Lets turn on Disposable Culture

We are a disposable culture. Can you find room to disagree?

While it can be a pain to bring with you everything you might need in one day, its our responsibility to at least try to be aware of the things we are throwing away, that really we don't need to be using or tossing in the first place.

Eating out is a large instigator of this culture: aluminum foil, plastic/styrofoam containers, wax paper, plastic sporks, paper/plastic bags all for one meal? Well, lets turn our daily coffee and lunch into a saving grace.

Things like To-Go Ware can make this choice easier; as this cute as a button flatware set, simply rolls right up and slips into your bag. The cutlery is made from bamboo, and the pocket is made from post consumer recycled plastic bags. This company has other things to reduce the impact of our to-go culture as well, like stainless steel containers and cotton carriers.

What else can we do to be plastic free? I had a list of my own, but I found another blogger who agrees.

Remember, reducing our impact on the earth can certainly be a feat. If you take little steps every so often, you can begin changing our collective not-so-awesome way of doing things and make it a better place. Drop by bit, everyone, drop by bit.

Mini Greywater

I ran across these kits the other day when I got distracted in my job hunting.



You can attach them to your existing plumbing and divert the water to flush your toilet. The great thing about these is that they are so simple. You don't have to go through some massive ordeal to reconfigure your plumbing - it just installs in your bathroom.

The downside - these kits run over $400, and the estimated savings is only about $25 annually. The other potentially fatal flaw; they're hideous. I don't know how many people will install them under their Kohler pedestal sink. Maybe in an enclosed vanity . . .

check it out here:www.watersavertech.com

Tata Nano, the $2500 micromobile

Its teeny, its cheap, it gets 50mpg, its $2500, its the Tata Nano.

Yes, it still takes fossil fuels to make this baby go. But for everyone buying gas guzzling, fume emitting cars, this is a great option...Right now its only available in India, so stay tuned.

Its small scale relates to our massive auto population, bigger is bye bye and smaller gives the roadways a chance to breath and for the auto scape to not be (so) imposing (if that is possible). So for anyone that is going to buy a cheap beater that won't get good mileage and will off gas a ton, this is your option!

Its just what the doctor ordered in the name of personal transportation.

Sidenote: I am also seeing an emergence of 100% electric cars (think Tesla). Even though this is a fossil fuel source too, you can purchase alternative energy to charge your vehicle. This is the way I hope to go in the future, if I ever buy a car. As a whole, we need to keep telling the government we want more alternative energy sources, like wind power, for our homes.

But lets not forget about the beautiful bicycle and public transportation. They should be our first go-to modes of transportation. The more we support them, the more their networks will grow and the easier they will be to use for everyone.

Resolutions

This year I sat and pondered a whole list of things that I wanted to change about my life and improve. The list turned into a long, meandering one that ranged from petty hopes like “improve my body shape” and “make more money” to more altruistic things like “save the planet” and “achieve world peace”. Of course there is no one, best, course of action. So, I took a look at it big picture and came up with this one: Live Moderately.

Simple, right? At least it seems so on the surface. But applying this concept, across the board, to my life, and the attitudes of this country as a whole, we could begin a wave of change. Think about it. Here’s the first citation for moderate at m-w.com:

1 a: avoiding extremes of behavior or expression: observing reasonable limits b: calm , temperate

So, think, what would happen if, as a culture, we all started behaving moderately? What if we were moderate spenders? Moderate drivers? Moderate meat eaters? Where would we be if everyone drove the most fuel efficient vehicle possible, only spent the money they earned, and only ate beef once a week?

I’m going to try it. Our house is increasing the number of vegetarian meals on the menu, eliminating expenses on electronic entertainment and sticking to our one-teeny-car that doesn’t hold the car seat and a passenger at the same time (this doesn’t sound like much of a feat when you live in Chicago, but in the California Exurbs it’s near impossible). We will also work on the little things like; checking out books from the library instead of buying disposable paperbacks, not picking up printed literature that we will just dispose of later, checking the thrift store first when we’re looking for clothes, and shopping on Craigslist instead of at IKEA.

How about you?

Plastics: Micro scrubbing beads

I love to exfoliate like the next lady...but do you know that many exfoliating face washes have little plastic beads that you are rubbing all over your face and then pouring straight down the drain and into the water way? Oh yes, its true. And more often than not they don't get filtered out of the water system because they are so small, and they go right into the ocean fills as described into the post below.

So one small thing we can do is not to buy these products, and instead buy products with natural exfoliants.

Its ashame that consumers even have to watch out for this...these companies should not even be allowed to sell plastic beads that are meant to go straight down the drain. They know they don't decompose, they know that wildlife are feeding on them, which means we are feeding on them too. In the closed loop world we live in, they are basically permitted to contaminate us in a law abiding way. Oy times a million.

Plastics: the never ending story

Kind of disturbing? There are so many petroleum based products in our lives: most of them in the form of plastics: and many we don't even know or think about! So how can we take care of the massive amount of throw away products that consume our lives, the land fills and the ocean fills if we really aren't aware of how much they define the way we live?

Many of these plastics end up in ocean fills, which are humongous tide pools of current that draw in so much trash that there is a huge floating piles of it thousands of miles wide. The most well known is The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. I read about this in The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman. In one terrifying chapter Alan describes that the plastic problem will not solve itself, as they have only been around 50 years or so, will most likely take thousands of years to disintegrate (into what we do not know), and knowing their outcomes is impossible because they will far out last us.

Saran wrap, laundry detergent, grocery bags, chip bags, shampoo bottles, food containers, packaging material, trash bins, cd and dvd cases, records, toothbrushes, micro scrubbing beads in your face wash, toys, pens, cups, bowls, furniture, building parts. so. many. things.

So what to do? It can be kind of overwhelming trying to figure out how to live symbiotically with the earth, when our society is set up on the basis of a disposable culture. My advice is to take care of one thing at a time. First, I did away with plastic grocery bags by getting the Baggu.

Next Step: plastic bags at the grocery store that you put produce in. You can try something like this, or I am sure you can find your own bags at home! Most of the time, I don't even use any bag when getting produce. Sometimes the checkout clerk won't so happy, but do you really need the bag?

What do you do to reduce the plastic in your life?