Easy Ways to Go Green #6: Ditch Single-Use Plastic

My final post in this week’s series on easy ways to go green:

Ditch as much single-use plastic – plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic cups, and straws – as you can, immediately.

Because of how often single-use plastics– straws, plastic grocery bags, etc.– have been (rightfully) maligned in the media, I almost left out this tip. In certain municipalities, plastic bags are now essentially illegal or cost at least 10 cents per bag. Since plastic bags have been so heavily disincentivized in most of the places I’ve lived in these past few years, I’ve forgotten in general that some people still use them. Please, if you live in a backwards location that still doesn’t have this ordinance, do yourself and the planet a favor and ditch the damn things.

My favorite alternative for carrying groceries is a simple backpack. If you’re walking or biking to the grocery store, which should be your ultimate goal instead of driving, a backpack like a Jansport is wholly sufficient to store a carton of milk, a bag of bread, some boxes of pasta, and an assortment of fruit and vegetables. There’s really no reason to use those single plastic bags. Try it out for a week and see if you miss the ugly sight of a plastic bag in your home.

If you like, you can buy an actual reusable shopping bag, but I don’t personally use those. They’re nice to have if you prefer to carry a bag on your shoulder; I like to carry my stuff on my back.

Plastic water bottles, plastic cups, straws, etc. go without saying, and they’ve been talked to death in the media so I won’t rehash it. As an alternative, I recommend storing your water in a thermos like those mentioned in my coffee cup post. I have two thermoses: one for coffee, and one for water. The water one is a regular athlete or gym style Camelbak, around $10. Even an old Tostitos jar with a screw-on lid is a good vessel for carrying H2O. I’ve recently been reusing a small, tall, narrow jar that used to contain olives as my primary water-carrying vessel. Or, if you’re cool, take a swig out of one of those hip-flasks.

That concludes this week’s series.

Why not make a list of what you’ve already done, and see what other strategies you can easily implement?

Easy Ways to Go Green #3: *Reduce, *Reuse, Recycle

Continuing the series of easy steps to go green, part 3:

Reduce, reuse, and recycle.

It’s a pity how often we’re taught this phrase in school and how few people follow it. Most people are aware of recycling, but reduce and reuse have traditionally been considered by those in the environmental movement to be done first, and recycling only afterwards. I’ll cover my specific techniques for reducing and reusing in later posts.

If recycling is available in your area and you’re not tossing your unwanted cans, jars, cardboard, bottles, etc. in there, then I am not sure what you are doing reading this blog. We are about to enter the 2020s, so I feel like this is a no-brainer. On the other hand, I have encountered people who underestimate the value of this task, who, upon being confronted with a garbage bin and a recycling bin, still choose to toss an aluminum can into the garbage. When you see that, I’ll give you a challenge: call the person out. Don’t just stand there and observe. Refusing to recycle when a bin is right in front of your face should inspire as much social shaming as not washing your hands after going to the bathroom. The planet can’t afford this type of behavior anymore. Don’t condone it. Put that stinkeye to use.

Easy Ways to Go Green #2: Stop Eating Beef

Continuing this week’s series of posts, my second post will cover another thing I’ve done to reduce my environmental impact:

CUT OUT BEEF.

This is probably the second-best thing you can do, today. Beef is the number one worst food item ever for the planet. If you’re not willing to go vegetarian, which is hard for many people including me, commit at least to not eating beef. As we speak, the Amazon is burning from overgrazing of cattle. Just as cars have taken over all our roads and cities and have subjected us to them as slaves to an iron master, cattle are taking over forests, pastures, meadows, and every ecosystem, subjecting all flora and fauna in these various climes to their trampling hooves and dulled, butcher-fated faces. If cows are not taking land over directly, their feed is. The amount of pollution caused by a single cow is something like ten or eleven times that of a chicken and four or five times that of a pig, not to mention that the current, maddening deforestation of the Amazon is directly linked to beef consumption. Imagine every parakeet, macaw, spider monkey, jaguar, piranha, and beautiful rainforest animal you ever saw in a book replaced by a square, dark-brown, dark-gray pasture with two hideous cows standing in it. Because that’s what’s actually going on.

To cut beef out, just start doing it. Try it for a week and see if you still miss it. When a recipe calls for beef, substitute some less damaging meat. Making spaghetti alla bollognese? Sub in ground pork or ground turkey instead of beef, or, if you’re feeling adventurous, forego the meat altogether.

If you end up missing beef from your everyday cooking, try to see if you can reduce your consumption and commit to buying it only once every week, or once every two weeks, or once every three weeks. Whatever you can do is helpful. Just be aware that every bite of beef may as well be a slashing of the throat of some toucan.