For a person with such small feet, my carbon footprint is probably bigger than it should be.
I drive 40 miles round trip to work every day. I drink an awful lot of bottled water. We use paper plates at home and have for years. Every day I get a Starbucks coffee in a plastic cup. I use those evil plastic grocery sacks. I don’t recycle because I live in the county, and recycling costs extra. And I really can’t afford to pay extra for anything right now, which is why I haven’t yet invested in a Sigg water bottle. Or cloth grocery bags. Or that super-cute new Starbucks cup that looks like their plastic disposable cup but is actually a reusable insulated cup and costs $12.95.
I have a friend with six children who is adamant about using cloth grocery bags. She says that with a family of her size, she would easily use 60 or more plastic bags a week. And another friend of mine even uses cloth feminine products. Which you know what - I don’t even want to know. But that’s some pretty dedicated environmentalism there.
What are you doing to reduce your carbon footprint?
Responses to “Not that easy being green.”
June 9th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
see…that’s a very good question, Debra. I wanted to know that myself. Is it necessary to buy generic bags, in order to use them at various locations? What exactly is the protocol for canvas bags?
June 9th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Well, I guess you’re in the county so this doesn’t apply to you, but there’s not much excuse for someone from Memphis to drink bottled water. Memphis water is so good that our tap water can be purchased in bottles in other cities. If you’re worried about your water, buy a filter, and get a reusable bottle.
Kalisa, your neighbor is right about the plastic bags. Those little t-shirt bags are horrifying to the ecology. One thing that’s funny about them is that although Kroger’s has a “bag recycling” place where you can turn them in, it’s a lie because no recycling center in America handles these bags. The thin plastic is impossible to wash and recycle. If one of these bags gets airborne, they can travel hundreds of miles. There are places off the coastline of big cities which are nothing but miles of bags stuck to stuff.
Other stores don’t care if you use bags from elsewhere. I like the bags from Wild Oats/Whole foods. They cost one dollar, they are pretty, they stay clean and are durable, and just four of them will hold an entire overflowing cart full of groceries. I fold up three bags and put them in the fourth and then fold that over and put them in my cart while I shop.
The only problem is at Kroger which CLAIMS to want people to use reusable bags, but makes it impossible to actually use them because of their automated checkout which won’t let you check out if you put your bag on the bagging area. The Kroger’s near my house (Quince and Kirby) doesn’t keep any lanes open but the automated checkout after 9, so it’s not possible to use reusable bags after 9 pm. Shame on them. There’s a trick to it, though, put your bags down before you start, and when it complains that there’s something foreign on the checkout, remove THEIR plastic bags and set them on the floor.
June 9th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Everyone can do SOMETHING, like quite using paper plates! If you live in the “country” you still have good “Memphis” water and don’t need bottled water. If you need to carry water, use the same plastic bottle. You can wash it when you deem necessary. Also, if you live where there is no recycling how about as you drive 40 miles round trip to work you stop at one of sevearal of the recycling stations and drop it off. I live in the city limits and have no recycling. I simply collect and distribute at a center weekly. Off hand locations at: Mud Island, Cooper Young and the parking lot of the Ag Center. The list of things we can all do to reduce is limitless. There are many websites that will give you guidance and the “green wave” of information is everywhere, it’s no secret what needs to be done. Overall it’s common sense and you know what you can do and have to make the choice to to make the effort and be accountable for your “carbon footprint”. Only you can decide how large or small the impact.
June 9th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
PS
Kroger, Schnucks, and even WalMart recycle plastic grocery bags for you! just drop them off in the receptacle inside the front of the store.
June 10th, 2008 at 11:10 am
maybe this will help get you off of plastics and into recycling.
[irl]http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html[/irl]
there are two giant patches of trash in the Pacific Ocean with about 100 million tons of garbage, mainly plastics, floating around in an area about twice the size of the continental United States. it made me start taking all of my plastics that I used at work home to put in the recycling bin.
June 10th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Barbara, as I said, many places say they recycle plastic grocery bags, but if you do some research this is a front to make people feel better about using them. There are no recycling plants recycling this kind of bag. They collect them, then take them to the trash.
It’s better to use reusable bags. Not to mention when I sack my own groceries I can put them up in a quarter the time because I put all the cold stuff in together, etc.
June 11th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Allie,
That is most disturbing news, and it seems that outright lying would be considered misrepresentation at the least! I will do a little chatting with the store manager next time I am at Kroger or Schnucks. The representative at Memphis Recycling instructed me to put the bags in a plastic container that was recyclable with a top/lid and that the bags would be recycled.
I agree about the cloth bags and use my trusty TRADER JOE canvas sack but often need more so have used the plastic bags with the understanding that I was recycling them. I wanted others to know that they could recycle the plastic ones too, as there are trillions on the planet currently.
June 12th, 2008 at 9:08 am
The Sierra Club web site says that they do indeed recycle those plastic bags to make the lumber-like boards used to make decks. Other concerns (the majority of plastic bags aren’t recycled, the ‘lumber-like boards’ aren’t in fact recyclable, etc.) make using canvas bags preferable though.
Resource: http://tinyurl.com/5nbywc
June 13th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Kalisa, I did some looking around, and you’re right. My confusion was based on a semantic issue. What I was remembering was this, from a Salon article:
The hopeful arrow symbol emblazoned on the bags no doubt inspires lots of residents to toss their used ones into the blue recycling bin, feeling good that they’ve done the right thing. But that symbol on all kinds of plastic items by no means guarantees they can be recycled curbside. (The plastic bags collected at the recycling plant are trucked to the regular dump.)
The article goes on to mention the company from the Sierra site, but says that Trex doesn’t count as recycling because it ends in a non-recyclable product. Apparently the appropriate term is “downcycling.”
June 9th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
My contributions are pretty small in the grand scheme of things but I guess every little bit helps, right?
I drink out of a reuseable water bottle (not Sigg…mine was a freebie from FedEx). I do use the reuseable bags from Schnucks. Which leads to my question: can you use Schnucks bags at Target? What about at Kroger? I do recycle paper and cardboard, even though my apartment community doesn’t, which is a pain.