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 #5: Use a Thermos

Continuing this week’s series, pretty much the easiest thing you can do – and it’s an upgrade – is to ditch “to-go” coffee cups and switch to a thermos.

As this Fast Company article notes, paper to-go cups are typically not recyclable, not to mention the plastic lid that goes on top of the cup.

However, as the article fails to note, all this fancy technology designed to replace such to-go cups neglect literally the most obvious solution to the problem: buy a damn thermos, and bring it with you.

Thermoses are even better than to-go cups, because they actually keep your drink hot, for multiple hours at a time. And, unlike the crappy plastic lid, they keep your drink successfully sealed, without spilling.

In America, we don’t have a good “thermos” culture, but we should because of how frequently we order drinks “to go.”

My Zojirushi thermos can keep my coffee hot for – no kidding – over 12 hours. Hot, fresh coffee, just the way you want it, throughout the entire day. No more running to the microwave over and over to heat your lukewarm coffee every thirty seconds, or spilling scalding liquid all over yourself because the café chose a slightly crappier plastic lid that doesn’t actually fit properly.

Zojirushi is an expensive brand of thermos, costing $20-30 per thermos, but even a regular good-quality thermos, like the Contigo, can be had for as little as $10. As long as it’s double-walled and vacuum-sealed, you can keep your coffee at the right temperature for 2-5 hours.

Think of how these venture capitalists and R&D people invest so much money into enabling our collective laziness by inventing all sorts of “reusable” coffee cups and compostable ones and recyclable ones and all this b.s., when all we have to do, on an individual level, is just buy a fucking thermos, and rinse it out with water every once in a while. Many cafes even offer discounts for people who bring in their own thermoses and mugs.

I’m addicted to coffee, and I find this solution perfect for me.