Today I went sleuthing at Mom's Organic. We have a couple of these stores around but neither are really close enough to justify my driving there all the time. It did have the biggest selection of bulk bins, more than Whole Foods. I still didn't see any liquid bulk stuff, like in Beth Terry's book (and Kavinda, my friend who used to live in Oakland, talked about). Beth Terry's book is great but she has no kids, lives and works in the San Francisco area which is miles ahead of where I live in Virginia in terms of environmental awareness (and I live in a wealthy, trendy place). At Mom's I did find tons of plastic packaging, but also some things that weren't packaged that way. I also found a couple of items I'd been looking for (a shampoo bar to forgo always buying new plastic bottles and soap berries or nuts that apparently you can using for washing clothes and dishes.) But driving home I realized that I can't make it a regular thing. For now I'm going to stick to the places that are close and right on my way anyway.
I drive near or by the Harris Teeter up to three times a week. It is nothing to stop and pick up something.
The Whole Foods, Great Harvest Bakery, Maple Avenue Market, Giant Food and Fresh Market are all walking distance from each other, up and down the main area of my town (maybe within 7 or 8 blocks?) I think I need one of those rolling carts. I really could park in a central location and then go to the various places. On top of this, there is a farmer's market held on Saturdays until noon I think, from something like May to October in a Baptist Church parking lot a couple blocks up from the Whole Foods. Also the library is right there as well, as well as the dog wash place! I could get so many things done in one Saturday if I planned it well!
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| I'd be happy with one of these to do my grocery shopping with around town. Probably has plastic parts though! |
As I said I am walking distance from my CSA. It takes about 15 minutes there and then I haul the stuff back. I always feel so good afterwards, I've exercised and supported local agriculture! I pick my stuff up on Sunday afternoons.
So I think that within these parameters, I will try to be as plastic free as possible, but I can't run to the far flung edges of my world here. I have to be practical. Also, I am trying to do this all at once, which is hard. In Beth Terry's book she emphasized that it took her years to figure out some sensible alternatives to plastic. Her book includes quotes from other people trying to reduce their plastic consumption and one person wrote that they just took one habit a month and worked on that. That is probably a good pace for a lot of this stuff. I think remembering to bring your own bags when you go shopping and keeping a water bottle and/or travel mug with you to avoid plastic cups, lids and straws are the habits that are fairly easy to swing into right away, even though it can be frustrating at first when you find yourself forgetting to bring the darn bags/cups with you. But eventually, I'm finding it does become habit. The key for me on this, is putting the bags or cups right by the garage door so I'll remember when I go out.
Here's a video that shows a little bit of the vast amounts of plastic pollution in our oceans. One of the ladies strikes me as a bit kooky. She talks about how the ocean is trying to communicate with us through plastic. At the end she says something I don't understand about how we are evolving? But aside from her wigginess, you can see just a tiny bit of the damage being done. It really has to stop.
Do you have opportunities to recycle plastic? If you can't manage everything all at once, maybe you could concentrate on eliminating the items that can't be recycled or are less recyclable - I know there are codes (possibly on packaging, or is that a European thing?) that indicate recyclable status, though have no clue what they mean!
ReplyDeleteHi Kathryn! It is very confusing. I do recycle most stuff - that is I put it in the recycling bin and it gets picked up by my local trash company. However, most stuff doesn't really get recycled! Did you know that? That things that actually get recycled are very low! And most of the USA's recycling winds up traveling to China or India where poor people sift through the mountains of recycling to pick out what works. The stuff that doesn't get recycling is often incinerated which releases lots of toxics. AND there actually is no RECYCLING for plastic! It gets DOWNCYCLED which means it gets made into something else that is not recyclable. So recycling for plastic is kind of the last resort when there is nothing else you can do with it. I will write a whole blog post on this. But the first thing is to refuse (find an alternative), then reduce (go for the thing with the least plastic), reused (keep using it as long as possible, and then recycle.
DeleteYou can buy the soap nuts online! That's where I got mine. They work great.
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