Small observation today:
Today we stopped by one of our favorite veggie stores, and we noticed at the till that they were taking green beans from a cardboard box and putting them into plastic bags for 'convenient' sale. What would be so bad about selling them loose, like they do for bean sprouts? They lost at least one sale for doing that (I would have gone for some green beans). Hopefully in the future, more people will stand up and say 'no thank you' to items packaged wastefully, and then vendors will start to think twice before suffocating everything in plastic doom.
-Sheri
Monday, March 14, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Bring it Back
Recently we've made a few plastic purchases in error, and some of them we've avoided putting into our box of shame (which is actually itself a plastic bag from that bridal fair) by bringing them back to the merchants we bought them from. For instance, my Valentine's Day rose from Miles came with a little water-holder-on-the-stem thingy, so we took that back to the florist because there's no reason it cannot be reused. We also bought a jar of mustard that had a plastic seal around the lid. The seal was practically invisible and most of the other jars of the same product did not have the seal. We returned that to the grocery store and exchanged it for one of its plastic-free brothers.
This isn't much different from a scenario at restaurants where a waitress may bring us something plasticky without thinking, such as crackers for our soup or candies with the bill. We will remind her in a friendly way about the plastic plan and they are always good sports about taking them away from us and reusing them for other restaurant patrons. Of course, this doesn't always work - if there's a straw, we have to take it. If there are dip cups or sandwich toothpicks with decorative foof on the ends, they can't be taken back because the restaurants will not reuse them.
We recently made a big slip-up in a restaurant and walked away with two foofed toothpicks and two straws, which we didn't even notice until partway through the meal, so engrossed were we in our conversation. It was weird to discover ourselves mindlessly sipping water with straws like that. We did manage to send the cracker packs back, though, and the candies that came with the bill. On the other hand, we went back to a restaurant that had previously accosted us with plastic and had a delightfully plastic-free meal - we had to be pretty diligent but we managed. Hopefully one day, our awareness will spread to the populace in general, and we won't need to be as hyper-diligent because our society's habits will have changed.
-Sheri
This isn't much different from a scenario at restaurants where a waitress may bring us something plasticky without thinking, such as crackers for our soup or candies with the bill. We will remind her in a friendly way about the plastic plan and they are always good sports about taking them away from us and reusing them for other restaurant patrons. Of course, this doesn't always work - if there's a straw, we have to take it. If there are dip cups or sandwich toothpicks with decorative foof on the ends, they can't be taken back because the restaurants will not reuse them.
We recently made a big slip-up in a restaurant and walked away with two foofed toothpicks and two straws, which we didn't even notice until partway through the meal, so engrossed were we in our conversation. It was weird to discover ourselves mindlessly sipping water with straws like that. We did manage to send the cracker packs back, though, and the candies that came with the bill. On the other hand, we went back to a restaurant that had previously accosted us with plastic and had a delightfully plastic-free meal - we had to be pretty diligent but we managed. Hopefully one day, our awareness will spread to the populace in general, and we won't need to be as hyper-diligent because our society's habits will have changed.
-Sheri
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Been a while...
It's been a while since we last posted on here. It's not that we're losing interest in the project - o contraire mon frere - it's just that it's going so smoothly. Really this isn't as hard as I expected. We buy some items at different places than we used to, we do without a couple things that we like but overall it's not a big deal to do without plastic.
We do have some challenges on the horizon though. We're moving to Fort Saint John in a couple of weeks and not only will we need to find plastic free options in our new location but we will have fewer options in this smaller and more convenience oriented community. We're going to be pretty busy but we'll try to keep the posts coming.
-Miles
We do have some challenges on the horizon though. We're moving to Fort Saint John in a couple of weeks and not only will we need to find plastic free options in our new location but we will have fewer options in this smaller and more convenience oriented community. We're going to be pretty busy but we'll try to keep the posts coming.
-Miles
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Valentine's Day
Due to conflicting schedules, I didn't get to see much of Sheri on Valentine's day. I spent my day busing around town running errands and buying groceries. I haven't been on a bus in a while and I really enjoyed it. Busing is better than driving for the following reasons:
The downside of buses is that you need to carry everything you have with you. This can be tricky for multi-stop shopping. Fortunately none of the shops minded me walking past the til with already full bags. Unfortunately light bags get heavy the longer you carry them. Good exercise though.
My last stop was at Awesome Blossom to pick up a rose for Sheri. I was getting pretty tired and didn't even realize that the flower was wrapped in plastic and had a little plastic test tube looking thing on the stem. I felt dirty all the way home.
Sheri arrived home shortly after me and we had just enough time to walk over to Tumbleweeds pub and have a romantic Valentines Lupper (Sunch?). As usual we warned our server that we didn't want any plastic and that if we got any we'd need to put it in our box of shame. While she didn't give us any straws, she gave Sheri 2 disposable plastic dippy bowls made out of... plastic!
OK, I need to update our box of shame.
On the plus side, a teller at The Great Canadian Super Store was commending us on our use of mushroom bags for our bulk good when I mentioned our project and was given a high five. I estimate we get about nine enthusiastic reaction for every slightly weirded out reaction from people we tell about this project. Folks seem to like the idea, hopefully more people join in and we can start to make some market pull towards a more sustainable future.
-Miles
- You don't need to worry about somebody hit-and-running your bus while it's parked
- You don't need to worry about your bus getting stolen or broken into
- You don't need to worry about getting in an accident (at least not the liability and insurance woes)
- You can read or do other stuff while traveling
- You can people watch and eavesdrop
The downside of buses is that you need to carry everything you have with you. This can be tricky for multi-stop shopping. Fortunately none of the shops minded me walking past the til with already full bags. Unfortunately light bags get heavy the longer you carry them. Good exercise though.
My last stop was at Awesome Blossom to pick up a rose for Sheri. I was getting pretty tired and didn't even realize that the flower was wrapped in plastic and had a little plastic test tube looking thing on the stem. I felt dirty all the way home.
Sheri arrived home shortly after me and we had just enough time to walk over to Tumbleweeds pub and have a romantic Valentines Lupper (Sunch?). As usual we warned our server that we didn't want any plastic and that if we got any we'd need to put it in our box of shame. While she didn't give us any straws, she gave Sheri 2 disposable plastic dippy bowls made out of... plastic!
OK, I need to update our box of shame.
On the plus side, a teller at The Great Canadian Super Store was commending us on our use of mushroom bags for our bulk good when I mentioned our project and was given a high five. I estimate we get about nine enthusiastic reaction for every slightly weirded out reaction from people we tell about this project. Folks seem to like the idea, hopefully more people join in and we can start to make some market pull towards a more sustainable future.
-Miles
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Take it back!
Today we went out for supper to Kelly O's. As usual we got our drinks without straws and our dipping sauce in a ceramic bowl instead of a throw-away plastic cup. Also par for the course, I managed to order more than I could eat in a sitting and therefore had leftovers. After running out to the car and finding we had not, in fact, packed reusable containers, we asked the waitress if they had a little tinfoil we could wrap my leftover baked potato in. They did, which worked out for us. I would rather not have used tinfoil because it's the same level of disposable one-use behaviour we are trying to avoid with this project, but at least metal is more easily reused than plastic is.
When we returned to the car after supper, we found a lovely glossy-paper (plasticized) ad slipped neatly under my wiper-blade. Reading it, we discovered that the generous garbage donor was a business just down the street from where we parked, so we brought it back to them. This caught them off guard and the young folk working there seemed a little weirded out, but at least now they know that not everyone wants their garbage. We explained to them why we don't want it, and they put it in their stack to go out in the next ad-littering spree, but at least they're now a little more aware. Even if it weren't plasticized, it would still be quite a nuisance. I really wish our society would pull its collective head out of its rump and stop being so selfishly wasteful and quit with the junk ads all the time. It's super inefficient and annoying as well.
-Sheri
When we returned to the car after supper, we found a lovely glossy-paper (plasticized) ad slipped neatly under my wiper-blade. Reading it, we discovered that the generous garbage donor was a business just down the street from where we parked, so we brought it back to them. This caught them off guard and the young folk working there seemed a little weirded out, but at least now they know that not everyone wants their garbage. We explained to them why we don't want it, and they put it in their stack to go out in the next ad-littering spree, but at least they're now a little more aware. Even if it weren't plasticized, it would still be quite a nuisance. I really wish our society would pull its collective head out of its rump and stop being so selfishly wasteful and quit with the junk ads all the time. It's super inefficient and annoying as well.
-Sheri
Monday, February 7, 2011
Restaurants
Restaurants. These places are a minefield for plastic. Waitresses are always trying to give you plastic. Want a drink of refreshing water? Why not suck it through a tube of molded toxic plant fossils? Want a sammich? How about we decorate that for you with some garbage. Time for your bill? We'll give you some candies - each individually wrapped in a carcinogenic package laden with gender bending chemicals that will happily gum up the eco-system for the next 500-1000 years so that you can rest assured that your treat is sterile.
Since all these things are given so routinely even a waitress who is aware of our project will sometimes give us something without even realizing it. Because of food-safety issues, once it's placed on our table it's consumed. We need to get our waitress (we haven't had a single waiter since the project started) watching out for us and then be sure to make sure none of our orders come with consumable plastic. It's really easy for a waitress to forget about the container the dipping sauce comes in or something like that. So far everyone has been really good.
We picked up a straw for our Box o' Shame at Milestone's the other day due to some excessively good service - our waitress brought us water before we had hardly sat down never mind had a chance to warn her. Other than that and a trip to Harold's where our own lack of vigilance was to blame we've done pretty well. Sometimes our friends even join in in eschewing unnecessary waste. This makes me feel a bit less like an weirdo and a little more hopeful that our 'no plastic' culture could become mainstream.
-Miles
Since all these things are given so routinely even a waitress who is aware of our project will sometimes give us something without even realizing it. Because of food-safety issues, once it's placed on our table it's consumed. We need to get our waitress (we haven't had a single waiter since the project started) watching out for us and then be sure to make sure none of our orders come with consumable plastic. It's really easy for a waitress to forget about the container the dipping sauce comes in or something like that. So far everyone has been really good.
We picked up a straw for our Box o' Shame at Milestone's the other day due to some excessively good service - our waitress brought us water before we had hardly sat down never mind had a chance to warn her. Other than that and a trip to Harold's where our own lack of vigilance was to blame we've done pretty well. Sometimes our friends even join in in eschewing unnecessary waste. This makes me feel a bit less like an weirdo and a little more hopeful that our 'no plastic' culture could become mainstream.
-Miles
Monday, January 31, 2011
Bridal Fair
Yesterday we went to a bridal fair (Sheri and I are getting hitched :) ). We got ambushed with plastic. We didn't even see it coming. We registered online ahead of time and when we got there we discovered that by doing so we had invited them to fill a plastic bag with plastic trinkets plastered with the names and contact info of various businesses that service the wedding industry. It's sort of like if somebody gave us (with the best of intentions) a bag of dead kittens that they'd just prepared especially for me. I can't get mad - they don't know any better, but I'm very disappointed and giving it back won't undo the damage.
The vast majority of our plastic consumption for the year is the result of that fair. We need a bigger box of shame.
Also, we can't find cat food without plastic so we had to buy that.
Other than that - our mission is going very well and hasn't been too difficult.
-Miles
The vast majority of our plastic consumption for the year is the result of that fair. We need a bigger box of shame.
Also, we can't find cat food without plastic so we had to buy that.
Other than that - our mission is going very well and hasn't been too difficult.
-Miles
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