – 2 Books You Shouldn’t Miss

Top image: Pink Sherbet Photography

The post InPRINT: Not for Kids Only – 10 Young Adult Novels You Need to Read appeared first on EcoSalon.

If killing trees is murder, we need a darn good reason to commit the act.

In truth, it is very challenging to morph into a pulp-free society –  one that celebrates without greeting cards and wrapping paper, communicates without monthly statements and markets without catalogs. And there is nothing like holding a tactile piece of newsprint in your hands to stay informed.

Here are some, but not all, reasons for and against ending our paper chase:

Good uses of a paper

1. Love Letters

Image: Mark Hillary

Romantic missives are simply warmer when penned by hand on recycled notepaper, a cocktail napkin, the back of a Southwest Airlines ticket folder, anything but e-mail. Electronic personals can feel disingenuous. When my dad died a couple of years ago, my mom brought out a stack of letters and poetry she had inspired in him. My children hold dear the letters they receive from loved ones at summer camp and store them in their treasure boxes. Need help composing an old-fashioned love letter? Check out Write Express for unblocking your deep, profound and horny (whoops, I mean desirous) sentiments.

2. The Daily News

Image: Matt Callow

As a graduate journalism student at the Medill School at Northwestern U, we were coaxed into the broadcast program by the faculty’s admonishment “print is dead.” Well, it is in a terminal state as many major dailies fold, but the industry is still kicking. Most of my cronies are New York Times die-hards, still quoting sections of the feature pages at dinner. True, the web is a vital source of news and information, but it will be a sad day when the presses stop running for good.

3. Bathroom

As far as I can tell, there is still no better alternative on the market than recycled toilet and tissue paper. Just wish they could make a green one that is soft. We’re not baboons, you know. Well, at least most of us.

4. Photographs

Image: Luanne Bradley

True, we could manage to print out fewer of them, but photos are archival art most of us can afford. Anyone still buying costly original art during the recession must be in the military business. But a photo wall  – now that’s doable for the thrifty eco set. While most of us store our pictures in our document folders, we tend to print the ones that have the most meaning or tell the story of our past. I cannot live without them, except of course for the ones that make me look old and fat.

5. Fiction

There’s nothing stranger than reading moving fiction, like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, on a small screen. I admit ebooks from vendors like Books on Board are a helpful adjunct to bulky books when traveling and avid readers can download dozens to peruse all summer long. But the concept of “pleasure reading” denotes taking the time to immerse one’s self in another place and time. It is difficult to become an armchair traveler when the arms are connected to a task chair. Again, it’s the tactile pleasure of making friends with your novel and lovingly embracing it, turning and folding its pages and coming back to it for more pleasure when you desire it.

Bad uses of Paper

1.  Disposable Paper Goods

Everything from paper plates and cups to paper napkins, towels and trays should be banned. If you must use disposables, we now have biodegradable serving dishes made from corn starch and other materials like bagasse (above), which is residual sugarcane fiber leftover from juice extraction. The plates are soak proof, have no plastic or wax lining applied and can be used for both hot and cold items. You can get them at World Centric and other sites. In terms of napkins, switch to cloth. You can wash and dry them in cold water to save energy and keep using them for years. One of my kids does art on gently used paper napkins, but in most cases, they are simply tossed out, and that makes me sad.

2. Catalogs

Don’t just recycle the paper for these. Phase out printing and sending them. Neiman Marcus should be ashamed of its extravagant self. Those glossy catalogs (a.k.a. The Book) the luxury retailer persists in sending through the mail are like images of dead trees. They are ridiculous, as are all catalogs still coming through the mail, on new or recycled paper. True, the companies that have switched to recycled paper are making a better choice. Support your favorite catalog companies in their transition efforts by making purchases from their websites. The web is ideal for marketing products – time to embrace it!

3. Greeting Cards

Image: Shoebox

I’m not opposed to recycled event invitations on handmade paper because of the social tradition of marking an milestone (weddings, births, B’nei Mitzvas), although more consumers are switching to electronic invites. But when it comes to the Hallmark marketing schemes (Halloween cards on sale in September), we are wasting vast amounts of paper on cards for absurd occasions. Happy Boss day? Save us! The real pressure is Valentine’s Day. Say it with a love letter that will last. Not a card someone else wrote for you, someone weird sitting in a card-writing factory. Make your own birthday notes as works of art that can be framed. And on the holidays, if you must send a greeting, send a photo that friends will keep. Apologies to Shoebox Greetings, but I’m not sure we need shoe boxes, either.

4. Monthly Bills and Statements

Apart from cyber-challenged senior citizens, most of us can receive and pay our monthly bills online. Anyway, seniors use less paper since most of their bills have been reduced over time. The banks make it easy to do online banking so why not get this dreaded chore done quickly, the paper-free way? Even if you are a big record and file keeper, you can store your stuff on a disc. I’m so tired of the paper piles. Aren’t you? Also, there are sites like Lending Tree to guide you if you’re interested in doing online banking.

5. Homework

Image: Apdk

In my house, we call it busywork. It’s bad for our over-stressed, childhood-robbed children, and it’s bad for the planet, too. The majority of k-12 schools assign work on loose paper copied from textbooks, rather than giving children their own textbooks during the year. Waste, waste, waste. The work is done on paper (think math sheets, essays, reports, displays on poster sheets and foam core, creative projects to accompany academic learning) and you’ve got schools across the globe cranking out the paper, rather than using textbooks and computers. And don’t forget report cards, also done on paper!

Image: llimllib

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