Happy Imbolc, everyone! In the Celtic calendar, Imbolc (which was yesterday) brings the promise of spring and new beginnings. Today is the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Hare. We also honor our favorite groundhog today, although here in Boulder we know him as "Flatiron Freddy". In the spirit of everything fresh and new, I am infusing my blog with renewed energy. I will take up my musings about food and cooking, but I will do something a little different as well.
I have a plan for the month of February. Every day I will blog about the presence of plastic in my life. I was inspired by two sources. Recently I came across a post on my Facebook page that included a link to this article, A Worthy Social Experiment: Abstain from Plastic for a Month (thanks, Dani!). I've also been following Mrs. Q's blog about school lunches, Fed Up WIth Lunch, in which a schoolteacher ate school lunch every day in 2010 and blogged about the experience.
I'm pretty sure I don't have the fortitude to eat a school lunch every day for a year, but I think I can spend 28 days examining the role of plastic in my life. The article above spells out the three rules to follow:
1. No buying or acquiring new plastic.
2: No cooking with plastic or storing food in plastic.
3: Minimize all other plastic use.
Simple, right? Not really. Already, only the second day into this experiment, I have failed. Several times.
Take yesterday, the first day, for example. The weather was freezing, the canyon icy, and both my husband and I needed to run errands in town. So we went down together in our faithful 4-wheel drive. Spouse dropped me off at my first appointment and went to set up his new office.
A couple of hours later, we ate lunch at Suki Thai Noodle House. It's a great new restaurant in Boulder that labels all of its offerings according to whether they are gluten-free, vegan, or both. Since I've become gluten- and dairy-free in the last few months, this is a key factor when I decide where to eat.
We each ordered our noodle bowl "for here", knowing that they serve the food destined for dining on the premises in ceramic bowls. I also had a can of coconut juice, and my spouse had an iced Thai tea served in a compostable cup. True, the bowls and utensils came on orange plastic trays, but the trays are washed and re-used multiple times. Spoons are ceramic, and chopsticks are made of wood. So far so good.
Trouble showed its face when I grabbed a to-go container for the remainder of my soup. As I walked towards the table with cup and lid in hand, my husband started grinning. I asked him absentmindedly what was so funny, and he pointed out that the cup was made of plastic. I whirled around to see what other options presented themselves at the utility counter, and there were none. I couldn't very well pour the hot liquid in one of the paper boxes meant for rice and other solid foods. Nor could I leave three-quarters of my soup in its bowl on the table to be discarded.
So I swallowed hard and walked out of the restaurant carrying my soup in plastic.
We walked next door to Sprouts Farmers Market to buy rolled oats in bulk. We cook the food we feed our dogs, and usually have a 25-pound bag of rolled oats at the ready. Not today, so we planned to get enough for a couple of rounds from the bulk bin. I have my issues with Sprouts, starting with their name (they are not a farmers market in any sense of the word), but they do offer foods in bulk. However, only plastic bags are provided as containers. We went to the checkout counter and requested paper bags. They had small paper bags, about the size you would put a few candy bars in. We filled several of these with oats, and called it good.
Trouble struck again as I reached into the dairy case for my soymilk creamer. Even if I wanted to plead ignorance about the probable amount of plastic in the carton, I really couldn't ignore the plastic pour spout and screw top. More new plastic. Noooo!
I went into a mini-tailspin right there in front of the tofu-based cream cheese, the almond milk, and the coconut yogurt, all blissfully wearing plastic. Guess what? Being dairy-free practically guarantees that I will not be able to avoid plastic. I took a deep breath and borrowed a page from Scarlett O' Hara's playbook: I told myself "I'll think about that tomorrow." At least we walked out of the store with our purchases in the cloth shopping bags we had brought with us. But the irony of paying for our purchases with a plastic card did not escape me.
We went on to our next errands, and in mid-afternoon met again, this time to warm up with a lovely cup of Bhakti Chai, one of Boulder County's best offerings, at Folsom Street Coffee. Almond milk Bhakti Chai for me, regular milk Bhakti Chai for spouse, both to go. Oops! We forgot the mugs we usually bring, so the chai has to be served in paper cups with plastic lids. SIgh.
In the space of four hours, starting with lunch, we had managed to add more plastic to our household, even though we live in Boulder, where environmental awareness is higher than average.
I wonder how I will approach this problem at the end of my 28-day experiment?
