Now They're Just Trying to Piss Me Off

It seriously is like we're not even trying anymore. Unless the trying that we are doing is the trying to make my head explode. It's as if we have no problem whatsoever with plastic on this planet. None. Like we aren't saying anything over here about the 5 Gyres, like Dr. Marcus Eriksen isn't out there beating a drum about it. (Don't know him? Here: http://www.marcuseriksen.com/ ) It's as if we've given up completely and just announced we'll go ahead and trash the planet instead of trying to move to being better stewards of this Earth, because there is really no going back.

What now, GGW? you say with a sigh. Just this:

I almost have nothing more to say. Almost. It's from our good friends over there at Nestle, of course. Because you know how much they care about the environment. Darn it, I can't even eat one of my favorite candy bars anymore because it's made by Them. But I digress.

3 fluid ounces so as to be attractive to frequent flyers, I suppose. Easy to just toss in your purse or laptop bag. Convenient.

Look, I don't care that you are tossing it in the recycling bin. That means nothing. Nothing. The water of this planet is filled with plastic. Islands where man has never set foot are found to be covered with plastic. Birds who live their lives at sea are found with stomachs full of plastic. When is it enough? When do we get a clue? When do we get the hint? When do we stop?

Obviously  not anytime soon, because every day all I see are more new stupid products like this one coming out for purchase. We do not need these things. We need a healthy environment. The two are not compatible.

Just. Stop.

Juice Sure is Healthy

Ahhh, juice. So good for us. Quite the market for juice these days. All kinds of healthy juices out there. Detox with juice! Cold pressed, high pressure processed juice, just plain old-fashioned simple juice. Organic! Healthy! Names like Naked Juice, Vital Juice. Juice packaged by the soft drink people who don't want to miss out on the market. And aaallllll of them packaged in.... plastic.

Do a juice fast! And drink OUR product all day long for weeks! Who cares if your health concerns trump the planet? I mean, c'mon! Who cares? You can toss them in the recycle bin and it's ALL GOOD! Will the acid in the juice leach out some weird thing like BPA-but-not-BPA-because-we-don't-do-BPA-anymore-because-we-are-SO-enlightened from the plastic? Who knows! We don't even know what's IN plastic! Hell, we didn't know BPA was in there a few years ago. But that's gone, so we're clear here! Who cares that no one really realizes those caps aren't recyclable? Garbage. They're small, they barely add to the landfills. Truly. YOU are doing good for YOUR health and that is ALL that matters!

Oooo - you could go to Jamba Juice every day! That packaging is just fine too! Think of all the lids and straws you get to use! Oh, you could bring a container but you don't have just the right size and they don't really do that anyway and well that's just too inconvenient, you would have to actually WASH it out and remember it all the time. Bummer. Don't harsh my juicing mellow with your inconveniences, Witch." Sorry.

HPP - high pressure processing - actually required the stuff to go into plastic. YAY! "Our juice is so lovingly prepared and good for you that we HAVE to put it in plastic!" Oh, hey, it's lighter and cheaper to ship, too. Don't forget that. Very important. 

I actually came across a company that only uses glass bottles. DROUGHT Juice refuses to use plastic. Awesome on them.

Why does DROUGHT juice only have a 3-day shelf life? Can I drink my juice past the 72 hour mark?

DROUGHT juice contains no preservatives and is unpasteurized, and therefore is highly perishable.  We employ a cold-pressed juicing process that maximizes the shelf life for up to 3 days (72 hours), but cannot advise consumption of our juice beyond this point.  Each juice is labeled with a 'consume by' date for your convenience.

I would buy THAT juice except what the heck happens with all the unsold product?? Is there a lot of waste in their product line?? They say they limit production and strive for zero-waste, and they are very regional, so it may be believeable. I'd try it.

Look, none of these companies - except maybe DROUGHT - give a crap about your health. They are about profit. Actually, even that one in glass tried to say they are better than juicing at home. Because they cold-press, and your juicer gets ever so slightly warm as it juices. So boo. Oh - and you have to drink yours immediately that you make at home. Uh, yeah. Kind of the point. Save yourself some money, get a juicer, make your own damn juice, and if you have to buy a beverage, get some Kombucha. That's always in glass. STOP being a consumer and do something for yourself. I know it's just not convenient to have to actually MAKE your own juice, and all those thin beautiful women in the juice ads look SO happy and free... with their disposable income and endless supply of juice in their fridge - I know we want to be JUST like them! You know you will be if you just drink the same product!

Make sure you keep buying bottled water too. It'd be a shame to not double down on your plastic usage. You can't do your own juice, why should I think you spend a few seconds avoiding the single-use plastic for your water?

Fasts, cleanses, washes... whatever. These companies want you to drink - what? - 4 or more bottles of their product a day? Effing irresponsible to use that much plastic. For a few weeks? Do us all a favor and stick with your GMO soy processed food diet. And please think twice or three times about procreating. Because if you think it's fine to go ahead and use that much plastic, selfishly, for your little cleanse, then who knows what plastics you will subject the rest of us too with your offspring.

We already know you need things to be convenient, right?

Two, Two Wastes in One!

Oh good. SHEW. I was worried we didn't have enough microwaveable lunch products. I thought maybe we were running out. Not to worry! Barilla has come out with THEIR own version of the healthy Microwaveable Meal. Just 1 minute to prepare! 100% natural ingredients and no preservatives.

(By the by, arsenic is 100% natural. So is mercury. Just sayin'.)

Women's Health even named the Whole Grain Fusilli with Vegetable Marinara on of the "Best Packaged Foods for Women"! Yay.

Thanks to the blog I grabbed this image from. Please stop.

Naturally, because I had to share, I checked them out all over the place. They are even worse than originally believed. See, not only do you have the non-recyclable #5 bowl for the pasta, you get a SECOND smaller bowl for the sauce!

One bowl thrown into the Gyre is not enough for some people. Two is ever so much better.

We should eat these every day. They're so healthy and so... so... what's the word?

Oh yeah. Convenient.

Does it ever feel like we're taking 1 step forward and 2 steps back, or is that just me?

We can't take away all the plastic we've added to our environment. What's here is never going away. All we can do is NOT add any more! But factories in China have to keep making, we have to keep buying, and the oceans get to keep filling. Please stop. What sucks is, even if we stopped THIS SECOND, right now, while you are reading, I fear it's a long way back from the edge. Or we went over the edge. I don't know. All I know is we HAVE to STOP.

What is it going to take?

Our Plastic Bag Addiction

The more I know, the less I want to know.

I toured the Algalita Marine Research Institute in Redondo Beach (http://www.algalita.org/index.php). These great people are responsible for research in the 5 Gyres, especially the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as well as the tsunami debris field. I have met, and know and respect these people. They are doing amazing work. They inspire me.

Bezoar from camel's stomach

During the tour, the instructors brought out something surprising. It didn't have anything to do with the oceans. It had to do with the Arabian desert, of all places. Plastic bag pollution there? Yes.

I Googled, and I've seen some pictures of the desert just strewn with plastic bags. I don't recommend it; it's pretty depressing. And before you think that you have nothing to do with that... yes, our recycling cast-offs (because, remember, we don't actually recycle things here, we just bundle them and ship them off to other countries to be processed) end up over there, and because even those places don't want to recycle plastic bags, they just get tossed away. They blow off into the environment. No one wants to pick them up. Where else to put them, anyway? Then, it turns out, camels will go along and just eat whatever they come across in a goat-like manner. They are not discerning, They do not know what will hurt them. They just graze. So they end up munching a bunch of plastic bags. All this crap and debris just kind of sticks around in their stomach, becoming a huge mass called a bezoar, which I have pictured here. This, of course, eventually kills them. Slowly and painfully. This thing pictured weighs around 30 pounds. Think about THAT extra weight in YOUR stomach. You weigh more but you starve to death anyway, because you can't take in nutrients around this thing.

Our plastic habit has much further-reaching impact than we think. How insane is it to grab something that you use for mere moments, then discard, and then that thing goes on to pollute the place we live for years and years and years? How does that make any sense to anyone? Because it's convenient? Surely we are better than that. Surely. Please let us be better than that.

We need to realize that other creatures on this planet are suffering because of our carelessness, negligence, and desire for convenience. Because we can't be bothered to remember our reusable bags. Because we just have to have bottled water. Because... just because. There are no real reasons to do this to the planet and to the animals that live on it and through no fault of their own are harmed by OUR actions. Ours. Ours and nobody else's. And there is no excuse for this. There really isn't. We don't have to be a disposable society. We don't. We need to think, we need to care. We need to be the stewards of this Earth that we are supposed to be. That the other creatures here need us to be, because they cannot defend themselves against our apathy.

We have to do better. We just do.