Plastic Free « (y)our food choices™

Its been a little over a week since we started our low-impact diet. To remind people of what this diet consists of, it’s a lifestyle change to go plastic-free. The concern for the ocean, ground water, and our health has started us on this change. To keep me motivated I’ve been reading No-Impact Man, and thinking about what impact I’m leaving on the planet. I can honestly say that I have not used any new plastic wrap or baggies in the week since starting. And aside from the minor set back, Steve as well has stopped his use. I sort of feel like I’m in AA. If only there was such a place for plastic addicts. Maybe a support group needs to be started. “Hi, my name is Jason and I’m addicted to plastic.”

I have to say that giving up plastic wrap hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be. When we make our bread we have replaced plastic wrap with a damp kitchen towel to cover the dough as it proofs. A left over half an onion or lemon now goes into a Tupperware container, or glass jar. Steve’s sandwiches are going into containers now too, instead of tossing them into plastic baggies. It’s really amazing what other items you can find to store food in when you make a conscious effort to not use plastic.

Our goal is that by the end of the year we will no longer have a trash can in our apartment. I know most of you are thinking, that’s not possible? Where will you throw away your trash? First, we plan on reusing containers. Glass jars are great for storing items, and for buying things in bulk. Second, composting is such an easy thing to do. Even things like tissue paper used to blow ones nose can be composted. Third, recycle. As a last resort if we can’t compost or reuse something we will recycle it. And the things that can’t be reused, composted, or recycled we will need to eliminate from our lives. I think it’s the least we can do for living in such a wonderful place like America.

Remember the public service announcement from the 1970’s with the Native American looking over the trash dump with tears running down his face. The caption was something like, “People start pollution, people can stop it.” Well, I don’t want to pollute America any longer. Look, plastic is a petroleum by-product, which essentially is just waste from petroleum refinement for fuels. (I won’t even go there about petroleum.) So, if plastic is just waste to begin with, and the only place it ends up is in our water supply and landfill, aren’t we all just wasting America every time we use it?

I’ll get off my soapbox for now and return to the topic of our blog in the next entry, good sustainable food. Occasionally we will keep you updated about our progress and let you know of clever ways we’re going without plastic. Like in the next few days I plan to write about our attempt at making home-made kefir and yogurt. This is in an effort to stop buying the yogurt and kefir in plastic containers. In the meantime, if you’re keeping up on our blog and trying to reduce your impact, think twice about using plastic wrap or plastic baggies. There are better alternatives out there that won’t trash our world.

Cheers,
Jason

It's What We're Reading Now

No Impact Man

I picked up No Impact Man, by Colin Beavan, at the library on Sunday, the day we posted a piece on our blog about our Plastic-Free Dream. [Digression: I just need to say that the library is an amazing place. For years Steve and I have gone to bookstores and purchased books just because we “had to have them.” Now we walk just two blocks to the local branch of the San Francisco Public Library where we can borrow as many books as we want at anytime, and if we don’t read them we don’t feel guilty for spending the money. Check out your local library before purchasing your next book.] While we don’t plan on going on an impact-free diet, we’ll still use electricity and toilet paper, I’m sure it’s going to give us helpful information on reducing regular plastic use.

The next part of this post is going to be a little critical of Steve–sorry Sweetie. On Sunday, Steve made the delicious frittata with stinging nettle. (If you didn’t read the post let’s just say we were popular with the BDSM Googlers for a minute.) There was enough left over for Steve to take for lunch today and for my lunch as well. To my surprise, I opened the fridge and pulled it out it for lunch and I discovered that it was wrapped in parchment … AND plastic. Was the plastic wrap really necessary? Couldn’t it have been stored in a Tupperware container instead? I also noticed that the blanching broth from the stinging nettle was also covered in plastic. We do have mason jars with lids that Steve could have used instead, eliminating the need for the plastic wrap cover. So, unfortunately, on the first day of our plastic-free life, Steve used plastic wrap twice when it wasn’t necessary at all.

Plastic FAIL

I know to many I’m sounding like a nag, which I probably am, but if we are truly going to stand by our pact to reduce our use of plastic we both need to take that first step together. Sweetie, I am sorry for the public humiliation, but the next time you reach for the plastic wrap I hope you’ll remember this blog entry and that it makes you think twice about wrapping anything in plastic.

With Love, Jason

Explanation for the title revision “Busted!”: Writing a blog with your husband can be challenging at times. In our case, Steve’s grammar is impeccable and I like to have him review and edit my posts before I publish them. Sometimes he gets a bit carried away changing the style and tone of them, and publishing them before I have a chance to review. For yesterday’s blog, Steve titled it “Busted!” and posted it before I had a chance to agree to it. In my opinion it set the tone of the blog to be very accusatorial and finger-pointing at Steve, which was not my intention at all. I may be anally retentive when it comes to certain things, but in this case I just wanted to set our Plastic-free dream off on the right foot. I’ve changed the title to reflect my true intension, “Hard Habit to Break” and hope that with that change my true tone is reflected in the blog post. Of course, now that I have spent the last paragraph explaining all this it makes me sound like a true prick, but I’ll let you be the judge of it.