This week went surprisingly well! So far, I haven't really felt much cramp in my lifestyle. I was really worried that by giving up plastic I would feel the sacrifice and eat the same things all the time. To my surprise, the opposite occurred. Between bulk bins, tupperware cheese shopping at the farmers market, raw vegetable buying, and glass jar milk, I have been able to get or make everything I have wanted to eat without plastic. The biggest thing that I've given up is packaged convenience foods and snack foods. Consequently, I'm eating a lot more healthy. I've also eaten quite a few foods that I wouldn't normally have the motivation to make or eat. Overall, I would say that this has inproved my quality of life. This week my plastic free diet included:
*Dave's homemade pesto pasta (thanks baby!), scallops (not plastic free, keep reading)
*Grilled flank steak, mashed red potatoes with dill and parmesan, sauteed kale
*Dave's homemade marinara sauce and pasta (thanks again baby!)
*Homemade potato and leek soup
*Lots of salads with olive oil and the best vinegar ever: http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/sku7973050/?pkey=cpantry&ckey=pantry
*Lots of apples, bananas and almond butter
*Dumpster bread - I'm becoming a freegan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeganism
*Homemade ice cream from glass bottle milk - no plastic coated ice cream container
*Stovetop popped pop corn with popcorn oil (need to find that bulk) nutritional yeast and salt
I was afraid I would feel very isolated in this process but everyone has been quite supportive, including my awesome, progressive minded roomates. They are not going as hardcore plastic free as I am, but they've all been cutting down their packaging, and it shows in our garbage. Between composting in the backyard (we started a few weeks ago, learn how to do it here: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/feature/backyard/compost.html) and buying less plastic, our 32 gallon garbage can split between five girls is less than a quarter full so far this week! Our recycle bin also has a lot of breathing room.
My awesome, progressive minded boyfriend is equally supportive, and makes me lots of yummy pasta sauces and salad dressings that I couldn't cope without. And after one teary eyed argument last week about him not driving to a separate grocery store to buy glass bottle milk, I have accepted that not everyone will take everything "balls deep" the way he fondly describes my personality type to other people. And in all fairness, he is the person who, over the past year and without ever trying to influence me, influenced me to do this. Love you babe!
But interacting with strangers is different. I am learning how to better weave my new lifestyle into the mainstream world, though it takes just as much dilligence as the lifestyle itself. This week I learned a couple of lessons the awkward way...
1. When you go to a big chain grocery store, you need to be overly communicative about not wanting extra packaging, including bagging. A checker at Fred Meyer blindsided me and threw half of my things into a plastic bag while I was looking for exact change. I reached forward to slap her across the face, then thought better of it and asked her if she could kindly use the bag for the next customer if I removed the items and put them into the huge canvas bag that didn't match my outfit and was obviously slung over my shoulder for the purpose of carrying out my 7 grocery items the same way it carried them to the check stand. She said yes. I was also blindsided at the same store by the butcher - I asked him if he could wrap my things in paper so I didn't have to use plastic, and then he thew my scallops into a plastic bag and wrapped them with paper. I cringed but smiled and thanked him and took the package, because it would just go into the garbage if I refused it. But jeez they were delicious.
2. On a related note, butcher paper is not the best option for me. Taking a glass or sturdy plastic container is. I didn't feel good watching them tear off a huge sheet of paper that I knew I didn't really need had I brought my own container. And I discovered that most butcher paper is coated with plastic anyways.
3. If I leave the house anywhere besides work, I must always carry with me: silverware, a travel mug, some plastic bags, and a small tupperware. I am then prepared for pretty much any unplanned shopping or street eating. Its sad to turn down free tea in a reception area because they only have styrofoam cups.
Here's this week's count:
2 plastic forks and 1 knife from when Dave and I got crepes downtown before seeing a movie (actually I would have gone without the knife but Dave got one and I used it). But I did keep both our forks and the knife for later use to eat a tamale at a farmer's market.
1 plastic bag and some plastic coated (didn't realize this until I got home) butcher paper from scallops and flank steak at Fred Meyer
1 mini almond joy wrapper - damn office candy again! I admit I thought about it and made the sacrifice. It was worth the guilt! :)
Coming down the pike: I am going to Leavenworth this weekend with a big group of people, and in addition to the food Dave and I are taking, I spent a half hour last night squeezing 40 oz of orange juice to bring as a mixer for the vodka we bought so I don't need to buy a plastic bottle of juice. I am interested to see if there are social situations that make it hard to the be the crazy plastic bag lady. Glass flip cup anyone?
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YEAAAAAAAAAAH, girl....take the girl out of LA and another sprit emerges...I am proud of the stance you take, making your world better, open to change your behavior, being flexible and taking charge!!!!! I am so proud you are my friend.
ReplyDeleteI TOTALLY SUPPORT YOU AND DAVE!!!!!!
but do be careful of becoming righteous plastic fundamentalists....it is hard for people around you to hear how more activist you are than they are. ME? I love the challenge, so let's do it.
I ALWAYS keep the following in my shoulder bag....a titanium spork, small foladable knife, steel water bottle, spare shopping bag, cotton handerkerchief, and a small self assembled first aid kit. On shopping trip, I take my 30 litre backpack and have them pack directly into the backpack and the overflow into my spare reuseable shopping bag.
So, I do end up with the odd plastic bag...I try and use it 3 times before throwing away. Using it for leftovers instead of buying more plastic storage containers....like when I bake a whole chicken, I take the chick and put it a bag and because it usually takes about a week to finish the damn thing, that bag gets lots of use. I pack Dana's lunch or our trail snacks in reused bags and on and on. And if it is too dirty to use for anything else (I draw the line at washing plastic bags...for now), we use it to dispose of cat litter....ok, enuff for now and I am inspired by what you are doing....Alan
It is fascinating how a single (powerful, moral, nature respecting, common sense....) act like getting the plastic out, leads to better choices all-round...for me, it is living in a more holistic, connected and universal way.
ReplyDeleteHere is an article from NYTimes
ReplyDeleteBy LESLIE KAUFMAN
Published: October 19, 2009
At Yellowstone National Park, the clear soda cups and white utensils are not your typical cafe-counter garbage. Made of plant-based plastics, they dissolve magically when heated for more than a few minutes.
At Ecco, a popular restaurant in Atlanta, waiters no longer scrape food scraps into the trash bin. Uneaten morsels are dumped into five-gallon pails and taken to a compost heap out back.
And at eight of its North American plants, Honda is recycling so diligently that the factories have gotten rid of their trash Dumpsters altogether.
Across the nation, an antigarbage strategy known as “zero waste” is moving from the fringes to the mainstream, taking hold in school cafeterias, national parks, restaurants, stadiums and corporations.
The movement is simple in concept if not always in execution: Produce less waste. Shun polystyrene foam containers or any other packaging that is not biodegradable. Recycle or compost whatever you can.
Though born of idealism, the zero-waste philosophy is now propelled by sobering realities, like the growing difficulty of securing permits for new landfills and an awareness that organic decay in landfills releases methane that helps warm the earth’s atmosphere.
“Nobody wants a landfill sited anywhere near them, including in rural areas,” said Jon D. Johnston, a materials management branch chief for the Environmental Protection Agency who is helping to lead the zero-waste movement in the Southeast. “We’ve come to this realization that landfill is valuable and we can’t bury things that don’t need to be buried.”
Americans are still the undisputed champions of trash, dumping 4.6 pounds per person per day, according to the E.P.A.’s most recent figures. More than half of that ends up in landfills or is incinerated.
But places like the island resort community of Nantucket offer a glimpse of the future. Running out of landfill space and worried about the cost of shipping trash 30 miles to the mainland, it moved to a strict trash policy more than a decade ago, said Jeffrey Willett, director of public works on the island.
The town, with the blessing of residents concerned about tax increases, mandates the recycling not only of commonly reprocessed items like aluminum, glass and paper but also of tires, batteries and household appliances.
Jim Lentowski, executive director of the nonprofit Nantucket Conservation Foundation and a year-round resident since 1971, said that sorting trash and delivering it to the local recycling and disposal complex had become a matter of course for most residents.
The complex also has a garagelike structure where residents can drop off books and clothing and other reusable items for others to take home.
The 100-car parking lot at the landfill is a lively meeting place for locals, Mr. Lentowski added. “Saturday morning during election season, politicians hang out there and hand out campaign buttons,” he said. “If you want to get a pulse on the community, that is a great spot to go.”
Mr. Willett said that while the amount of trash that island residents carted to the dump had remained steady, the proportion going into the landfill had plummeted to 8 percent.
more.....
By contrast, Massachusetts residents as a whole send an average of 66 percent of their trash to a landfill or incinerator. Although Mr. Willett has lectured about the Nantucket model around the country, most communities still lack the infrastructure to set a zero-waste target.
ReplyDeleteAside from the difficulty of persuading residents and businesses to divide their trash, many towns and municipalities have been unwilling to make the significant capital investments in machines like composters that can process food and yard waste. Yet attitudes are shifting, and cities like San Francisco and Seattle are at the forefront of the changeover. Both of those cities have adopted plans for a shift to zero-waste practices and are collecting organic waste curbside in residential areas for composting.
Food waste, which the E.P.A. says accounts for about 13 percent of total trash nationally — and much more when recyclables are factored out of the total — is viewed as the next big frontier.
When apple cores, stale bread and last week’s leftovers go to landfills, they do not return the nutrients they pulled from the soil while growing. What is more, when sealed in landfills without oxygen, organic materials release methane, a potent heat-trapping gas, as they decompose. If composted, however, the food can be broken down and returned to the earth as a nonchemical fertilizer with no methane by-product.
Green Foodservice Alliance, a division of the Georgia Restaurant Association, has been adding restaurants throughout Atlanta and its suburbs to its so-called zero-waste zones. And companies are springing up to meet the growth in demand from restaurants for recycling and compost haulers.
Steve Simon, a partner in Fifth Group, a company that owns Ecco and four other restaurants in the Atlanta area, said that the hardest part of participating in the alliance’s zero-waste-zone program was not training his staff but finding reliable haulers.
“There are now two in town, and neither is a year old, so it is a very tentative situation,” Mr. Simon said.
Still, he said he had little doubt that the hauling sector would grow and that all five of the restaurants would eventually be waste-free.
Packaging is also quickly evolving as part of the zero-waste movement. Bioplastics like the forks at Yellowstone, made from plant materials like cornstarch that mimic plastic, are used to manufacture a growing number of items that are compostable.
Steve Mojo, executive director of the Biodegradable Products Institute, a nonprofit organization that certifies such products, said that the number of companies making compostable products for food service providers had doubled since 2006 and that many had moved on to items like shopping bags and food packaging.
The transition to zero waste, however, has its pitfalls.
Josephine Miller, an environmental official for the city of Santa Monica, Calif., which bans the use of polystyrene foam containers, said that some citizens had unwittingly put the plant-based alternatives into cans for recycling, where they had melted and had gummed up the works. Yellowstone and some institutions have asked manufacturers to mark some biodegradable items with a brown or green stripe.
Yet even with these clearer design cues, customers will have to be taught to think about the destination of every throwaway if the zero-waste philosophy is to prevail, environmental officials say.
“Technology exists, but a lot of education still needs to be done,” said Mr. Johnston of the E.P.A.
He expects private companies and businesses to move faster than private citizens because momentum can be driven by one person at the top.
“It will take a lot longer to get average Americans to compost,” Mr. Johnston said. “Reaching down to my household and yours is the greatest challenge.”