So Taylor and I saw this documentary (ok yes we watch documentaries...don't judge us) on plastic called "Bag It". Once you get past the tree huggers, dweebs who believe in global warming and left wing crazies it starts to make sense. Plastic doesn't really break down when we discard it. If you recycle it, it maybe has a few more reincarnations but at some point it's done. They even pointed out that the numbers on the bottom or the recycling symbols aren't even regulated and anyone can put one on their products. Our recycling plant here doesn't even recycle glass or paper like magazines...do I actually believe they recycle all my plastic? No way!
Why do I care?I have theories about all the infertility and illness (mental and physical) that we seem to have now that doesn't seem to be present (or perhaps diagnosed) years ago-even when I was growing up which I like to fool myself, wasn't that long ago. Perhaps it's our new love of fast and processed foods? The microwave? I don't know but what do these things have in common? .....Plastic
So what can we do about it. I started by just recognizing all the things that I buy that involve plastic. RX bottles, pudding, milk, juice, ice cream, bread, eggs, cookies, chips, popcorn, plastic bags on each of my produce including bananas that technically come in their own packaging, body wash, shampoo, laundry soap, bottle water, movies, dry cleaning, potting soil, all fast food, dishwasher detergent packets, the liners in my can goods, top ramen, rice, meat....I mean that I could go on forever!!!!!!!!!!
How do we stop?
I started by trying not to use baggies. I love love love baggies...big ones, small ones, ziplock etc... I figured I had enough tupperware to last me a life time since they don't really go bad unless you somehow melt them, so I started wrapping things in that instead. Soon we noticed that there was no reason we couldn't reuse the plastic containers our food came in also for these purposes.
I started looking on Pinetrest....don't get me going on my love of that! They showed those reusable grocery bags that I believed only people who live in California use. They would get big ones and put them in their cart before they started shopping and open them so they could use them while they shopped as well as after they were done. Brilliant! There are also fabric mesh bags to use on your produce!! The problem is that I keep forgetting to bring them! Old habits die hard. So use paper bags or just carry your crap out like you are at Costco!
More things I'm working on and will report on later are composting, gardening, getting chickens and goats, making things from scratch..... wish me luck!
Thoughts on Plastic
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