TRASH

Today our challenge is to elimate our trash. I have been trying to lessen my trash since the beginning of the year and I don’t find it easy.  Food packaging especially seems to be my nemisis.  I just don’t have time to make everything from scratch.  In the book I was impressed and a little bit annoyed by how easy he made this seem. I attribute it to the access he had in New York to different shops and farmer’s markets.

The family did pretty good today with our trash except for candy wrappers!  We’re still munching on the Halloween candy.

Saturday I spent the morning (and half the afternoon) with my crafty chicas. I sewed up these veggie bags to use at the grocery instead of plastic bags. I will also use them at the bulk bins.  They are made from a sheer curtain I got at a second hand store. This way they are nice and light and see-through. We are allowed to buy food this week but we will probably just use what we have. (I do have to put a deposit this week on a local turkey for Thanksgiving.) But the new bags probably won’t be used until next week. They are quite pretty, I could use them as gift bags too.

I still haven’t made bagels but I did a loaf of bread in the bread machine today for sandwiches this week.  Tomorrow’s challenge is transportation. This will probably be our hardest challenge. I had a No-Drive day today but tomorrow I have to go to work. We’ll see what we can do.

No Impact Shan

Starting today our family is going to participate in a week of the No Impact project. It is a one week carbon cleanse.  http://noimpactproject.org/experiment/

Tom and I both just read the book No-Impact Man by Colin Beavan about a man, his wife and daughter trying for a  whole year to make as little impact on the earth as possible. There is also a documentary but we haven’t seen it. I think a week will be pretty easy but we shall see. We’re going to do it for a week and then maybe do it for a month later on.  It is a seven step program so each day you add another challenge.  It takes some of the green ideas and takes it to the extreme to really challenge you to see what changes you can make in your life.  Not everything is going to work for the long run but some will and this will help us see where we can change.  Over the last year are family has already made alot of changes.  That’s why I think just one week will not be too hard for us.

Today our challenge was Consumption.  We were not suppose to buy anything new for the week.  I think this is easy because we can easily put off purchases for a week. We have done no-buying months  before and I have learned that alot of times you can do without what you really think you need. I have put things down on a list to buy after the ban was over and by the end of the month I don’t need it anymore. This is a valuable lesson. How much do we really need?

For the project we were suppose to make a list of things we needed to buy for the week.  Then delete items that we could do without and with the remaining items see if we could buy it used, make it ourselves or barter for it. We didn’t have a list because we are pretty stocked up felt that we could make it a week without anything new, but I am sure things will come up. They always do.

For instance, we went to church this morning and they were selling fair trade coffee and tea. Tom and I have started buying loose leaf tea to cut down on packaging but we don’t have a container to store it in.  I thought about buying some tea because we could reuse the tin but then remembered we weren’t buying. I still may buy a tin at some point.  After church our daughter wanted to go get some bagels at the local shop. I told her since we aren’t consuming we would have to go home and make bagels. We actually didn’t because we were tired from a big Halloween night but I may try to make some this week. I’ve never made bagels before.

Did we accomplish anything?

Did our family accomplish anything by not buying anything for Lent? Yes, I think so. The most important thing is influencing our child. Most 7 year olds don’t consider what their consuming does to the earth but Aspen is very aware. We teach her but she teaches us to.  She loves to think of new ways to use something rather than throwing it out. Sometimes this drives me crazy because I want to get rid of the clutter.  She is very happy getting used toys, clothing, etc. and is aware that this is a great way to recycle.  Probably when she’s a teenager she will be totally rebelling against us but now and I think again as a young adult these things matter to her.

Do these small efforts make any difference.  There was a great debate on treehugger.com as to whether Earth Hour made any difference at all considering backup generators kicking in when the electricity was turned off and the air pollution of millions of candles being lit. I think small efforts do matter to get people to think about their actions. Aspen wanted to “practice” for Earth Hour all week and I think that makes a difference.  She calls it “playing Laura” as in Laura Ingels from Little House on the Prairie.  The other night she turned off all the lights because we were watching a movie. I said “It’s just like Earth Hour” and she said “No, Mama the TV is using electricity.

As our “Not Buying it” project comes to an end I have in mind some things I want to go out and buy – new sneakers for Aspen, a nose hair trimmer for Tom, a cute convertible skirt/dress for me, some gin for gin and tonics. But some things that I would have gone out and bought have come and gone. For instance – I wanted to buy some clothes pins but was waiting til we were buying again, in the meantime I have found some things around the house that work just as well. You may think that a few clothes pins don’t make a huge difference in the world, but think of the packaging, the shipping and other treasures I would have found when I went shopping, it does add up.  If more people “made do” with what they have then we all would save the Earth one clothes pin at a time.

One should be able to see that things are ultimately hopeless, and yet be determined to make them otherwise.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

Having a hard time not buying it…

This wasn’t a good time of year for us to decide not to buy anything –

-It’s Spring Break

– We’ve had a lot of visitors

-It’s My Birthday

-It’s Everyone and my sister’s Bday!

Last year we did it for Feb. (the shortest month) and that seemed to be a lot easier. I read a book “Not Buying It: My year without Shopping” by Judith Levine. She got a lot of criticism for her exceptions. But I think she did awesome considering she did a whole year and I am struggling with one month. This week my difficulty was my 7 year old daughter claiming that “Not Buying” was my rules not hers. So she scraped her money together and bought books at the Book Fair at school.

We have more company coming this weekend so we’ll see how we do with them. We are doing pretty good not buying “stuff” it’s just the other rules we inflicted upon ourselves that we are struggling against. Like no going out to dinner or paying for entertainment or buying alcohol.

Times are tough, and I’ve got too much stuff. -Jimmy Buffett “One Particular Harbor”

Still Not Buying it..

We haven’t been doing that great. We aren’t buying any unecessary consumables but we have been going out to dinner and going to events.  My family was visiting earlier this week so it was hard to say that we couldn’t go out to dinner. We tried to offer making dinner at our house, but it was my sister’s B-day so we went to dinner and then breakfast the next day. Last night we went to a baby shower at work. I knitted baby hats for presents but then I ended up buying mixings for margaritas for the party because it was Friday and everyone had a rough week. Oh well, We’ll do better this week.

Not Buying it…

For Lent this year which started last Tuesday, Our familiy decided to give up shopping.

Here are our rules:
-No buying stuff
-For groceries, no buying processed food except bread, and tortillas. So basically just buy ingredients and do our own cooking.
-No going out to dinner
-No buying wine or beer
-The hard thing is we have some plans already in place where we are buying tickets. Since it’s not “stuff” we are going to make exceptions to our prior plans. Which includes skiing this Monday with my family.

When I used to give up something for Lent – The idea was that every time I had difficulty with my promise I would think about Jesus and his sacrafice. At this point in my life I’m not doing this for religious reasons so I figure everytime I’m tempted or need to adjust my plans or thinking then I will think about the earth and the sacrafices needed to balance the give and take in our environment. Right now I think the taking is outweighing the giving.