Today, my roommate went out to lunch with her sister and my other roommate asked her to order lunch to go for her.  She comes home to give my roommate her meal and my roommate shows me the biggest waste of styrofoam ever:

A small plastic container for ranch is put into this styrofoam container? For what?! I don't think the ranch was going to magically come out of it's own container.   Things like this disturb me.  Not to mention, there is no styrofoam recycling around here that I know of, so great, another wasteful addition to the environment.

-Tara

Tough Up People

I'm watching T.V. this morning and a commercial comes on for this mouse trap.  Basically, the entire mouse trap is plastic where the mouse crawls in and gets caught or eats the poison or something and the commercial tells you to just throw it away! Once again, a pointless disposable plastic object. It disgusts me. 

DON'T BUY THIS! Use the old wooden traps and toughen up. 

Mind Lapse

Trying to cut things out of your life that you are so used too is about training your brain to think differently.  I am realizing that it is so hard to be conscious about plastic all of the time.  For instance, I meet with my NAEA advisor on Wednesdays at a coffee shop downtown.  I have to remind myself the night before and the morning of to bring my travel mug in order to not get the plastic/cardboard coffee cups they give you.  That is a lot of conscious effort!

Also, where I work out in my apartment complex, there is a large water dispenser that has plastic cups to put the water in.  Today, I took the cup and got water only because it was colder than the drinking fountain.  I wanted the convenience.  I didn't even realize that I was using plastic!

Then, today I used a styrofoam cup at a dinner I went to because they were the only cups I could use for water! What do I do in that type of situation?  Even someone commented on the fact that they were surprised I was using the cup.  I let myself down and did not help my cause...

Unsure

There are times when I feel like I don't know exactly how to recycle EVERYTHING that is plastic.  I pretty much throw everything that is plastic, even lean cuisine meal trays that I wash out, into my recycling bin.  Yet, I heard that sometimes those plastics don't even make it to the recycling center because they have been contaminated with food.  It's worth a try I guess.

The other day, someone smashed the back side of my driver's mirror on my car! The plastic shards were everywhere.  I was so angry about it at first that I did nothing about the remnants on the ground.  Finally, I went back outside to grab what I could.  I kept thinking to myself, what do I do with it? Do I recycle it? Can I recycle it? I couldn't just throw it away.  I guess we will see.

People Don't Always see Eye to Eye

Being in college, I have always had to live with roommates.  It can be much cheaper, and it's always nice to live with your friends and have the company.  It is a lot harder to find one bedroom apartments lower than $600 or so. 

With that, I find it really hard to try and live the way I want to live.  I want to be completely environmentally friendly, well as much as I can be.  But, not having people that live with you feel the same way, makes it really hard to do.  I just try the best that I can think of.  If I see biodegradable trash bags, I will buy those voluntarily.

One think that I insist on doing is having recycling bins in our apartment.  I tell my roommates that I want to set them out and that I will always take them to the bins on campus, as long as you put the stuff in there. 

This year, I actually bought bins to put out! 

Yay! :)

Forgetfullness...

I have two cloth bags that I like to take when I go to the grocery store.

I try to keep them in my car at all times, but you know, after you come home and unload all your groceries for some reason I don't want to just take the few steps out to my car to put them in there.  I end up putting them in my room somewhere.  In doing so, I forget WAY too many times to bring them with me when I go to the store.

I also don't think about bringing them to any other store but the grocery store.  Shouldn't I be bringing them in every single store with me? Such as when I go clothes shopping? or even just to Walgreens to pick up something? Yes, I think so!

So, yesterday, when I went to Walmart, it didn't hit me until mid-shopping that I had forgot to bring my cloth bags! I was so distraught, I ended up just buying another one to use haha.

I am going to try an make it a point to REMEMBER to always keep them in my car and use them.

It starts with changing your habits!

Fast food and plastic go hand-in-hand

Basic Fact:
Single Use plastics and Disposable plastics are the main source of plastic pollution
Consumption of single use and disposable plastics has spiraled out of control.  They are used for seconds, hours, or days, but their remains will last hundreds of years.
(plasticpollutioncoalition)


 This fact I think about ALL the time.  I work in fast food.  More specifically, I work at Taco Bell.  My new found awareness for our "plastic" world, makes me cringe whenever I am working.  Plastic bags are the number one necessity used in the store, besides food, of course.  I work on a drive-thru a lot and what is the number one thing we use? Plastic bags! Sometimes a customer might get three of them in one order! Not only do we use plastic bags though, we also give out plastic sporks and knives.  Even the sauce packets come in plastic packaging.   Not only are the sporks and knives plastic, but they come in plastic packaging as well! UGH the list is ENDLESS!   Not to mention plastic lids for the cups, in which every time I accidentally drop one and have to throw it away...a little part of me dies inside.   


It is tough because it is my job, and there is really not much I can do, unless I want to get fired.  I can't just be handing tacos out to people one by one, but the only thing that made me happy was the fact that the kids meal bags were changed to paper.  Someone had a great idea doing that. 


So, my thought was, why don't I right to Taco Bell? To give them a piece of my mind about this plastic overindulgence.  I go the to Taco Bell website and I can't say anything to the company unless it is food related from a specific Taco Bell store.  I can talk to a representative, but I know that would never get me anywhere.  So then I thought, well maybe I need to go higher up, to Yum Brands.  I encounter this http://www.yum.com/responsibility/environment.asp  Really? Your not being responsible with your plastic usage obviously.  But there is no contact information at all!! Interesting...

I'm going to keep looking and hopefully, I can find a contact to write to.

Peace and Love