you would not believe...

this entry should be prefaced by saying that i do 99.99% of my grocery shopping either at "nicer" grocery stores and the farmer's market. i haven't been to safeway in a long, long time. 

but i did run to safeway this afternoon to grab 2 items--nutella & wonton wrappers (to make chocolate hazlenut ravioli--divine). anyway, i went to the quick checkout line (15 items or less). i don't know about you, but i'm a 15 items or less evaluator--yep, that's right, i'm totally counting your items, people. what else do i have to do while i wait? anyway, the woman ahead of me had 14 items. and when it came time to bag up her groceries, the cashier and the bagger gave her--

seven plastic bags. 

yep. they double-bagged 2 quarts of ice cream, and double-bagged a dozen eggs. the rest of the items were lightly divided into the remaining 3 bags. not a single one was full. 

i guess because i spend the bulk of my shopping time at places like whole foods and trader joe's (where many people bring their own bags, and the stores do not supply plastic) i'm out of the loop when it comes to this extreme wastefulness. i mean, i was floored. so much that i really wanted to say something, but all that i could manage to muster was an "i don't need a bag for my 2 items, thanks."

if any of you readers are still using plastic, now's the time to make the switch once & for all! do it for your loyal blogger, who's jaw is still on the floor!

how good does this look?

check out this trailer for tapped, an upcoming documentary that will "illustrate the impact of the global water crisis on america and what we can do as individuals to enact change sooner rather than later. tapped [will] examine the role of the bottled water industry and its effects on our health, climate change, pollution, and our reliance on oil."



watching this trailer made me think of 2 things:

first, i think i forgot to mention that we won't be serving bottled water at lucy's party. instead we'll keep pitchers of ice-water available near the other beverages.

second, my latest three-to-four-times-per-week-indulgence has been lime-flavored sparkling water from trader joes. i used to buy the brand in the blue glass bottle (forget the name at the moment), but trader joe's is now offering their own label of the stuff (in a plastic bottle) for .25 less. this trailer made me want to switch back to my old brand. like, immediately.

i've got mom on my side...

lucy and i went shopping with my mom today. i'm so proud of her. ever since i bought her a set of envirosax for mother's day, she's been refusing plastic bags wherever she goes... the grocery store, target, clothes shopping, etc. often times i'll have forgotten my own and am preparing to shlep my purchases out of the store in my arms. my mom is always at the ready, whipping a bag from out of her purse and offering it up to me. "you need one?"

it's great to see how one person making a positive change can inspire someone else to do the same. and it shows that even though our singular efforts might not seem like enough, they're still quite capable of having exponential impact. maybe my mom will inspire one of her friends to do as she's done. and the friend to a friend. and so on, and so on. like pondwater rippling outward, or whatever.

my mom said the other day she forgot to tell the cashier that she didn't need a bag, and when she looked down her stuff was already in the plastic. she told the cashier (politely of course) that she had her own bag. the cashier took the items out of the plastic bag and... threw the bag in the garbage. hmmm. not so effective. now, when that happens, my mom says "oh, i have my own bag. you can give this one to somebody else." ah, my mom. clever lady, right?

wanna know what happens to all that plastic?

have some spare time? click here for a super interesting article on craptastic plastic and how it's junking up our earth in a major way.

plastic cups blow. literally.

jer, lucy and i went to an outdoor barbecue this afternoon. lots of yummy food and drinks. as we were heading out the door on our way to the party, jer decided to bring along his sigg water bottle so that he wouldn't have to use a plastic cup for the beer keg. smart guy. it was windy at the park and those half-full cups were prone to blowing over. with his sigg, not a drop was lost.



we got our reusable water bottles about a month or so ago, and love them.



jer's sigg holds 32 ounces:



i have a 40 ounce klean kanteen:





lucy has a mini kean kanteen of her own, for when she starts on water and juice.


i personally prefer the klean kanteen because it has a wider mouth than the sigg... easier to clean, and you're able to toss a few ice cubes inside if needed. our aluminum canteens have replaced disposable plastic water bottles--we no longer buy them at all, despite the fact that they are recyclable. (by the way, 30 million water bottles hit american landfills every day). we also got rid of our reusable polycarbonate water bottles. with all the hype surrounding bisphenol-a (bpa) in plastics, i wanted to play it safe. plus, i found them awkward to drink from anyway.



a word of warning! since they're crafted from lightweight aluminum, these bottles do dent when they're dropped. for the perfectionists out there, neoprene canteen cozies are available (i guess they help insulate, too). personally i say a few dents add to the charm and go about my day. cheers!

crunch confession #4...

i am so done with plastic bags.

i hesitate to actually even call this a crunch confession. in my opinion, giving up plastic is something that everyone should be doing, every day. there is simply no reason to continue to clutter up the earth with nasty plastic bags.

the environmental protection agency estimates that yearly, 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide. we all know that these bags end up not only in landfills, but in trees, waterways, the bellies of animals and basically, just about everywhere in between. it costs more to recycle an old plastic bag than it does to produce a new one.... meaning most plastic bags are never recycled, no matter how well-intentioned its user may have been.

one billion bags. that's one million bags per minute. shocking, gross & saddening. if you'd like more reason on why to never use a plastic bag again, check out this link...

http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080506/MULTIMEDIA02/80505016

so what's a girl to do? well, i got those 99 cent bags at trader joes and whole foods. then i dug up a few canvas bags from my closet and the garage. then i found some vintage cloth bags at an antique fair. all of these bags were okay. got the job done. but my best purchase by far has been my envirosax.

taa daa. aren't they cute? 5 roomy bags that roll up into a small carrying pouch. the pouch fits easily into a glove box, tote bag, diaper bag, etc. a single bag is perfectly sized for a pocket.

these bags are strong and roomy. i can easily fit a weeks worth of groceries into 3-4 bags. the strap is great for shoulder carrying, too. but best of all, these bags are well-suited for shopping trips outside of the grocery store. i've taken mine to places like target, crate & barrel, gymboree, gap, fruit stands and antique fairs, just to name a few. i honestly try my very best not to leave home without them. on a recent shopping trip (to the grocery store, target, barnes & nobles and the mall) i estimated that i saved at least 10 bags from going to a landfill. just by using my envirosax.

if i happened upon an extra $30 (and needed more bags), here's the one i'd buy: http://media.wholefoodsmarket.com/pr/wf/national/4-29-08feed100bag.aspx

i need a new bag like i need a hole in the head, so i'm not getting it. but for $29.99, you get this organic cotton bag, which collapses into its zippered burlap base. (makes plastic look totally tacky...) as an added bonus, $10 of your purchase goes to provide meals for rwanda's schoolchildren.


i urge anyone reading this blog to do your part and stop accepting plastic bags. flat out. even if it means you have to carry stuff in your hands--which jer and i have have done on more than one occasion. once you get into the habit, it's not hard to remember to bring them along. any bag will do. but if you're interested in the envirosax, http://reusablebags.com/ is offering 20% off your purchase with code f70838.

crunch confession #01

i am reusing ziplocks.

i thought this was something only little ol' grannies did. i should preface by saying that over the last few months, jer and i have seriously cut down on the number of baggies we use. most everything goes into a container of some sort... glass or the last few plastic tupperware-type things that we still have around. but here and there, i find that some things do warrant the use of a ziplock. for convenience, of course. i'm sure we could go totally without. but i bought in bulk at costco about 6 months ago and we've still got some laying around... what can i say? tossing them would be silly, right? right.

so when we have, say, a huge loaf of fresh bread that comes in a paper sack, i put it in the ziplock labeled "bread." then, when the bread is gone, i rinse, dry, and put the baggie back into the drawer. next time we have bread, i pull out the same baggie. and really, bread is all we're using ziplocks for at the moment. i guess they'd come in handy for the big, costco-sized blocks of cheese, too.

what else will i be using these final ziplocks for? well, they're great for keeping stuff dry in the cooler when we go camping. i also use them to hold dry dog food on camping trips, but i've been planning to make a "feed bag" sometime soon. they come in handy on airplane flights, but we don't fly much... and you could certainly reuse a toiletries bag, since the worst that could happen would be for it to get a little soap spilled in it. when i pack lunches, i tend to put everything into tupperware storage... a little bulky, yes, but easy enough. i've also seen these reusable sandwich bags... http://tinyurl.com/4k3ht3 and reusable snack bags are easy enough to make even for a non-sewer like myself. i've already made lucy one (complete with paci pocket) and she's a long way off from needing any kind of snack that doesn't come from my boobie.

so the real question is this: with all the simple & eco-friendly alternatives out there, what the hell are we using all these ziplocks for, anyway?