Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 27 - Plastic Pollution Coalition

I take my dreaded Latin final this evening.  I will be spending the day studying for it.  Wish me luck!

So I will just leave you with a link to the Plastic Pollution Coalition which has a wealth of material to help us fight plastic pollution.

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 26 - Dog Doody Bags

My puppy when she was eight weeks old.

I'm lucky in that I have a backyard that no one plays in except my dog and a couple of cats.  I don't worry about having to scoop after my dog because she wasn't trained to go during walks.  She has full run of the fenced in portion of our yard.  If we humans want to socialize we go to the front yard or the side back yard (not fenced in-complete with fort and swing) or we just hang out on our screened in back porch.  In the summer it can get smelly and so I occasionally scoop and then toss the remains into the little wooded patch beyond the fence.  As result, we have the plushest, greenest grass in our backyard!  But I seldom have to deal with the issue of plastic and following pooper scooper laws.

I have no time this morning to blog really, so I'll just leave you with a link to this article which I hope is pretty up to date, about how to be environmentally friendly and look after your dog at the same time.  

I know around here, along walking paths, you often see a dispenser with plastic bags near a garbage can, encouraging people to clean up after their dogs.  Turns out it is this organization, The Doody Free Water Project who supplies these.  However, in my quick perusal of their site, I do not see what type of plastic bags they use.  They may be adding to on environmental problem, even as they try to solve another one!  Plastic really is a conundrum!

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 25 - Thoughts on Plastic Bags in My State

When I read about countries like Kenya and Senegal passing laws banning plastic bags or when I read about Austria deciding to voluntarily give up plastic bags, I wonder why I see so many plastic bags in all the stores here in Northern Virginia.  Honestly, the Giant near me has a big automatic checkout area, and all you see are plastic bags set up to receive the items everyone is buying and then immediately putting into these bags.  Hundreds of bags must go out of that store every single day.  It is criminal!  They do have paper bags there too, but there are just few tucked between the check out machine and the stand where the plastic bags are.  It is difficult to notice them and no where is it posted that there is an alternative to the plastic bags.  That's just one store among hundreds.

I think this is a photo of the Glad Manufacttring plant in Amherst, VA

The problems with pushing against plastic shopping bags are:  1) we have two plastic bag manufacturers here in Virginia that provides jobs in areas that I'm guessing don't have many jobs.  and 2) people are sick of taxes and feel that this bag tax disproportionately hurts small businesses.    This idea is expressed by someone in this article (among other things.)

In Virginia, the Northern Virginia area is booming and bustling; it feeds off of the federal government in Washington DC and the many contracting companies.  It is a wealthy area and densely populated.  This region is expanding.  So while it use to comprise of the City of Alexandria, and Arlington and Fairfax counties, now it includes Loudoun and Prince William counties.   But there are no true big cities in Virginia.  The Newport News/Norfolk area's economy is based on the Navy and shipbuilding.  Richmond is the state capital and used to be a big center for the tobacco industry which of course has shrunk as anti-smoking attitudes and policies took hold of our culture.    There are other small cities usually based around universities.  Most of Virginia is rural and depressed economically.  Here's wikipedia's breakdown.

I don't argue that there is truth in the assertions about plastic bag taxes/bans and I do not want to take away people's jobs or hurt small businesses!  We should study the impact a plastic ban or tax has had on other communities who have already banned/taxed plastic bags and see how they dealt with these things.  Maybe the tax has proven not to hurt businesses or at least not enough to justify the bags. Humans are amazing in terms of problem-solving!  We can do this!  The Clorox company, which owns Glad bags, seems to me to probably provide some muscle behind the lobbying against plastic bans/taxes.  Surely, though, such a big company must see the writing on the wall, and realize their days of manufacturing these types of bags are numbered.  I wonder what proportion of their income comes from plastic grocery bags?  They must be working towards revamping their production to get with the times.  Let's hope so.  At least they are paying lip service to sustainability.  Maybe we can get them to actually follow through on this to some degree.

Infinity Global took over an old tobacco warehouse

There is another plastic bag producer in Danville, Virginia, Infinity Global Packaging.  I know Danville is a kind of depressed place, so this company probably provides steady jobs (that's my assumption!).  Here's an article which mentions how Infinity Global moved into an old tobacco warehouse and has provided jobs.  But there must be a way to work with these companies who must realize that their heyday is over in terms of disposable plastic.  We simply can't afford to keep filling our state, country and world up with trash that will last thousands upon thousands of years, especially at the crazy rate we are doing it.  Beth Terry talks about how fighting plastic pollution like is trying to bail out a bathtub when the spigot is pouring the water out full force.  What we are currently doing just isn't enough to avert disaster!  Someone has to turn the spigot off or at least decrease the amount pouring in significantly.  People in the plastic business probably don't want to leave the earth a polluted wasteland for their children either.  They probably just don't know the consequences of so much single use plastic.  And because we are talking about jobs, they probably are in a defensive mindset that isn't open to seeing those consequences.  The plastic industry has put out a campaign called Bag the Ban (ha, ha play on words there, instead of Ban the Bag).

Ideally the demand for plastic bags should be reduced through public awareness and through the public realizing how important it is for themselves and their children.  If we can get people to voluntarily give up plastic bags, the plastic bag industry would be forced to adapt.  Hopefully, it can convert to some other production that won't harm too many workers.  Hopefully, small businesses can grow bigger and hire more people!  I keep saying hoping, because I am probably being idealistic.

Just for comparison's sake:  Maryland article on banning plastic bags.  Maryland also has a huge plastic bag producer in their state.  However, they have managed to get plastic bags banned in three localities at least.

I remember a speaker from Virginia Green Baggers saying that because Virginia is a commonwealth, in order to ban or tax bags, it must be done statewide, through the state legislature.  That doesn't quite make sense to me.  I noticed that in Massachusetts, also a commonwealth, they have managed to ban plastic bags in various localities.

Random thoughts and ideas:
Focus on Virginia Beach and plastic pollution in the ocean.  Ocean communities seem to be the most sensitive to this issue.
Focus on Chesapeake Bay and Virginia's major rivers -  Potomac, Rappahannock, York, James.  - There was/is such a huge campaign to clean up the Chesapeake.  Was that mostly in Maryland?  What about Virginia?
Start a letter writing campaign - to the state legislature, to county and city governments, to Clorox and Glad and Trinity Global
What if my parish school worked on such a campaign and then it got covered by local news?  Wouldn't that be fantastic?
Since my parish has started up an environmental ministry - I think the diocese should come up with programs to promote environmental awareness and reward those parishes and schools that are attentive and active.
What if public schools did this too?
We need to galvanize people about this issue.
We need to work locally.  My locality is the Commonwealth of Virginia.  I better get started!  (just as soon as I take this Latin final exam!)

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 24 - Surfrider

A lot of the publicity and momentum against plastic pollution comes from California and surfers.  This is because they began to see the problem early on.  However, I do hope more conservative easterners don't dismiss what they are saying and doing out of hand. They are on to something.  And it is a good thing!  It is asking humans to be good stewards to the earth.  Here's a link to Surfrider's page on fighting plastic pollution.

From their Rise Above Plastic page:

Ten Ways To Rise Above Plastics

Here are ten easy things you can do to reduce your 'plastic footprint' and help keep plastics out of the marine environment:

1. Choose to reuse when it comes to shopping bags and bottled water.  Cloth bags and metal or glass reusable bottles are available locally at great prices.
2. Refuse single-serving packaging, excess packaging, straws and other 'disposable' plastics.  Carry reusable utensils in your purse, backpack or car to use at bbq's, potlucks or take-out restaurants.
3. Reduce everyday plastics such as sandwich bags and juice cartons by replacing them with a reusable lunch bag/box that includes a thermos.
4. Bring your to-go mug with you to the coffee shop, smoothie shop or restaurants that let you use them.  A great way to reduce lids, plastic cups and/or plastic-lined cups.
5. Go digital!  No need for plastic cds, dvds and jewel cases when you can buy your music and videos online.
6. Seek out alternatives to the plastic items that you rely on.
7. Recycle.  If you must use plastic, try to choose #1 (PETE) or #2 (HDPE), which are the most commonly recycled plastics.  Avoid plastic bags and polystyrene foam as both typically have very low recycling rates.
8. Volunteer at a beach cleanup.  Surfrider Foundation Chapters often hold cleanups monthly or more frequently.
9. Support plastic bag bans, polystyrene foam bans and bottle recycling bills.
10. Spread the word.  Talk to your family and friends about why it is important to Rise Above Plastics!

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 23 - Random notes of panic

This weekend was very nice but now I realize that I'm in trouble!  My final exam is due by April 1.  I kept thinking I had another week!  And this week is crammed with outside events like an orthodontist appointment, a field trip, certamen (Latin competition) and a baby shower.  Plus things like an AHG meeting, getting S to the airport (he's going up to Boston to play flute in a concert!) on Wednesday.  And regular stuff like driving kids to classes and shopping, preparing meals, etc.  There's no way I can finish reading for my book club this week.  The professor actually doubled our reading for this week to catch up so that we can end on time!  There's no way I can handle that this week!  Argh!

I drove down to Williamsburg to meet my longtime on line Australian friend and three other lovely ladies as well.  It was fun.  My big anti plastic thing was to bring my travel coffee mug and fill it up along the way.  On the way back, I was getting sleepy but this time I filled up my water bottle with a coke.  I've never brought my own bottle to fill.  I've reached a new level!

Little 17 month old Dylan at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.  I love this photo!

I think my husband and children are beginning to take me seriously.  While I was in Williamsburg, they all went to Baltimore to take D and V to the aquarium (their first time) and to visit with granddad and P, his lady friend.  And lo and behold right before the presentation on the dolphins the folks at the aquarium opened with a talk about how bad plastic is for aquatic animals and how the kindest thing we can do for them is to stop using plastic bags!  They were all like, wow, mom isn't so crazy after all!

That's all I got right now.  I think this week, I'll simply post links daily to interesting sites that deal with the problem of plastic.

The Measure of a Man - Book 11

I listened to Sidney Poitier read this, his own memoir, on audio.  It was wonderful!  Poitier has an amazing rags to riches story.  He writes this book in the year 2000 as an old man looking back over a life that held a lot of hard knocks and a lot of amazing good luck as well.  To listen to this erudite thoughtful man talk about the things that happened to him that developed his thoughtful philosophy of life, was amazing to me.  He only had a formal education between the ages of 10.5 and 14.  He was barely literate when he ran away from home at age 16 and wound up in Harlem, New York in 1943 with just a few dollars in his pocket.

Poitier was born prematurely in Miami, Florida while his parents were there selling tomatoes from their little farm in the Bahamas.  He grew up on isolated Cat Island, where the family was extremely poor but didn't know it.  He roamed the forest eating from from fruit trees, fishing in the ocean, helping his mother wash clothes in the ponds and gathering brambles for firewood for her.  They had no indoor plumbing or electricity, but no one did there.  He loved his simple, primitive childhood. At 10.5 his family moved to Nassau, the capital city.  Due to a U.S. tomato embargo, his parents' farm failed.

Now Poitier was exposed to city living, to race and class conflict, to school, to extreme city poverty which was a degrading kind he had not experienced before.  These were very troubled times for him.  Looking back he wonders at his constant risk taking behaviors where he got into a lot of trouble.  Finally, his parents send him to live with an older brother, living in Miami.  Here Poitier discovers the frightening Jim Crow/KKK type bigotry.  He's heard of Harlem, so he escapes there, where he is homeless and working odd jobs as a dishwasher and janitor.  He lived in Harlem for 14 years.  One day, he answered a want ad for actors for the New York Negro Theater.  He had no training and was barely educated and they threw him out.  But Poitier is always up for a challenge!   He had a towering sense of self.  He studied reading and pronunciation with the help of an old Jewish waiter.  He went back six months later and got hired.

A Raisin in the Sun

Looking back at his career, the movie he seems to have the most affection for is Patch of Blue.  He also talked about Lilies of the Field (made on a small budget and in 13 days!) which won him the Oscar for best actor.  Sidney Poitier was the first black man to win this award.  His reminiscences of his movie career made me want to go on a Poitier movie watching jag.  He made some good movies!

This is Poitier with his second wife.  He is now 90 years old.

I highly enjoyed listening to Poitier.  He is a man who is a thorough and nuanced thinker.  He loved his parents, his children, he regrets his sinful, hurtful behavior, he has a generous heart that wants to do good in the world.

For more book reviews, go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Laurus - Book 10

I didn't want this book to end, it was so beautiful.  Laurus is the debut novel by Russian medievalist Eugene Volodazkin.

The story is about a boy named Arseny who lives with his grandfather Christofer, an herbal healer.  After Christofer dies, something terrible happens and Arseny then spends his life trying to redeem himself.  His life becomes a long complicated journey, full of twists and encounters.  We see him wandering as a healer, trying to help others when the plague hits (the plague is an ever looming presence).  He gets attacked by a robber, whacked on the head, and spends many years as a wandering, half-crazed hobo.  He wanders into the small medieval city of Pskov where he is recognized as a holy fool.   Eventually, he and another man, a mystic who befriends him, are commissioned to go on pilgrimage together to Jerusalem.  Again, terrible tragedy occurs.  Upon his return to Russia, Arseny becomes a monk and then finally a hermit.

The Medieval town of Pskov

The wonderful thing about this book is that so much that goes on in its pages theologically corresponds with what I little bit I know of Aquinas and what I am currently learning through reading Augustine's City of God!  The thoughts and prayers of Arseny ring out in such a recognizable and human way.  They are profoundly moving, like listening to glorious choral music.  The ideas of time, sin, redemption, mercy, forgiveness, holiness and the mystical mystery of being human and facing inevitable death, are themes beautifully explored.  But there is much that harsh, ugly and bizarre as well.  Life is like that.

This novel is a profound perfect prayer.   Laurus is a masterpiece.  I have a feeling the book is worthy of many rereads.  I think there is a lot here to uncover.

For more book reviews, go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 22 - How2recycle.info

I am trying to untie the thorny knot that is recycling.  I think we should first and foremost avoid plastic whenever possible (even if that means changing hard to change habits.  And I really hate changing habits! I am not very good at it!)  but plastic has become so pervasive it really is nigh impossible to avoid it.

So recycling has to be part of all this.  They've started up recycling programs all over the place a couple of decades ago, but I keep reading in various places that only about 20% to 30% actually gets recycled!    And again plastic in particular is downcycled NOT recycled.  So the whole thing is misnamed.  I mean I've read they can truly recycle aluminum, tin, glass and cardboard, but plastic, nope.  And then there's the fact that it never biodegrades. . . .

But I do think people are trying hard to improve recycling.  So check out this website and see if it helps you.  Every time I get on and try to focus though something distracts me.  I seem to be spinning my wheels not getting traction on how all this really works.  However, I think the next baby step for me is to start recycling what seems to be called 'film' plastic.  I have returned plastic grocery bags to stores, but I didn't realize you can also recycle things like bubble wrap, zip lock bags, cereal box liners and more.  What gets accepted though, seems to vary from location to location.  So I've got to check that out first.  I also need to set up a place in my kitchen to put just the plastic film items and then remember to actually take them with me when I go to whatever store that accepts them.  Here's the direct link for figuring out where to recycle these things.  To my dismay, I've noted that on this page they say you can't recycle pre-washed salad bags or frozen food plastic bags.  Bummer.  These used to be standard things I'd buy.

One thing that is distracting me from my plastic avoidance journey is the fact that I have a Latin final coming up in a couple weeks.  I feel I have to hunker down and really prepare for that right now.  Once that is over and done with, I will be freed up to devote more time to all this environmental stuff!

And now I am about to drive down to Williamsburg to meet homeschooling friends I've know online for 20 years but have never met in real life! One is from Australia but she just happens to be here on business!  I am excited!

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 21 - Housekeeping

I am not much of a housekeeper.  I've always wanted to be better at it.  Being truly lacking in this area and then homeschooling 5 kids kept me in emergency maintenance mode in terms of housecleaning for most of the last two decades.  I mean I started out with a definite deficit and simply treaded water in terms of trying to not let chaos reign too supremely.  Often I went under for a scary amount of time, though always resurfacing to struggle on!

Many years ago though I did convert to Bon Ami for doing most of my bathroom cleaning.  My mom always used Comet, but I wanted to get away from bleach and toxic stuff.  Like my mom taught me, I'd take a washrag that was about to be put in the hamper anyway, start with the sink, then tub and then toilet.  Bon Ami works great at cleaning toilets.  I just sprinkle it in there and use a toilet brush for inside of the bowl.

However, I do buy window cleaner in those plastic bottles.  I am sure others are way ahead of me in just using vinegar and water to clean mirrors and windows.  I think I have done that once or twice.  When I am finished with my current bottle, I'll switch to reusing the bottle and making my own.

I admit to relying on these!  

Also, in an attempt to make chores more amenable to my chore-averse children, I got into the bad habit of getting them those disposable Clorax wipes.  When I announced my plastic free resolution my 15 year old literally panicked!  How was she supposed to clean her bathroom without those wipes???  Major mothering fail there!  The girl has never had to deal with scrubbing or using any other cleanser, she's lived on those wipes!

I want to investigate how much better the eco version of those wipes are.

Are these any better?  At least 7th Generation is trying!

How to clean my nice wood floors?  I have used Bona for the last almost 16 years because that is what the guys who did the floors when we moved here said to use!

So I am in the midst of researching the best cleaners for my various needs.  The big thing I am going to do at some point in the near future, is make liquid soap from soap nuts (which I purchased at Mom's Organic a couple weeks ago or was it Bed, Bath and Beyond?).

It does look like the basic things I'd need to make my own stuff (but I will still buy Bon Ami - it is good to have a reliable grab-it-off-the-shelf item):

1.  Lots more vinegar (all the big jugs seem to be in plastic),

2.  Baking soda (easy enough to get and still in the good old cardboard boxes!),

3.  Some kind of liquid soap (Dr. Bonner's liquid Castile looks good but doggone how come it's all in plastic bottles???), Soap nuts could be the answer to this problem.

4.  Some people also seem to use borax (I used to use this when washing cloth diapers back in the day - makes 'em whiter!)

5.  Sometimes washing soda (what's that?)

What exactly are these babies?  Who makes 'em?  And why are they sold like tupperware at parties geared to women?

6.  Essential oils - everyone seems to use these to scent up their homemade cleaning solutions.  However, my introduction to them was on several occasions when someone tried to hard sell me to buy them.  They always struck me as a bit 'cult.'  Forgive me, if you are super into essential oils.  It's just that I got the impression some people think they are like that proverbial snake oil that will cure whatever ails you from the common cold to cancer!   But I am sure they must have their practical uses!  So I guess I better open my mind up a bit and try one or two out.  I did see some at Whole Foods.  I am toying with buying a mint (as in peppermint or spearmint) for mouth wash and maybe a citrus or lavender one for cleaning solutions.  But they are expensive and I'm afraid I'd actually never use them!  So I have held off on purchasing any as of yet.

I was going to link to various bloggers who are into natural housecleaning stuff, but so far they all seem to go overboard a little.  One that touts itself as 'natural' recommends using antibacterial microfiber cloths.  Noooo.  Microfibers are not natural and are bad for us!

Anyway, stay tuned for further (mis)adventures in housecleaning!

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 20 - Life as an anti-plasticite

I've been trying so hard to avoid plastic, but sometimes it is unavoidable.

I do not need to go into a plastic bag, thank you very much!

I mean there was the recent time I went to the store with all kinds of  reusable bags and containers. At the check out counter, the cashier was busy putting stuff in my own bags I had bought and calculating my bulk purchases.  But I must have gotten distracted (probably by having to pay with my new 'chip' credit card which I am still getting used to).   I wheeled the bought groceries out to parking lot and started to put them into the trunk of the van only to discover the cashier had put a 4 pack of cream soda (which clearly had a carrying handle in its cardboard carrier) and a couple of my extra cloth bags into a plastic bag!  In fact because the 4 bottles of cream soda were heavy, he had DOUBLE BAGGED!  So something that didn't need a plastic bag to begin with (the cream soda) plus two cloth bags, which you would think would have clued him into the fact that I was trying to be environmentally responsible, and I wound up with not one but two plastic bags.


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My daughter was not smiling like this as she attempted to get her braces on and off, I can assure you!

Then my daughter who is getting her teeth straightened just started using Invisalign.  She really has to because she has a bad allergy to nickel which can found in surgical stainless steel.  I am glad they invented Invisalign for her sake, but we've got lots of plastic going on there!  And will for the next two years!

Right now her teeth hurt a lot.  They told her to eat soft foods only,  for at least the first couple of days.  She didn't take them seriously enough and decided to eat some crusty french bread, which resulted in one of the newly glued on ceramic hooks coming off her tooth.  So now we have another orthodontist appointment to get that fixed.

I am trying to think of soft foods for her to eat.  She does like smoothies but berries are always either frozen in plastic bags or in plastic containers in the produce section.  I was wondering if I could use strawberry preserves instead?  Why not?  So we are having smoothies for breakfast today.  I got her a can of chicken noodle soup for lunch.  That's as far as I've gotten.

I've got so much going on right now in the food/cooking department, it is a bit overwhelming.  First I've got both vegetarians and meat eaters to feed.  Then I've got the goal to avoid plastic and now I've got a soft food requirement.  

Makes me want to tear my hair out!

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And then there was the case of the diminishing supply of toilet paper.  See, at the beginning of Lent I had bought a bunch of single rolls that were wrapped individually in recyclable paper, which was great, but then we starting to get dangerously low so I went hunting in the stores I thought had sold them, but to no avail.  I went to all my usual haunts and nope, only toilet paper wrapped in plastic.

I wound up buying a big bulk package of Seventh Generation.  Hopefully that company really is trying to do things and isn't just using an environmentalism-public relations campaign to sell their products.  I hope so. They seem like good guys.   I do get so chagrinned when I enter a supposedly environmentally-friendly, organic store to see everything encased in plastic and more plastic.  I know they try to do more with recycled stuff, but why even go there unless it is absolutely necessary?  I think for most of the organic world, dealing with plastic is still an afterthought.

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 19 - Thank you, Kavindra!

I got your package last night.  I have not tried the infuser yet.  I got up this morning and automatically made coffee and then realized I should have made tea instead!

I will make tea this afternoon and report back on my plastic free tea drinking experience, brought to me by a generous-hearted friend!  But before this busy day got started, I just wanted to thank you!

Here's an article from 2013 on why we might want to be cautious about drinking tea from plastic tea bags.  For me though it doesn't even have to be about health, but about the wanton waste and pollution that goes into making something plastic even though we humans have been drinking tea for millennia without ever using plastic.  Why start now?  It's insane!

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2:23 p.m. Update on plastic free tea!  I just now had a nice cup of English Breakfast tea sans any plastic.  The ball of the infuser is quite large, so I used a mug.  I just tried to put the same amount of tea that I'd find in a regular tea bag into the infuser, clipped it shut and then poured boiling hot water over it all.  There were some fine tea leaf crumbs floating around at first but they settled after a minute and I had a very enjoyable cup of tea (I drink mine black).  There were a few tea leaves at the bottom of the mug, but not much at all.  So thanks again, Kavindra.  I love it!

And now I can just dump out the tea leaves into my compost bin, without having to cut open the stupid tea bags which may or may not have plastic in them.   Hooray!

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 18 - First Day of Spring

Yesterday was the first day of spring, according to the calendar. It was kind of cloudy, damp and got up to almost 50 degrees but with a chilly wind blowing.  I took S to his percussion class at the community college.  Since the class was only a half hour long.  I parked at the library a couple blocks away and walked for a bit.  As I was walking, I started to notice all the litter everywhere.  Not until I had completed my round and had almost gotten back to the library, did I think to take out my camera and take pictures.

I am not the greatest photographer in the world, to put it mildly, but here's just a little sample of what I saw.

Plastic spoon still wrapped in plastic.

I notice these bags caught in tree branches everywhere now. 

A smashed plastic lid for a take out coffee cup

Melting snow bank with two plastic bags

Plastic take out knife

Yet another plastic bag!  (Note the artistically placed thumb!)

Single use disposal plastic creates lots and lots of litter.  And it NEVER goes away.  It doesn't biodegrade.

We have become wanton in our casual disregard for our children, our neighbors and God's creation. We simply don't have the time to think about it.  We've got more important things to do.

Like get fast food or a cup of coffee from Starbucks.  Or use 1 trillion filmy plastic bags yearly to carry our stuff home from the store.

We've got to stop living like this!  It is truly sinful.

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 17 - Catholic Environmentalism

My parish has started a new ministry focused on environment issues, called Care for Our Common Home (CCH for short).  We had a professor from Catholic University who teaches on Catholicism and Ecology come talk to us.  It was great!  I took some notes, but they are a bit jumbled.  Also I am pressed for time and this is actually a deep and complex topic, so I am just going to bullet point some of my notes here.

• First question is why should Catholics care about the environment.  
• Catholics are called to read 'the sign of the times' and as we look around the world today we see the dangerous environmental degradation that is going on.
• Awareness of this often comes to our Catholic sensibilities through the Church's work with the poor.  
• First teaching that addresses the environment comes from a statement by Paul VI.
• First truly significant statement comes from St. John Paul the Great in a letter written in 1990.
• In USA USCCB issues statement in 1991
• Pope Benedict also wrote about the environment
• The pinnacle of authoritative teaching of the magisterium comes from Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si.  The Professor said at least 85% of this actually comes from St. JPII's letter in 1990.
• Catholics see creation as good.   Creation is something God pronounced as good in Genesis.  
• Unlike Luther we don't think the fall from paradise means that we are innately evil.  We are made in God's image and likeness but with a tendency toward sin (concupiscence).  
• Manicheaism which teaches that nature/matter is evil is a heresy to Catholics.
• God gave us dominion but that doesn't mean we can be tyrants - stewardship is taught as care of God's gift.  When someone gives you a gift what is your relationship with that gift?  
• In paradise before the fall, we had kinship with animals;  our disconnection from nature is part of the consequence of the fall.
• Nature as metaphor for our relationship with God - I am the vine, you are the branches - this should bring us closer to appreciating God's creation.
• St Francis felt a kinship with all of God's creation - Brother Wolf, Sister Moon.  We are called to emulate his holiness
• JPII/Laudato Si calls us to an ecological conversion.  We must realize how interconnected we are with the rest of God's creation.  We must hear both the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth.  We need  an integrated ecology that includes both!
• This is a radical conversion that springs from understanding of the common good and the sacramentality of creation.
• We must learn to live in sustainable ways.  The upper middle class, developed world generates pollution and problems that is felt most severely by the poor developing world.  
• Materialism/consumerism which makes us selfish, disconnects us from each other, the poor, the earth and God.
• We need to live more simply.  Things do not make us happy, virtue does.
• We need to develop a sense of ecological virtue.
• We need to radically change our behavior and our practices for future generations.  
• We shouldn't be hypocritical - lecture others to change but maintain our own destructive lifestyles
• We need hope - not optimism which isn't based in reality, but hope, the virtue that gives us perseverance
• This needs to start at the parish level - the teaching is there but the bottleneck is at local level
• Parishes should try to 'green' - reduce wasteful expenditure of energy, promote ecological virtue.
• Ways Professor's parish has done this:  energy audit for parish, highway clean up service project, gardening classes, in liturgy, celebrating feast of St. Francis with blessing of animals, during Lenten suppers have at least one talk on environment, petitions for prayers of faithful, quotes or statements in bulletin, parish sponsored field trips to learn more about local environmentalism/creation.

One, Two Buckle My Shoe - Book 9

One, Two Buckle My Shoe is an Hercule Poirot mystery by Agatha Christie.  I was looking for an audiobook to listen to at the library and settled on this.  The last Christie I heard on audio didn't impress me much (Elephants Can Remember) but this one was highly enjoyable.  Christie's writing and development of the mystery is impeccable.  Hugh Fraser, a British actor, reads the book to perfection!  He doesn't get one syllable or microsecond of intonation wrong!  This was a very enjoyable listen.  He did all different kinds of accents; Poirot's, different English ones from stuffy to cockney and a couple of American ones too!  I listened to this in the car doing my weekly errands and I would find myself at a destination with no idea of how I drove there, because I was so engrossed in the story!

This book fills in the mystery square in my 2017 Bingo Book Challenge.

Two thumbs up!  God bless Agatha Christie (and Hugh Fraser!).

For more book reviews, go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 16 - Jiffy and other Sundry Thoughts

Apparently, hemp seeds are very good for you.

I'm kind of out of steam right now on talking about avoiding plastic.  I went to Wegman's yesterday to do an exploratory run.  Wegman's is not on my usual route, but it turns out there is one I wasn't aware of just about a 10 minute drive from the math tutor's.  Well, I will never be one of the cool kids.  Wegman's to me is too huge, too overwhelming and when you go in with the idea of avoiding plastic, it is no better than Harris Teeter.  Well, it's actually worse because it is bigger and has simply miles and miles of plastic.  It does have a selection of organic bulk stuff, but none of it was what I really wanted.  I am not groovy enough.  I mean they had a big bin of hemp seed.  No one else was at the bulk bins when I was there (in the middle of a Friday afternoon - even though the place was hopping) and I looked around at all the eye-grabbing trendy, plastic encased, convenience food that abounded everywhere and standing by my lonely self in the bulk bin aisle, thought:  how often does someone come in and buy organic hempseed here?    But I supposed I should appreciate the fact that they do carry such stuff!  That is good.  A step in the right direction.  I was just too assaulted by the hugeness of the place to properly appreciate things.

But the most ironic thing is that my little plastic card failed me!  I went through all the aisles of Wegman's carefully trying to find a couple of items that were plastic free and when I got up to the cashier my credit card was rejected.  I had forgotten that we were in the process of switching accounts because someone hacked into our old one and keep trying to steal money from us..  A month ago I got a new credit card which I never activated.  I blithely kept using the same old one I'd been using for 5 years and then yesterday I got a rude awakening.   Now I have to figure out how to activate my new piece of plastic.

The plastic that moves the economy

Even though I am on Day 15, I still have trouble remembering to bring my bags with me, so I have on occasion gotten paper bags at the store, instead.  This is actually helpful because sometimes I need paper bags for use at home. Also, I just found out this interesting tidbit.

Sometimes you need paper bags!

All the above is an aside.  The thing I wanted to post about is Jiffy!  Ten posts back I noted that the Jiffy company makes its little boxes of corn muffin mix exactly the same way as it has always done.  Well, just yesterday I stumbled on this report by NPR about how that is true!  Jiffy hasn't changed since 1930 when it opened!  What a neat little company.  I feel very good about buying this product now.  At least once a week we have muffins with soup or muffins for breakfast.  I am not one to get attached to brand names, but I am pleased with this one!

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 15 - Sack Cloth!

From Monasteryicons.com

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!  We will be celebrating it by eating pizza!  Yeah, we are going to the children's Stations of the Cross tonight at my parish.  They feed the kids pizza and then a nice lady with a guitar (it is all very guitar-mass in feel) sings the Stations of the Cross to the kids.

I only took my own kids once, but we have this little 17 month old living here so we are going to check it out with him in tow.

I think I'll do the corned beef thing on Saturday instead.

Now, on to other things!

I've discovered that a couple companies that are aimed at the speciality food market do package their food in nice cloth bags, I think to hearken back to the old days, perhaps?  Since these are specialty items they are costly.  For instance I compared the Carolina Plantation Rice costs to that of a 2 lb bag of rice from Target (wrapped in plastic) and there is no comparison in price.  Target's was something like $1.69, while the other was $9.82.  Of course, if you want to buy local or at least USA, the Carolina Rice is grown here in South Carolina.  I have no idea where the Target brand comes from.  I am willing to bet the quality of the rice from Carolina Plantation is probably much better, more flavor and nutrition than the other.  But still the price difference is something a buyer can't get around!

Anyone up for some stone ground grits?

Two other companies that also bag their rice (and grits) in cloth are Food For the Southern Soul and Matiz.

Directly from Spain!

It makes me wonder why something wrapped in plastic - that is made from fossil fuels and takes so much processing to produce is cheaper than something made from a renewable resource that people are producing all the time anyway (clothes are everywhere!).  Also, plastic is much more costly to deal with after use than cloth, which biodegrades and is easily reused anyway.  What gives?  Is it simply the scale of production? (mass production of plastic vs. particular production of this particular type of cloth for this little specialty niche?)  The fact that the plastic is lighter for shipping?

But at least there are products out there not packaged in plastic.  I plan to write the companies and tell them how much I appreciate that they have not hopped on the plastic bandwagon!  Maybe there is a way to encourage this type of packaging so that maybe one day it will become more common.

As an aside, at the same time that I was discovering these items packaged in cloth,  I started listening to Sidney Poitiers Spiritual Autobiography, The Measure of a Man.  I'm just at the very beginning where he is recounting his childhood on an island in the Bahamas.  His family were tomato farmers but they were very poor.  But he says it wasn't the crushing poverty of other places.  He roamed the island, eating fruit from the trees, there was the sea to fish from, salt ponds to get salt to preserve the fish, pigs and goats - so he never went hungry and he had an island paradise in which to play.  The economy was half cash, half barter.   There was no electricity and no running water, but everyone was like that, so no one felt poor because of it.  And clothes were made from sackcloth!  I envision them getting big sacks of rice and flour, using them up and then turning them into clothing.  I wonder, how much clothing do you really need in the Bahamas anyway?  Poitier remembers his childhood as a time of great simplicity and peace and family togetherness away from all the distractions that money would bring.

Speaking of flour sacks - I wonder if these are the authentic thing?  Somebody is still producing things from this material, it seems!

**********

Something more affordable than the specialty rice that also avoids plastic is Near East cous cous in little cardboard boxes.  No plastic there (except maybe in the flavor packets? Probably.)  I have not tried their rice, so I don't know how that is packaged, but the cous cous is so easy to prepare and is delicious!

My teens kept lobbying me to buy Pepperidge Farm Cookies in those little paper sacks.  I checked them out.  Here's what I found.

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 14 - Students

Plastic is everywhere, not just packaging our food, but everywhere.  How is a student supposed to cope?

This college student lays out her clever and resourceful ways she avoids plastic while living in a dorm.  I had never heard about how to avoid the binding on textbooks before!

You can actually find these cute recycled paper notebooks at Target!  If you want the motherlode of these recycled school supplies (which seem to be plastic free, though I am having a hard time finding that stated explicitly) go to Bookbinders.

I had never given a thought to all the plastic pens I buy and then throw out when they stop working. Life Without Plastic has some plastic free alternatives.    Writing with a fountain pen seems hard but classy!  I wonder if we didn't think of pens as disposable, we wouldn't be so careless with losing them all the time?  Maybe we'd take how we write more seriously?  This reminded me of a Tex talk I saw.

What if life without plastic leads us to slowing down, being more creative, appreciating beauty more?  It is a way of withdrawing from the rat race a little bit!


(Below is completely, off the topic of being plastic free, but I felt like noting these anyway!)

Speaking of students, I just thought I'd brag about my own two here at home.  Sean loves his English class this semester at the community college.  It is hybrid class so he has to submit homework online each Tuesday night.  He had to write a reader response to a review of a biography of Dostoevsky.  The guy writing the review is one of those avant-garde writers who is hard to penetrate at times.  Anyway, the teacher wrote back to the whole class to read S's review because it was a model of how to approach the subject matter.  S was so pleased.  The thing about S is, even with his struggles, he is one smart, talented guy!  I always thought he'd be great at reviewing music, movie, books.  He's got such a way with words and he is so insightful.

S got invited by his brother to come up to Boston to play flute in a live performance of W's opera Mogo.  S is all excited!  Now he's got to learn a very complicated piece quickly.  He's on the job!  S also got to see his favorite jazz flutist at the Kennedy Center recently, which was very cool.

B is going to go to New York with her friend who goes to a local high school.  We wouldn't have said yes, except the friends' parents are going to be chaperoning as well.  This was B's Christmas present.  This is happening in a couple weeks.  She's getting excited.  B also helped with a fundraiser this past weekend, to raise money to support a theater camp started by kids she works with at the local community theater.  It is a summer camp for low income kids.  The two girls who started this were 15 and 16 at the time.  Now they are 18 and 19 and about to go off to college.

I love how much music is a part of the lives of my two youngest kids.

Here's a tiny desk concert featuring Elena Pinderhughes (I can see why S likes her so much).

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 13 - Updates!

Update on The Big Wax Wheel of Cheese!
Remember that huge wheel of cheese imported from England I bought that cost so much but had never seen plastic (well at least it hadn't been individually wrapped in plastic, it is encased in lovely green wax!)  I was very worried about it.  I thought it would go uneaten and spoil and be a big waste and another bit of evidence that I am truly wacky!

But, dear reader, it has proved to be my most successful cheese impulse buy ever!  I have made with it so far:

1)  potato cheese soup
2)  mac and cheese
3)  cheese and crackers
4)  sprinkled bowls of chili with cheese
5)  grilled cheese sandwiches
6)  spinach and cheddar cheese souffle.

We are not quite half way through it.

The cheese is supremely delicious; it has a really creamy mild white cheddar taste.  It hasn't spoiled in the least.  When I cut off a chunk, I push the wax, all of which I've kept, back around the cheese, then I wrap it back up in parchment paper secured with two rubber bands and then back into the fridge it goes.  I don't let it just sit out on the counter for any amount of time at all.

I am looking around for more cheddar cheese recipes.

Update On Tea!
I found a tin of Twinings English Breakfast tea at Bed, Bath and Beyond.  I still have not found a single user tea infuser (hey, that rhymes!).  But I did get out my old tea pot (I remember I got it years ago when I was going to do teatime with my kids a la Charlotte Mason.  I think that lasted a year.)   I have yet to make a pot of tea though.  I think I'll drink through my collection of tea in bags first.

Here's an article that echoes my experience (albeit in a very limited way; I am just starting out on this journey).  I do find myself thinking differently about food and how to cook for my family.

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Day 12 - Paper Towels and Such

Showing off my no plastic souffle!  Spinach from CSA, cheese from the big wax wheel of cheddar.

I grew up in a large family (10 kids) that operated on a tight budget.  Even though my dad was a lawyer and then judge, he was a partner for a small firm in a small city and then he was a county judge.  County civil servants don't get paid all that much (though the benefits were good!)  My mom didn't work and she was ill much of the time (Type 1 diabetes she'd had since she was a teen).  So she had those pre-existing conditions that insurance companies don't like so much.  However, both my parents grew up poor during the Depression and then during the rationing of WWII, so they were quite used to being frugal and in fact, really didn't seem to give it much thought!  They just operated frugally automatically!

So I remember when growing up that my mom wouldn't let us use paper towels to dry our hands.  We had a dish towel for dishes/pots/pans and a hand towel for drying hands.  Paper towel was used for icky stuff or draining bacon on a plate.  In fact, when there was a spill, mom would say don't use up all the paper towels, get a dish towel!

A few weeks ago, before I began this Lenten journey of avoiding plastic, I bought a bunch of dish towels at the grocery store.  My supply was getting sparse and ragged and we had started washing dishes by hand.  But these new dish towels came in handy, because I started noticing that every single paper towel roll is wrapped in plastic.  Paper towels are a really wasteful idea if you think about it!  They are completely unnecessary in the long run.  However,  I know my family will object to having to use rags or towels to clean up some things, like cat vomit.  So I bought a roll of Seventh Generation recycled paper towel and I sternly warned everyone that it was just to use in case of something really icky.  In other cases they need to use the dish towels.  Then I put a couple of dish towels on the counter in front of the paper towel holder.  We also have two dish towels draped over the back of the kitchen barstool closest to the sink.  One is for hands and one is for dishes (I am my mother's child!).  And you know what?  We are into our 2nd week and we still have half a roll of paper towel left!!!!  I just used a square on the floor where someone had obviously dropped an ice cube and not picked it up. It had melted into a little pool of water.   I had just put a load of towels in the wash, so I am currently down to one dish towel and didn't want to use it on the floor.   That's my justification for using paper this time.

In addition to reducing paper towel consumption, I also announced to the family I was going to no longer buy paper napkins.  I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and bought a dozen cloth napkins for $9.99.  We also had 4 cloth napkins leftover from a set we got about 15 years ago.  I put the napkins in the napkin holder.  The new rule is:  if your napkin is really icky put it into the bag hanging on the other barstool chair.  If it isn't icky, fold it up and keep it near your place at the kitchen table.  Then you can reused it again.  We have a big square kitchen table, so we can just moved the napkin in toward the center and still have room for books and other stuff.

These are exactly the ones I bought.

I am still going buy tissues.  I just can't see anyone in this family using handkerchiefs.  There are those annoying little plastic bits that help you pull the tissue out of the box.  But in the old days, we used to have tissue boxes that didn't have that feature.  Honestly, why is that plastic necessary?  It seems so stupid to use petroleum by products that will never biodegrade so we can more easily get a single tissue out of a box.

For toilet paper, I have found a couple of brands of recycled single rolls wrapped in recyclable paper.  I like that I can recycle that along with the cardboard toilet tubes.  But these individual rolls add up to be more costly.  It might be cheaper to buy a bulk package of many rolls, even though they all come in plastic.  At least you are getting more rolls for the plastic than if you bought a bunch of smaller packages.  It's just that that type of plastic doesn't get recycled like jugs and cartons do.  So it really does wind up in a landfill.  It's a conundrum.  I really resent that people are forced to choose between being frugal and being environmentally responsible.  We need to fix that!

Right now I am researching buying a big tablecloth for my dining room table.  This dining room furniture was one of the best things we bought when we were first married.  An old lady was being moved to a nursing home by her son (that part is sad!) and he was selling her furniture cheap.  We bought this table, china cabinet, chairs and credenza for very little and we've now had to for maybe 22 years!  It is a nice long oval walnut table, with the extensions in, it sits 12 people.  Ever since I've had it, I've been going to Giant Food and buying their long white plastic lined paper tablecloths whenever we use the table (usually for Christmas/New Year's/Passover/Easter).  Well, this year I am not going to buy a plastic tablecloth in plastic packaging.  So I've been on the lookout for a new tablecloth.  I was checking out Vermont Country Store (which seriously has some plastic alternative items - check it out!) but I think I want the kind that are stain resistant, if I can.  However, the stain resistant might contain microfibers that get washed into water supply.  I need to do more research before Passover and Easter are upon us.  I don't have much time!

Slaying the Plastic Dragon - Storing Food - Day 11

Some of these ideas I came up with on my own and some I gleaned from Plastic Free.

These are my best friends.

1)  I use canned pet food for my dog and three cats. That's a lot of cans to go through in a week.  I have two too many pets.  One cat was dumped on me not once but twice!   The other was due to youngest daughter pleading for her own pet and me being too softhearted to say no.  To cover the cans in the fridge I use aluminum foil that I reuse over and over again until it is falling apart.  I used to just throw it away then, however, even though my curbside collection won't take it, I've discovered that my county will.  So I am saving it up and taking it to the recycling center along with big cardboard boxes.

2)  For leftovers:  reuse plastic containers you already have.  I've got a couple of these hanging around.  I never was one to remember to save and reuse these though, simply because I felt like they never got clean enough and I'd lose the lids.  I toss them into the recycling but the more I learn the less I trust that they are actually getting recycled.  Actually, there is no recycling in plastic, just downcycling.

3) Put food into a bowl and cover with plate.  This has the added incentive of making you not forget about that leftover since you probably are going to miss that plate and bowl eventually!  Likewise if you use a pot with a lid or a casserole dish with a lid.

4) Use Ball canning jars for leftovers and for freezing.  You can find these at most grocery stores, Target, etc.   Just don't put hot food into a jar and then immediately put into the freezer.  Refrigerate first to completely cool and then freeze.  Never fill the glass jar to the top.  Leave an inch or more for expansion.  I have frozen homemade chicken broth successfully in these jars.

5)  If you've got the disposable income, you can buy a nice stainless steel container or two from Life Without Plastic.  These are an investment; they are pricey but I expect it to last for years and years.  These are great for freezing meat.  I just got one and this is what I am using to store my meat in when in the freezer.


6)  You can try out some of the beeswax wraps that are reusable and washable.  This seems like a pretty pricey alternative.  Apparently, you can make your own, if you are inclined that way and have the time!

The only downside is my tin is too big to store in the cupboards and I can't stand having a Christmas themed tin sitting on my counter all year long.  I'm trying to brainstorm for a solution!

7) For dry foods (trail mix, rice, etc) old tins that cookies and popcorn come in.  If they are rusty, you can line with an old clean pillow case or paper from a paper bag.  I've been keeping my bread in an old tin; the bread is either in a paper bag or a cloth bag.  This keeps the bread fresh for days.

8)  Wax paper baggies.  I got some at Whole Foods.  I pack a lunch for my daughter every Tuesday when she attends our homeschool co-op.  We reuse an old insulated plastic lunch bag that zips.  I think she's used it since she was 8 or so (she's now 15).  I bought it for when she attended a regular music summer camp where she needed to bring her lunch.  I use wax paper bags for things like raisins, carrot sticks, cookies.  She's not much of a sandwich person, so usually I put some cheese cubes in a small widemouth thermos.  I used to always put a paper napkin in but I just realized she's bringing the lunch bag back with her so I started putting an old cloth napkin in we had.  I can compost the wax paper bags and wash the napkin.  No waste!  One box of these is going to last me a while.

9)  The hardest thing for me is to store fresh greens, lettuces, spinach etc in the fridge without plastic.  Here is a list of how to store fresh veggies without plastic.

Plastic Free; How I Kicked the Plastic Habit - Book 8

Plastic found near the Arctic.  http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2014/09/11/oceans-plastic-problem

This book by Beth Terry is THE resource for learning how to live life avoiding plastic.  It is hard to do!  Beth Terry has been at it for years and she's done all the research and footwork so we don't have to!  She became convinced of the problem of plastic for our environment back in the early 2000s. Since then she's been galvanized to make this her life work - to raise awareness of the dangerous threat that plastic poses to life on this planet.

Made without plastic!

I am currently trying to live plastic free for the 40 Days of Lent.  I am hoping giving it up for 40 Days will help me form good habits that prove beneficial for myself and the environment.  This book is chock full of advice, ideas, suggestions and links.  I regret getting it on my Kindle because it is just the sort of book to use as a reference.  The Kindle just doesn't lend itself to easy access to particular information when one needs it.  I am going to have to buy this as a real book, in hardback or paperback.  Honestly though I was thinking of buying several copies and donating them to my library.  I'm that serious about this problem.

Plastic found in Gibraltar.

Terry writes well, in a conservational, sensible way.  She is not high and mighty about her crusade at all.  She warns the reader over and over again how it took her years of dedicated research to figure out all these solutions.  To switch to a more sustainable lifestyle in this day and age, means making conscientious choices.  The easiest thing is to refuse plastic shopping bags and bring your own.  The other easy thing to do is to get into the habit of bringing your own water bottle instead of buying bottled water.  There are all sorts of ways to avoid plastic in all areas of one's life, but it takes a willingness to change and problem solve.  

Giant plastic patch found in Atlantic Ocean.  The scale of our plastic pollution is almost beyond comprehension.  And it NEVER goes away.  It's here for our children and grandchildren and great, great, great grandchildren, and it gets worse by exponential proportions every single day.

I learned a lot from this book.  I learned about organizations like 5 Gyres and Terracycle.  I learned about little entrepreneurial companies trying to do their part against the mammoth corporations who spew out plastic with so little regard to the consequences of their actions; companies like Chicobags and Ecobags, and more little esty businesses trying to cull out an income while helping rather than hurting us.  There's so much more in here.  That's why I really need the actual book.  So I can refer to it again and again.

Beth Terry's website is a great place to start right away in learning about the dangers of plastic and how it is reaching a global crisis level.  Even if you don't read her book, please visit her website so you can join the fight for the future of the planet (and human race).

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.