I'm heartily indignant right now. Indignant at conversations had long ago and with people I don't even know, but if they were here and now, I'd give them a tongue lashing, oh yes.
6 years ago I commited, via New Years Resolution, to start using canvas/reuseable bags when I shopped. This was waaay before the greening/eco movement had made it so that everywhere, including my local latin market, has their own, logo stamped, re-useable bags for sale. I got weird looks. I had bagboys tell me, perplexed at my repeated requests to NOT wrap my groceries in plastic before putting them in my canvas bags, explain to me as though I were stupid, that the plastic bags are free. "Not for the Earth", was my usual retort. We went from having a surplus of plastic bags in the house, bags of bags in the garage, bags of bags in the kitchen, under the sink...everywhere there was space because this was before you could recycle them, and I wouldn't throw them away...to having one plastic bag holder packed to the brim with bags. But where did these bags come from, if I've been so good at taking canvas? Well, sometimes, ladies and gentlemen, I forget, ok? I'm not perfect. I end up at the store and realize my bags are at home. Oh well. Also, and this is the part that's got me somewhat indignant- I save ALL plastic bags. The ones that carry my pita bread, the ones that carry the bread, the ones that carry the ones that carry my bread. Despite my best intentions to eliminate plastic bags, they're everywhere. And you know something? It's ok.
Sometimes you just need a freaking plastic bag, ok? As the conversations fueling the indignation reminded me, the justification for why we're packing our groceries in multiple bags to carry the 50 feet to the car, then another 50 feet to the house....or even to walk home with (triple bag it then) is that sometimes you need a plastic bag. We uuuuuse them. Ok. I get it. I use them too. But I cannot believe that anyone who goes full gangbusters at the store on the "free" bags actually uses all of them. And I'm aggravated today because I just had to pack up a BAG OF BAGS because I had too many than fit into my little happy chef's butt (this is my grocery bag storage. And I don't even want them. As I bundled up a bag from the wheat bread I bought from Costco, and went to shove it in his butt, I marveled at the thought that these people who tell me they HAVE to get the bags, because they uuuuuuuse them, though I never say anything about their bag consumption...it's obviously their guilt upon seeing my canvas bags and the need to justify their consumptive behavior. How many of them throw away the bag their bread comes in? And this pisses me off.
Yesterday I sold my first eggs to strangers. I've sold to friends before, but never to strangers. I put an add on Craigslist, and boom! Business. I met the cute hippie couple next to the theater before rehearsal and sold them my eggs, then chatted with them for a little bit about chickens, compost, veggie gardens, and flax seed. You know, hippie talk. They were lovely and brought me cartons for my future eggs and gave me some flax pulp they had just received for their worms to try feeding to my chickens. All in all, a nice experience. On my ride home after rehearsal, I was chatting with a castmate and I said something to the effect of having not paid attention to something as it was "hippie talk" and he laughed and rebutted that it was ironic that me, raiser of chickens, would be berating that sort of thing. But I'm not a hippie. I do have hippie tendencies, but I mainly just have eco-OCD. And I like keeping chickens.
This notion that in order to care for our planet you need to be some kind of liberal, labeled hippie person is so very damaging. 18 years ago I took on the challenge of the purple rag, which is a challenge to define a noble life and then to live it. In my journal entry from the night I took on this challenge, I espouse very clearly the importance to me of living a life that is careful and respectful of the earth. This is 18 years ago, people. I'm not saying I started the green movement or anything, but I'm pretty damn impressed with 19 year old me. I also talked about not "preaching" about my life choices, but to just live the best life I can and to lead by example, not by words. But here I am blogging about it. Oh well, it's supposed to be a lifelong challenge.
Make a conscious effort to stop using plastic bags at the grocery store. I promise you, you will still end up with bags you can uuuuuse. Look to ways you can stop throwing so much away, and think of things you can do that won't even change your life much, but will help the planet. And if you need a tote bag, I know where you can get some.
5 comments:
Re-usable bags at the grocery store is one of those things I have been trying to form a habit about for at least a year... and I FAIL utterly and completely. It's pathetic. My mom's been using her own homemade canvas bags (patterned after a good old fashioned brown paper bag, with cotton webbing handles) for a half dozen years now, religiously, and gone through the whole "No, just use MY bags, please!" and even the "Put the drippy meat in the canvas bag that I can throw in the washing machine, not in the darn plastic reusable one, please....arg!" conversations.
For a long while I was using them to handle cat feces from house to garbage, but they'd still stay ahead of me most of the time. I've finally switched to compostable litter, so I feel ok flushing the feces now, and suddenly they were piling up like MAD. E has a reuse project in mind, theoretically, so he's been cheerily taking my bags of bags from me, but it's still a sticking point for me.
As someone who's been recycling since before I could walk, someone raised to be frugal/thrifty/stingy with materials from an economic standpoint, and who was interested in environmental issues before the green rage hit... my guilt rating is high when it comes to plastic bags. One of these days I'll figure out how to remember consistently to bring the darn reusables with me when I go shopping...
I simply must chime in!
Even though I am a full-fledged hippie in most senses of the word, I consume a lot of plastic bags! When I go to a store that gives me the option of using a plastic bag, I choose that over paper. I never bring my bags, unless I'm going somewhere like Trader Joe's, who only carries paper. Why?
Because I'm also a dog-poop-nazi! I will yell at people on the street, even when it's not my street, or even my neighborhood. Pick up your own dog's shit! And since I have a dog, and have only recently acquired a backyard...I have to walk her. And I have to pick up her shit. And since the plastic grocery bags are free (as opposed to $10 for a roll of 50 cute little blue ones at Petco)...well...I use them!
And guess what else? I never have enough! I run out of them all the time! I end up using the bread wrappers. The inner bag from cereal boxes. Junk mail. You name it. Whatever is around!
Does that make me an evil hippie? My self-consciousness usually causes me to tell someone without them asking "I use them for my dog", because I am stricken with guilt. But what's worse? Leaving the poo everywhere?
I will take any extra bags you have, whenever you want me to. :)
xoxo
I'll give you some bags, Andie. I even still love you. :P
I hear the same excuses about huge gas-guzzling SUVs. "But I NEEEEEEEEED it!" People are that way about everything.
I've greened in some ways. Given up the grocery bags, certainly. I still don't deal with the rest of the food bags as well as I could. I'd like to grow my own food, sure. And plenty of other stuff. But if someone tries to outgreen me in terms of what they do that I don't, I can just say, "Yeah? I don't have a car."
Your barter/sale with the hippy couple is really cool. I think more of life should work like that.
But hippy isn't a label first and a mindset second. You have the mindset. Just because you're far more than the label doesn't mean that's not you. It just means that people who throw the label around derisively are dinks.
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