Over My Hill, Over My Hill...

My month of trying to become an uber conscious consumer has been overall a success. In the past 30 days, I used four plastic shopping bags(two were necessary in Japan, where they have NO trash cans!), and my awesome Timbuk2 compact bag has joined the list of things I double-check on my way out the door - phone, wallet, keys, bag, check!

It has also made me more acutely aware of the problems our generation will have to deal with in a decade or so, as the un-sustainable habits our country has leaned on over the past several decades have compiled to create an unfortunately unhealthy environment. There are other communities in the world who realized this much earlier, and have forced people to pay for using plastic bags, fined people for not recycling everything possible, and developed incentives for the use of composting and renewable energies. I have faith that the necessary changes are possible, but in order to create a change on a great enough scale to impact the planet, they must be inspired on an individual level.

Here is a depressing clip - creative wit and humor aside - that will possibly influence your shopping habits too:

"The Majestic Plastic Bag," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLgh9h2ePYw

I Love Java, Sweet & Hot

Happy National Coffee Appreciation Day!

I adore coffee. Good coffee, that is. I love the aroma of the beans(even walking down the breakfast aisle in the supermarket makes my mouth water). I love the crema that bubbles on top of it, and the way the white milk swirls in and creates various shades of brown. That first bittersweet sip soothes my soul no matter what is on my mind. I will admit that I am 100% a coffee snob. If it's not good, I find it pretty unbearable(like breakfast in Celakovice...blech).

I don't know what created this intense appreciation. My parents never drank it habitually, and in college I didn't rely on it at all. In France, I fell in love with the wonderful strength of espresso drinks, as opposed to the American drip version. Then my standards were raised when I worked at Williams-Sonoma, and spent my first Holiday season there becoming the resident expert on appliances and demoing the Jura Capresso machines. They grind, tamp, brew-to-order and clean themselves at the touch of a button, and of course the best way to promote a $3,000 coffee maker is to brew samples with the best quality of coffee(Illy, true love!). I was hooked, so I mastered our little Krups machine and did pretty well without indulging in $4 lattes too regularly. During grad school I did lean on two or three cups a day - especially last tri when I started every day with an 8am lecture. Since graduation, I have tried to cut back to a cup a day, mostly in efforts to keep the caffeine from intervening with my gloriously rediscovered sleep cycle. At the beginning of the summer my cravings were pretty intense, and I could feel the caffeine deficit. I'm currently back to a more normal caffeine need, though, and after a few out-of-town experiences suffering through icky weak morning cups, I am rejoicing in the steamy mug in my hands, at home on this crisp Fall morning.

Java cheers to my fellow coffee aficionados!

I Got My Philosophy

So far, my mission has been fairly successful. Only once have I found myself shopping for groceries late at night without having brought my own bag. And I was with Brian, and we only used one new plastic bag. Is it bad that I am using him as an excuse? (I technically didn't pay for anything when we checked out...)

Here is some inspiration about the use of plastic versus paper:

Plastic bags were first introduced in 1977 and now account for 4 out 5 bags handed out at grocery stores. They are made with polyethylene, which is made from nonrenewable petroleum resources. For the stores using them they are extremely cheap containers, costing only a cent apiece, in comparison to paper bag products that run three to five cents each. Paper bags also use up more resources during production, transportation and handling because they are much bigger and heavier than plastic bags. However, in comparison to the 7-10 years a plastic bag takes to decompose in a landfill, the month it takes a paper bag to decompose doesn't seem like much! Also, as of 2000, more than 20% of paper bags got recycled, while 99% of plastic bags end up as litter in a landfill.

These facts conclude that plastic bags consume 40% less energy in production, and generate 80% less solid waste than paper bags. Not that either product is ideal, but unfortunately less than 1% of US shoppers use cloth/re-useable shopping bags. Time to step it up!

(My source for most of these facts is http://techalive.mtu.edu/meec/module14/title.htm.)

Forget the Speech that Moved the Stone

I consider myself fairly eco chic, and have always made an effort to reuse and recycle everything that I can. For better or for worse, I was raised to be conscious of the waste that I leave this planet. That's probably why my husband refers to me as a pack rat, and people who help me clean up after events think I go overboard to save cans and bottles. In support of my coffee habit, I also make it a point to carry my own travel mug to use for any beverages I purchase, and I'm confident that over the past few years I have saved hundreds of paper cups and cardboard javajackets. However, one thing I know I could be better at is using my own shopping bags when I shop at the grocery store or at Costco. I usually have them in my car somewhere, but I can't seem to regularly remember to bring them into the store with me.

So, for the month of September (HOLY COW, IT'S SEPTEMBER?!), I am committing to myself and to my environment that I will not use a new plastic bag. I will take the extra time to go back to the car if I forget to bring in my own, or limit the number of items I buy to what I can carry. We have plenty of bags in the kitchen closet to help clean up after Bosco, and pretty much everything else I could need one for should be covered by a re-usable bag. My hope is that this will create a habit and this effort will become second nature to me.

Working on a case last year about Wal-Mart's efforts to Green its business practices, I discovered some astounding facts about global uses for shopping bags. For example, in Singapore, more than one million plastic bags change hands every day. Almost a quarter of the trash collected is made up of plastic wrappers and bags! While most gets incinerated, too much of it ends up in marinas and rivers, choking wildlife and polluting the water.

In efforts to inspire myself, and potentially others, I will also commit to posting additional research along with my progress once a week through this experiment. Here we go!