another plastic-free canadian

I've been off the blogging for a while, and probably won't be regularly back on it any time soon. I do have a post brewing about getting back on the plastic-free habit, with photos for January's plastic tally, and I have been reading my fellow bloggers pages again for the last few weeks. I have, therefore, found another plastic-free Canadian! http://www.noplasticproject.ca/

plastic free personal hygiene

For my cousin Jill, with whom I had a delightful visit and catch up last weekend (I truly have the best family in the world, now if only I could swing seeing them more often than once every 18months...), a little post about plastic-free personal hygiene.

I suppose I haven't said much on this topic because it's largely already been done by other plastic-free bloggers. But for those of you out there who haven't yet discovered those blogs, and for those of you interested in what I am doing, personally (I'm not flattering myself, I know my family reads this! Thank you Jill!), here is a run down of what I've discovered.

The hard one first,

1. Oral care

Oral care is tricky. It's not that easy to get away from plastic toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes and floss. BUT it is possible, sort of. Tom's of Maine toothpaste comes in an aluminum (recyclable) tube and apparently they will take back their plastic lid for recycling when you are done. I've also heard of wooden handle toothbrushes, or toothbrushes with replaceable heads. Plastic Manners went with the bone and boar brush, Clean Bin tried out a few recycled plastic brushes,

It's apparently not difficult to make your own toothpaste, but I won't be trying that for a while.

Myself, I'm far too fond of my electric toothbrush and far too concerned about the weakness of my teeth (if I don't floss every single day I WILL get a cavity), so I haven't changed much yet. I bought the Tom's of Maine paste once and might do again sometime. But I also got freaked out about the lack of flouride and bought regular ol' Crest the next time. We'll see what happens when I run out of heads for the electric one, or when it dies. For now I'm sticking with.

2. Hair care

WAY easier than teeth, and this is something I've actually been doing! I was close to running out of shampoo several months ago so I preemptively started looking for alternatives. There are of course, shampoo bars (I bought one from Lush, but really you could use just about any bar of soap I assume), but what I've found I prefer is the baking soda wash, followed by occasional vinegar rinse. Fake Plastic Fish does it, so did Jen at Clean Bin Project, and so did Life Less Plastic, but with more mixed results. She outlines her difficulties with plastic-free hair care here.

In the end I think we all have different bodies, and different hair and what works for one may not work for all. Baking Soda is working for me, for now, although I do occasionally use a Lush shampoo bar as well. In fact, the baking soda is working better than the shampoo I went back to using to try to empty out the bottle. (I want to keep my vinegar rinse in the empty bottle. I'm using another empty shampoo bottle for the baking soda solution right now and it's super convenient). Shampoo made my hair heavy and kind of greasy-like. The baking soda leaves it perfect! I use a tablespoon of baking soda dissolves in water, which I pour from the empty shampoo bottle onto my head. It's strange cause it's just like pouring water on your head, but it works like a charm, at least for me!

3. Deodorant

I haven't run out of deodorant yet, and I haven't quite decided what it is I am going to do when I do, but I am inspired by those who have come before me....

Life Less Plastic and Fake Plastic Fish both use baking soda on their underarms and swear by it.

Jen at Clean Bin took it one step further and mixes her own deodorant into a paste which she then scoops into an empty deodorant container for easy application.

I have to admit, I like the idea of the homemade stuff in the old container. There's something reassuring about spreading the stuff on, I think.

Ok, there's more I'd like to write about, but I'm going to post what I have for now in case I put of doing the rest for a really long time (like what has happened with all the other posts I've been thinking about writing and NOT).

Face cleanser is next on the list, and something that I'd actually love some input on. I'm close to running out of what I've got, and I'm at a bit of a loss of what to do when that happens. Any ideas?

Epic sustainability

So some other things I wanted to report on from the month of May.

I went to the Epic sustainability conference when it was here. Had a surprisingly interesting time. Picked up some cards of green wedding dress makers for my affianced friend, checked out roofing options with my friend who's renovating. Had a big chat with the London Drugs representative about their packaging take back program. They recycle styrofoam! Which I thought was pretty exciting. Or rather, they'll take the styrofoam you get from whatever you buy at their store and bring it to Genesis recycling who squishes it down to ship off somewhere to be recycled. Ok, so sometimes the styrofoam ends up in China and that's definitely not a good thing. But let's focus on the fact that they TAKE BACK their styrofoam! Crazy, no? They'll also take back old appliances to recycle if you buy your new one at LD. Something to consider the next time you are appliance shopping, perhaps.

Now why can't all stores do that? Or why can't the legislature, parliament, whoever, legislate that stores are required to do that?

Of course, I'd rather see the styrofoam just not used. But I like the direction of the take back program. Pushing responsibility for garbage up the chain is a good step, I think.

What are your thoughts?

ups and downs of an evening

These are the kinds of ups and downs that one experiences when trying to live plastic free.

I went out salsa dancing the other night. There was a lesson at 9 and then music afterwards. I didn't know what to expect in how it was set up and I wanted to travel light, so I didn't bring a bag - no purse or anything, and therefore no water bottle. I knew this was probably a mistake, but I didn't want to have to worry about keeping track of a bag if I was going to end up in a club or something so I didn't bring it. Also I had hopes I would have options in terms of getting something to drink.

Well the place wasn't a club, it was a community hall. And drinks were served in plastic cups. Or plastic water bottles. Or beer in a glass bottle.

I squeezed up to the bar planning on asking if there was anything at all the bartender could do for me so that I didn't have to consume plastic, noticed there were glasses on the shelf, and so I asked if I could use one.

The guy was totally rude. Totally shot me down, refused to help, and basically just walked away from me when I said I didn't want to use a plastic cup with no interest in trying to help.

And I got really upset! I mean, it's always upsetting to be so dismissed, but he just WALKED away. Like, even if I had changed my mind and decided to use the plastic, or if I wanted to buy a bottle or something I wouldn't have been able to because he was ignoring me. How the hell was I supposed to get something to drink??

It sucked.

So I left. I was actually tempted to just flat out leave, but I started with stepping outside to get some air aka taking a walk to find something to drink that didn't involve plastic. Luckily there was a gas station across the street and SUPER luckily they sold iced tea in glass bottles and - get this - they didn't even have the plastic seal around the metal lid!! I HATE that plastic seal, it excludes so many things I would otherwise be able to buy.

That gas station and glass bottle totally made my night. I returned to the salsa in a much happier mood, and extremely pleased to have stuck to the no plastic rule.

Two extremes in mood produced by the no plastic challenge. From extreme upset to extremely pleased in the space of about 10 minutes. This is my life without plastic. :-)

roman hotel made of beach trash

I think this article is pretty neat.

It was garbage on beaches that first prompted me to take up the no plastic challenge. I wish I could visit this hotel in Rome!

general update

It's been a long time since I posted much about plastic, or about my experiences trying to live plastic free, so I thought I should say a quick something.

I'm still mostly sticking to the resolution, although I've slacked off a bit the last month or so and allowed myself to cheat on a few key items. A prime example is today, when I bought a new toothbrush, floss and toothpaste. Dental care is one of the toughest things to do plastic-free, and I've decided I need a toothbrush at work because my poor weak teeth need a post-lunch brush.

I've also bought a few tubs of yogurt. Making my own has proven less than satisfying. So while I still make it sometimes, I also sometimes buy the plastic. Which is terrible on so many levels. But not so terrible that I lose sleep over it.

So there are some items like that, but on the whole avoiding plastic is still a major part of my consumer choices. It really is remarkably easy most of the time. Reducing plastic consumption is so easy it seems strange to me now that everyone doesn't do it. Eliminating? Ok, that's proving trickier.

There are lots of other things I've been thinking about and wanting to post about, but I didn't write any of them down, and I can't think of them at the moment. Life has been hectic. I started a new job this week, among other things. This post was mostly meant to say: yes, I'm still here, and I'm still trying to be plastic free. And I will write more again one day!

Congratulations to Clean Bin!

Another quick shout-out to some fellow Vancouverites, this one to Grant and Jen of the Clean Bin Project. They have completed the documentary they did of their year long (turned life long, as it so often does) project, and I was lucky enough to attend one of the first public screenings this past Saturday.

And it was fantastic!

I have to admit I was the teensiest bit concerned because I had dragged some friends to it with me who were like, "what? it's a movie about garbage? um... ok, well I guess if that's what you want to do..." but they all thanked me afterward for bringing them because the movie was excellent, and despite a long delay at the beginning due to some technical difficulties at the cinema, the evening was 100% worthwhile.

They are cycling the film across the country, so if any of you are reading this blog from other parts of Canada, check out when they might be coming to a theatre near you, or perhaps contact them to set up coming to a theatre near you! Both can be done through the Clean Bin Movie site, I think.

yay plastic manners!

just passin' on the word from fellow plastic-free vancouverite, plastic manners. she was on CBC!

getting desensitized

I've been working at a coffee shop part time for the past several weeks, and I'm afraid it's having a negative impact on my commitment to living plastic-free.

We just use so much plastic! All the time. And I quickly stop noticing, it so quickly becomes automatic.

The first time I noticed was when I grabbed a day old muffin to eat on the way home after work. We bake muffins every day, and at the end of the night any muffins left over (usually only one or two, if any) get wrapped in plastic and put on a plate to be sold the next day as 'day olds'. So one day I was on my way to another job and needed a snack to get me there so I grabbed a day old muffin, plastic wrap and all. Didn't even think twice about it.

Not buying plastic-wrapped food is one of the EASIEST things to do to cut down on plastic consumption! And here I was, not even thinking about it.

The other day I caught myself using a rubber glove to mix the scone batter.

And here we come back to a something I posted about earlier: food safety.

If I'm using my hands to mix scone batter, is it ok if they are just well washed? Or should I use the rubber (plastic?) glove? Which would you rather have touching your scone before you eat it?

depressing photos

and this, my friends, is why i've stopped using plastic.
http://www.chrisjordan.com/
the album called 'message from the gyre'

The Perils of Plastics, Time magazine

Just a quick link to a Time magazine article about plastics

to market to market to buy a fat... bottle of laundry detergent?

I was at the Blim Market on Main last weekend. I had only been planning to drop in to say hi to a friend who was selling her Chai tea there, but fate intervened....

Earlier that day I had run out of laundry detergent, and I hadn't quite decided what to do about it. Going plastic-free has had the side effect of making me think about the consequences of what I buy in a wider than just plastic way, and I wanted to buy some sort of "green" detergent in, obviously, a non-plastic container. I should also add I'm rather partial to liquid detergent. For no particular logical reason. I just like it.

Anyway, the idea of researching what was the best detergent to buy and where I could get it seemed daunting to me, so I had placed the 'what will I do when I need to do laundry next' problem safely in the back of mind.

I arrived at Heritage Hall, a beautiful big old building on Main Street that looked more like a church than a place to hold a community market. The place is gorgeous. I started looking for my friend by heading left, which took me past T-shirts, jewellery and... soap. Handmade, all-natural ingredients soap. And, there on the table, in a great big mason jar: laundry detergent.

Perfect timing, anyone?

I was pretty excited.

Obviously, I bought a bottle.

Unfortunately, I have misplaced the card of the people I bought it from, but when I find it, I will add their names, and a link if they have one.

I was also reminded of what wonderful places markets are for living plastic-free. If there's one place you don't have to worry about plastic packaging, it's a place where the people behind the tables are the ones who hand-crafted the stuff in front of you. You can bet they're not wasting their time and money on excess packaging!

I'll be trying to hit them up more often in future.

The soap folks also had shampoo bars, which got me thinking about what I'm going to do when I run out of shampoo, which will be soon. Fake Plastic Fish uses baking soda, as does Life Less Plastic. Lush also sells shampoo bars.

I'm still considering.

March's monthly plastic tally

I tried to be more conscientious about my plastic collecting habits this month, so hopefully this count is a more accurate representation of my plastic consumption for the month.

I don't know if it's because I ate out more, or because I was paying more close attention, but this month I finally experienced what I've read some others' frustrations about: collecting unwanted and unasked for plastic at restaurants. There are two plastic straws in my collection this month, which came in drinks I didn't ask for, or forgot to ask to get without a straw. I also have one of those weird toothpicks with the random plastic crap on the end, and two plastic cups that held salsa and sour cream which came with my burger. It wasn't a take out place, I was definitely not expecting that there would be plastic thingys on my plate when it came. Frankly, it was kind of annoying.

Then again, this is one of the reasons I undertook this challenge. These are the things that we remain blissfully unaware of until we force ourselves to notice. In my case, it took collecting all the plastic I used for the month (and therefore dumping out the leftover salsa, wrapping the plastic tub in a napkin and tucking it in my pocket to take home - and HANG whatever anyone who saw me thought!) to make me realize there was plastic on my plate, but others might be inspired in different ways. I encourage everyone to pay a little closer attention to the sneaky ways disposable plastic items creep into your lives, without you even noticing, for just a day. You might be surprised.

And now, on to the list.

1. Two wrappers from cheese. I haven't found a good plastic-free cheese source yet (still haven't made it to the farmer's market) and I can't give up the cheese habit. I just can't. But I am going to a cheese-making workshop this month! I don't know if that will impact my cheese-buying habits yet or not, but it should at least be interesting.

2. One plastic cup. Another restaurant collection. This came from a very sweetly intentioned Indian man. I had stopped in at his shop for a quick bite of lunch, hadn't looked closely enough and taken stock of the fact that it was very much a fast food joint, did ask if they would serve my meal on a plastic dish, was told no no, it comes on a metal plate, and thus ordered some combo meal or another. He brought it out to me on, as promised, a metal plate, but with plastic utensils. I was horrified, and a bit frozen. What to do? Take the plastic and chalk it up as a learning experience? Or try to get out of it? So I asked, ever so sweetly, I know this is a little unusual, but is there any possible way he might be able to let me use a metal fork or spoon? He hesitated a moment, then, yes, perhaps, one moment. I waited patiently at the counter. He came out with a spoon "that's all we have" he said apologetically, "this is a fast food place." Yes, I know. I thanked him warmly and sat back down to my food, feeling rather pleased with myself. A few moments later he sweetly came over with a cup of chai tea "on the house." In a plastic cup. I smiled and said thanks. And took the cup home to add to my pile. Sigh.

3. Seven plastic-window envelopes. Still working on reducing this number.

4. One bottle of tonic water. What can I say. I wanted a gin and tonic. Sometimes a girl needs her gin and tonic. You know?

5. One tofu package. Getting sufficient protein can be annoying. Particularly when you are stuck reconstituting dehydrated beans all the time. I was bored of lentils and wanted a stir fry. With tofu. Sometimes other things win over the plastic challenge. Such is life.

6. Four milks bottle lids.

7. One credit card plus sticker. They sent me a new one this month. That one expired. This is one of those supposedly unavoidable plastics, I think.

8. Two restaurant containers. Explained above.

9. Two plastic straws. One from a water at a boston pizza, and one from...i think it was an iced tea at the same place as those containers.

10. One cookie package. I think this was actually leftover from the Olympics, but I don't actually remember.

11. One random piece of plastic wrap. This may have been from a muffin I ate at a coffee shop. Also don't remember.

2. Packaging from a pair of scissors

13. Packaging from a piece of chocolate my roommate brought back for me from Atlantic House. Also left over from the Olympics.

14. One plastic-tipped toothpick. This magically appeared on a sandwich I ordered. Wasn't there when I ordered it! I promise!

15. Two other small pieces of plastic related to price tags.

16. Six contact containers. And their associated contacts. Not much to explain here, I don't think.

17. Roughly twenty five 20 cm long pieces of floss. I don't collect this, but I do floss daily, or almost daily.

18. One jug of tide laundry detergent. I ran out. Was feeling a bit blue at the prospect of buying new stuff. But happily discovered some at a market... more about that later.

19. One lining for a bottle of some kind. I don't remember what this is from. It looks like what comes under pill bottles. Or maybe a juice bottle or something like that. But I really don't know what I consumed in the last month that fits that description.

All in all not bad. 19 looks like a big number, but it's not a very big pile. I feel ok about it.

a find from Fake Plastic Fish

Firstly, if any of you are reading me regularly, I hope you are also reading Beth Terry at Fake Plastic Fish. She posts much more regularly than I do, and she has so many wonderful things to say.

In her last post, she had this link. Which I think looks like it's going to be an awful lot of fun. So I wanted to make sure I shared it with all of you.

mining for plastic

I rewatched Addicted to Plastic the other day, and a few of the recyclers featured had a really interesting view on plastics and garbage dumps.

They had both developed technologies that would turn any kind of plastic into one type of usable material. And both of these guys talked quite matter-of-factly about mining plastic from garbage dumps in the future.

The first thing that struck me about this is the scary beauty of capitalism. When recycling plastics becomes sufficiently profitable, I expect it will be amazing how quickly things move, technology develops, and garbage starts disappearing. Literally, dumps will disappear. There will be no such thing as an unrecyclable plastic. Of this I am absolutely certain.

The other striking thing about this proposed cycle is the no guilt aspect. "Oh, it's ok if we have a disposable culture now, because we'll just go clean it up later when we run out of what we need to make it and we'll just make it again! No harm done."

I assume I don't have to point out who the losers are in this scenario.

But I digress. What these segments really did was make me curious about the feasibility of this, and whether or not it's already happening. And it appears it is! I've only done a quick search, but I've found a few articles about garbage mining, one about the likely prospect of dumps in the UK from the 80s being opened up and mined for their plastics sometime in the next 20 years or so, another from back in '93 about some towns that were already mining their dumps in Pennsylvania, and this one from San Francisco which also mentions that SF already diverts 70% of their waste to either recycling or composting. This seems like a huge number to me and makes me really curious about Vancouver.... so that is my next project. What exactly does Vancouver do with its waste? And where does the recycling go they collect in the Blue Boxes? And how am I going to find this out?

Hummous

I found a store that will fill my container with hummous today. That made me happy.

recyclable milk bottle lids

Excitement abounds! I have just discovered that the milk bottle lids I've been collecting are recyclable! I don't know why I thought they weren't, but I did. But they are! #4 plastic, 100% accepted by the blue box recycling program. yay!

London Drugs as source of plastic-free living goods? Who knew!

I am such a sucker for sales.

I just went for a visit to London Drugs because I heard they had a sale on Wasa crackers, which have lately become more or less my bread replacement since the (amazing) plastic-free bread I've been enjoying is both too far away and too expensive to enjoy on as regular a basis as I might like. At half the price I usually buy them for, and given the rate I've been going through them lately, it seemed stocking up on the Wasas was a good idea.

Now, I can't wander into a store, particularly a store like London Drugs, without wandering down the aisles and admiring what's what.

Imagine my surprise, and indeed delight, to discover that today's little wander uncovered all manner of plastic-free living delights!

First, the chocolate.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm a sucker for a good snack craving. Usually it's something salty, which I've so far been satisfying with popcorn and occasionally cheese (yes, still buying the plastic-wrapped variety). But every now and then it's for something sweet, and even something chocolate. I've been pretty distrustful of most chocolate bar-wrappers, even the foil ones can be deceptive, but I hadn't given much thought to it. I generally feel it's best to ignore such cravings and if living plastic free gives me another excuse to do so, mores the better! But today in London Drugs I was reminded of a perfectly good plastic-free chocolate alternative:

Glosettes!

Now, ok, I know, they aren't the Belgian Milk Chocolate, or the Swiss Dark, but hey, they come in a cardboard box. What could be more plastic-free than that?

Next up, thermos mugs.

After the styrafoam cup use referred to in my last post, I determined to do better. And indeed i did. The next time I went to that particular outdoor Olympic venue I came with a great little thermos mug. Unfortunately, it wasn't mine. See, I've never had a travel cup that I really liked. I find them mostly rather oddly shaped, or still containing plastic, or SOMETHING. Well, my roommate has this awesome little thermos mug which she apparently got at mec, and I've been planning on getting myself one soon. (I couldn't actually find what she has on their website, but it was something like this. Point is, it was compact, lightweight, and fit into my purse).

So today I wandered into the 'food containers' aisle at London Drugs, and what did I find?? Thermos mugs! ON SALE!

Well, ok, not quite thermos mugs, actually these dudes are intended for food storage. But they were regular 21.99 on for 9.99 so (sucker for sales, right?) I bought two. Plus another one a different size.

The best part? They were all completely packaging free.

Now, I suppose they probably originally came individually wrapped and London Drugs just unwrapped them to display them more attractively and take up less space... but I like to imagine perhaps they were plastic-free in the first place.

And then, right below the thermos mugs, MC2 by Innate, a Vancouver company that I feel I really should have known about by now. (Of course, these local company, plastic-free alternatives were displayed on the bottom shelf, well below the Glad and Tupperware options). Anyway, they produce a stainless steel with silione lid food container that will, I believe, also fit into my purse. Also on sale. I also bought two. So now I have something other than a plastic container to bring with me if ever I need to bring home leftovers or request take out in my own container. And something other than plastic in which to store my own home-cooked leftovers! In fact, between the five (five? Did I really need to buy five?) containers I purchased today (that was expensieve trip to buy crackers), I'm not even sure I'll need to use the plastic containers we have in the house anymore at all. And that really is an exciting idea.

In all this day was exciting because I am essentially a lazy person, and going out of my way to seek plastic free options is not always something I do. So when I find the plastic-free options withOUT going of my way, I feel relieved. And happy. And like I need to share these discoveries with the world!

Also, Innate is located pretty much down the street. Ok, a ways down the street. But still, I'm thinking of going for a walk to go check them out.

Oh happy, plastic-free day.

And yes, I did also buy the crackers. Six packages of them, in fact.

February plastic tally

I've decided to do what all the other plastic bloggers do: keep a plastic tally.

So I've tried to keep all the plastic from the last month that I've used and would normally throw out. Now, much like the rest of this plastic challenge, I've been much less stringnet about this than some of those other plastic bloggers, and I'm sure I will have missed a few things. I am still hopeful that this process might bring some items to my attention that I can work on removing from use. So, here goes.

The tally:

- Ten plastic window envelopes
- One styrafoam cup (the most evil of the plastics in losingplasticland, it would appear), used when my incessant coughing required a warm drink while at an olympic event
- Five plastic milk bottle lids. It's funny, I don't usually drink this much milk, but I've been making a lot of yogurt. So those five lids are replacing at least four yogurt containers. Much less volume of plastic waste, but the yogurt containers are recyclable. I wonder what that means in the overall plastic tally
-Three random pieces of plastic packaging. I'm not completely sure where each of these came from. One lost like the shape of a cd, which may have been something I just opened from Christmas, one is from that metronome I posted about, and one is, I think, from the calender I ordered from fujifilm, but I'm not sure.
- One plastic razor. Left over from a few months ago, just cleaning out cupboards and got rid of it
- One travel toothbrush. Used for two months straight in Panama and Colombia. This little baby served me well, but it is time for retirement
- Two contact lense containers. The fact that there are only two in this bag suggests to me that it is time to replace the contacts I've been wearing. They are only intended for two week at a time use!
- One plastic garbage bag and tape. These had been used to pack some boxes I had in storage which I finally unpacked this month. The garbage bag ended up pretty ripped, so I don't think I can reuse it.

All in all, not too bad I feel. I'm most astonished at the envelopes. I've never realized how many plastic-window envelopes I receive, because I usually just toss them in the recycling without thinking about it. Looking this pile, though, has made me reconsider if I really need to receive all of this mail. I have since gone paperless on my bank statement, and will be cancelling my subscription on one other regular sender. I'm still considering my options on some other bills, but I think that's a good start.

I feel certain I must have used more plastic than this.

Oh yes, I just remembered. There was a sushi container that should have been added to this pile. And a beer cup, again from the Olympics.

And probably more. I will try to be more vigilant in collection for next month.

olympics, and dish soap in glass bottles

This has been an interesting week. I have lots to report, both good and bad.

First, the good. I found dish soap in a glass bottle! Definitely the event that made my week, this stuff comes in what is basically a milk bottle. I haven't used it yet, but I couldn't help buying it I was so darn pleased to find it! Unfortunately it does still have a plastic lid (as do the milk bottles filled with milk), but I'm still looking forward to cracking it open and giving it a try.

Actually, I have been quite enjoying using the bar soap I bought when we first ran out of dish soap a few weeks ago. It works surprisingly well, and I have definitely decided that this notion that liquid soap is necessary for clean dishes is one that is true only in my head, and not at all in real life.

I still bought the glass bottle though!

Discovering this dish soap also made me appreciate, once again, this beautiful city that I live in. I bought it at Capers, as plastic-free-friendly a place as you're likely to find, as the place is filled with organic and natural goodness. It also made me realize how unlikely it is that I could find this particular dish soap back home, in the small town in the interior of BC where I grew up, as stores like Capers really do exist only in bigger centres, and then only in "green" bigger centres like Vancouver. Then again, as I just pointed out, finding dish soap in a glass bottle isn't really necessary to give up dish soap in plastic bottles.

Coming back to this beautiful city I live in, we are presently hosting the Olympics and while I had been a little bit dreading it, expecting the city would go crazy and not in a good way, it has turned out to be a pretty fantastic experience all around. It's hard to stay resistant to the Olympics when you're surrounded by this infectiously festive atmosphere. It's not just a party, it's a tangible excitement. There are literally people from all over the world who are here, just to see the games. It makes me feel very ungrateful for not having been 100% supportive from day 1, whatever my reasons might have been.

My plastic experiences with the games are essentially all instances of me not being sufficiently prepared. The community band that I play with has been hired to entertain people as they enter one of the venues. The gigs have been amazing, and this is where I really experienced that excitement and energy I was just talking about! We have to be there for several hours, and there's not really much in the way of food available. Day one I was pretty unprepared, hadn't brought enough to eat, and basically ended up eating plastic-wrapped cookies out of sheer 'I have to eat or I will be extremely grumpy and feel like crap' edness. Day two I brought more food, but I wanted to bring enough for everyone and I decided on hummous with veggies and pita. Like I said, not sufficiently prepared, so the hummous was purchased at the store in, you guessed it, a plastic container.

As a follow-up to that, I later asked at the deli at this store, a Safeway, if I could get a spinach dip put into my own container, but they wouldn't do it. "Health concerns," they said.

Now, I have several problems with this situation. First, I find I am a little resentful of these "Health Concerns." Who is Safeway to tell me what I can and cannot put into my body, or what I can or can not store my food in? I feel it implies an assumption about my lack of ability as a free-thinking, independent adult, to make a decision about what is safe for me.

Mind you, there are plenty of free-thinking, independent adults who make plenty of poor decisions about what is or is not safe to put into their bodies, or store their food in every day.

But shouldn't we be free to make our own choices about that?

Furthermore, this sort of systemic problem could be so easily fixed, it almost hurts me that we don't already do it, although I do understand why we don't, I think.

If we all brought our own containers all the time, it really wouldn't be difficult for Safeway to sanitize them before filling them for us. Particularly if we were really clever and had a standardized container that we could exchange for a cleaned and sanitized, refilled container. See, it wouldn't even have to be our own, it could be someone else's that they brought in to exchange! Of course, these containers would probably have to NOT be plastic, since I'm pretty sure that for the most part plastic doesn't stand up all that well to that kind of reuse.

And then there is the somewhat ridiculous notion that the containers that Safeway will put the spinach dip into are in some way cleaner than mine. Now, I admit, they might be. I may not have cleaned mine as thoroughly as it should have been (I am using bar soap these days, after all), and presumably the big pile of plastic containers that Safeway has stacked on its counter all came freshly sanitized from the big plastic factory, wrapped in a sanitized plastic bag until they got placed in a stack on that sanitized counter by perfectly clean and sanitary Safeway-employee hands.

Does anyone else see anything wrong with that scenario? If any of you have ever worked in a grocery store, I am sure you will recall, as I do, how grotesquely unclean they actually are. Now, I will admit that it is probably still more likely that my home-washed plastic container has some harmful bacteria in it than that disposable Safeway container, but it's a chance I'm willing to take, and a chance I feel I should be free to make. Particularly since, while I'm inclined to believe in the sanitariness of the container, I'm not at ALL inclined to believe in the "safety" of that spinach dip. (I've seen behind that deli counter, folks, and it is not pretty).

This leads me to my final point, and one which may deserve a post all to itself.

I'm not at all comfortable with the obsession with safety and, indeed, "security" that is so prevalent in our culture, including our food culture.

I say this knowing it's a bit of a hard case to argue. After all, who wants to get sick from what they eat? And of course we all want to be able to trust our food sources. The less we prepare things in our own kitchens, the more we are forced to put our faith in others to ensure the quality of our food. But when ensuring food "safety" means using chemicals and materials that are harmful not only to ourselves, but also to our earth, I tend to think that maybe it's gone a bit too far, and grossly in the wrong direction.

Ok, I think I've rambled enough for one posting. I have more to say on this topic, and more to report on this week, but it will have to come later!