When I was a young girl, I grew up loving Sesame Street—I watched it every day, almost. Like many other Sesame Street aficionados, I fell in love with Kermit the Frog and watched everything I could about him. I think I’ve watched Muppet Treasure Island about a hundred times. The song “It’s Not Easy Being Green” that Kermit sang in the first season of Sesame Street in 1970 was a little old for my time, but I still knew that baby like the back of my hand by the time I was 8. Thirteen years later, I’m living in another time of my life where ‘Green’ seems to be the color on my mind all the time, but it’s not so much about being happy with myself, no matter my differences, like it was the first time I heard Kermit the Frog come to the realization that green is a pretty cool color to be after all. Now, it’s about ‘going green,’ something we all are familiar with—trying to do things that save, rather than hurt our planet.

Living in the States last year, I thought I was doing pretty well for myself on the fight for a greener planet. I recycled, I used brown paper bags instead of plastic, I didn’t drive as much as I had the previous year, and I tried to use less energy for air conditioning in the blazing Texas heat. I’ve lived in Edinburgh for three months now, and what people do here to be green makes my Texas lifestyle look about as green as an eggplant. There is a noticeable, society wide difference in the baseline ‘green meter’ actions of Edinburgh and Texas. Now, I am the first to remind everyone that there are some pretty big cultural differences between the Scottish capital and the Lone Star State, but here are some examples of what I mean.

Recycling in Edinburgh is just as easy as taking out your trash. Near just about every bin on the street is a nearby recycling bin, with clear labels as to what can and should go in. In College Station, I had to drive to a nearby recycling center to deposit my recyclables—still convenient, but not as ubiquitous. It’s not just the availability of recycling centers; it’s the cultural attitude. Every recyclable item is clearly marked with large print, not only about how to recycle, but a reminder to recycle in the first place. I ordered a Domino’s pizza the other day in a brief homesick moment, and across my pizza box read the large message: PLEASE RECYCLE ME. But it’s not just a passive reminder. Going grocery shopping is not the same as it is back home. When I go to Tesco’s or Lidl over here, I not only am encouraged to use my own carrier bags  or purchase a canvas one, some stores even charge for carrier bags in the first place. I went to a Wal-Mart in Texas just before I moved over here, and when I asked for paper bags (thinking I was the epitome of good green behavior), I was told that store didn’t stock paper bags anymore, only plastic. But even with the stores encouraging recycling carrier bags, the differences continue. Many people within the store itself will look at you if you walk out of the place with a ton of carrier bags as if to say, “Really? You couldn’t bother yourself to bring a backpack or a canvas sack? Really?” In College Station, the norm is plastic bags; in Edinburgh, it seems as though the general public are offended by wasting bags on one trip.

The public advertisements, in general, are much stronger about ‘going green’ than in Texas. My favorite advert this week is one that features an irritated floating world that wakes a man in bed and says something like, “Do you mind? I can’t sleep with all these appliances on.” In the States, our electrical outlets are always ‘on’; if you plug something in, you’ll have power straight away. Over here, energy is conserved by controlling the power at the outlet itself.  I don’ t have a dryer in my apartment—all my clothes go on clothes racks to air dry. When I was surprised at this, my flatmate was astonished to hear that I was used to drying everything in a dryer, amazed at the waste of energy.

So with this in mind, it made me reevaluate Kermit’s song:

It's not that easy bein' green; 
 Having to spend each day the color of the leaves. 
 When I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow or gold- 
 or something much more colorful like that.

 It's not easy bein' green. 
 It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things. 
 And people tend to pass you over 'cause you're not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water- or stars in the sky. 

But green's the color of Spring.
 And green can be cool and friendly-like. 
 And green can be big like an ocean, or important like a mountain, or tall like a tree.
  
 When green is all there is to be 
 It could make you wonder why, but why wonder? Why wonder?
 I am green and it'll do fine, it's beautiful! 
 And I think it's what I want to be.

And you know what? I like living in my new green city with my increased green ways. It’s certainly not easy, but it sure is beautiful, and it’s definitely what I want to be.