Shock and Awe but in a Good Way

Sometimes a product comes along that surprises me in a good way, leaves me hopeful rather than dismayed... it happens. Such is the case with this Rubbermaid product: LunchBlox. Someone has the right idea for a change.

They are kind of cute, aren't they? Of course, these are based on similar products made of the preferred stainless steel, but I'm actually OK with these. They will last a long time, Rubbermaid is a very high-quality name out there. They are certainly preferable to Saran Wrap and plastic bags.  Look - even a salad is wonderfully.... CONVENIENT: 

They even sell a cute bag, but you don't have to get it, you can use your own. I can see that some parents would think this is too much trouble to send in with the kids, but really, come on, let's stop being lazy and making excuses. New habits are only new for a little. Then they are just good habits. Teach a little responsibility for a change. And these are ideal for office lunch. Especially if you are buying and eating crap on a day to day basis. The blue thing is a cool pack to keep it chilled if you do not have a fridge at work. And insulated bag will keep it all good until lunch time. Microwave, freezer, dishwasher safe, no BPA. I still wouldn't heat it in the microwave, but that's me. And I would use the crap outta these, I wouldn't just use them for a few months then throw them away to buy more. If these can be used for a good long time, then I'm all for it. 

I'm a fan. Thanks, Rubbermaid. I know they make a lot of plastic products, but some of them can be worth a second look. This is a nice bridge product. Every little bit helps? Maybe? 

Apathy

Me. It's me, I'm the one with the apathy today.

I was looking over some articles on the green sites... "10 Ways to be Green"... "5 Ways to Go Green Without Spending Money"... "20 Things to Do to be Green".... and on and on ad nauseum. I say ad nauseum because they are pretty much all blathering on about the same old thing. And if in 2013, they are still blathering on about the same old things that SOME of us have been saying for YEARS, then we have a problem.

Here are some suggestions from these *new* articles, posted this month, March, 2013...

• "Stop Buying Water." Really??? No shit???? And, wait, I would actually SAVE money by not buying bottled water, too??? YOU DON'T SAY!
• "Refuse to Waste Gas." So glad you say, I never thought of more gas efficiency before.
• "Put and End to Paper Towels." Damn, I wish I'D said something like that before now!
• "Lighten You Laundry's Load." Don't use warm or hot water? WOW! I could have sworn that has been said for, oh, 10 years at least, but thanks for the amazing information!

And from an article about how to go green in 2013....

If you want to be kinder to the planet and save some money at the same time, here are 20 ways to go green in 2013.

1. Buy fresh, local food this summer
2. Bring your own bags when you shop for groceries. You can often buy reusable bags at the stores you buy groceries. 
3. Shop at consignment stores
4. Rip up some lawn and create new garden beds this spring, and then grow your own food this summer.
5. Ditch those dreaded plastic sandwich bags and get some washable containers or bags.
6. Cut down on car trips and run your errands on your bike or on foot.
7. Pack cloth napkins instead of paper towels in school lunches.
8. Plant a tree. 
9. Dump your bottled water costs. You could save hundreds of dollars by buying snazzy metal water bottles for everyone in the family and a personal filter for your kitchen faucet.
10. Organize a Halloween costume swap in September.
11. Replace your old light bulbs with LED bulbs. They last 15 times longer and use 75 percent less energy.
12. Expand your hand-me-down circle. Organize a clothing swap for your kids’ preschool or a group of friends. Everyone brings gently used and clean kids’ clothes to your garage and parents can take as many items as they donated. The rest goes to charity. You can also swap toys and books.
13. Replace your showerheads with low-flow models. Low-flow showerheads can save you up to 15 percent on water heating costs and reduce your water usage by as much as 20,000 gallons a year.
14. Save up to 30 percent on your monthly heating bills by having a home energy audit done by a professional.
15. Give service and experience gifts this year instead of stuff. Make homemade gift certificates for services and experiences that could include tech support, dinner and a movie, yard work, pet walking or babysitting, or a day of organizing support for the clutter challenged.

And now you are asking, "Why the ire, Rhonda? These are good things! Things you yourself recommend!" Yup. Been sayin' 'em. For... years? And people been sayin' 'em for years before me. Good stuff. Damn fine ideas. What I want to know is,

WHY ARE WE STILL HAVING TO SUGGEST THEM?????

Reusable bags as a suggestion in 2013? Why do we even have to say that AGAIN? Don't most people who aren't living under rocks realize that they should be bringing their own goddam bags by now?  And if not, if we have to keep saying it, what's it going to take? If people haven't gotten it yet, are they ever going to? What's the point of it all? Avoid bottled water. This is not new news. It's not even sort of new news. It's old news. Very old news. Yet, how many millions haven't gotten around to it?

So, why the ire? Maybe it's just my mood today. Maybe I'm sick of being nice. Maybe I've never liked to have to repeat myself, so realizing that there are so many deaf ears out there really gets to me. Just, just get it, people. Quit making us repeat ourselves.

It's enough to make me give up and leave everyone to their own hell. I'm having an apathetic day. Hopefully, it is fleeting. Sometimes, I do wonder why the hell I care. Days like today... maybe I just don't.

Crock Pots are Messy

Not sure if slow cookers are making a resurgence or not... I see a lot of recipes around for them. I don't really use mine much because I just end up using my enameled cast iron on a very low flame, which seems to do the trick. I'm generally home, so I don't need the whole cooking-while-away thing. But I love slow cookers, I do. They are awesome. I never really thought about the mess, because, well, that's part of cooking and cleaning up afterwards. The crock pot can be a little unwieldy, but whatever. You soak it, you scrub it, life goes on.

Nope.

Save yourself from messy cleanup by using these disposable liners, which fit models up to 6.5 quarts. Liners can go from refrigerator to slow cooker. Each liner measures 11" X 20". Package of 8 liners.

Let us put aside, for a moment, the horrific image of sea turtles and other sea creatures mistaking these bags floating in their environment as jellyfish, their natural food, and then them choking on it and dying a slow horrible death. Let's just put that aside. Let's ignore that, so that you can have a nice easy clean-up. How about instead we just think of all the plastic-y goodness and chemical soup you are adding to your food that you are feeding to your precious children. Because how are you NOT leaching chemicals into your food which is in direct contact with slowly heated plastic? Do you even know that NO ONE but the plastic manufacturers even knows what is actually IN the plastic? Remember BPA? Remember before BPA? I do. Do you honestly think that if there is no BPA in your plastic, that there is nothing else harmful in there? You are stirring that ALL INTO your food and right into your kids it goes. And we wonder why kids have cancer and other health issues.

I found this image particularly *amusing* when I noticed the page from whence it came. I was amused for quite a few reasons. Let's share, shall we? The page was a blog that was all about a full year of slow-cooking recipes, no repeats. I'm sure she's a lovely woman. She got media appearances and wrote a cookbook out of the whole experience, bless her lil' heart! Here's what tickles me to no end: If she used liners, that is 365 more bags in the trash (not recyclable) and 365 times all the people that took her word for using them also in the oceans. Isn't that hysterical? Also, the cute pictures of what I'm guessing are her kids on the Crock Pot. So she can see their shiny happy faces every time she stirs, right before she spoon-feeds petrochemicals into their sweet gullets. Amusing? Ironic? Meh. Was she using Styrofoam plates and bowls and plastic forks and spoons, too?

We're going to "lazy" and "convenience" ourselves right out of existence. I'd say mark my words, but we won't be here anymore so...

Carry on.

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.

Envirosax - Some Good Words for a Change!

Let me begin by saying no, they are not paying me or bribing me. I love my Envirosax bag all on my own.

What do I love the most? (How do I love thee? Let me count the ways! LOL) Is it that it rolls up so small (They say on their site, the size of a piece of sushi!) that I can carry THREE of them in my admittedly huge purse and still have room for everything else, so that I am never without a reusable bag? Is it that it is SO strong that I have to make sure it's not too heavy for me when I pack it full of stuff? Is it that the handles are big enough to sling over my shoulder? Is it the flourish with which I unsnap and unroll it, with the beautiful colors causing people to notice, so I can look at them with a "Yeah I bring my own bags, you should too" look? Is it the admiration of the cashiers, who almost always comment on it?

I think it's the flourish. That's the part I love the most.

Envirosax (http://www.envirosax.com/faq) is a strong, sturdy, pretty bag that is HUGE but folds up SO nice and small. It's waterproof. It's made out of polyester.

Wait, what??? Yeah I know. Polyester bad. Why am I carrying this bag, then? Because I know it is going to last for YEARS. Literally, years. That's a lot of plastic bags I won't be using. It's a much more sustainable thing. And the company itself is a very environmental gig. They have other products that aren't made of polyester, and that's a good thing too. But I'm OK with my bag. It's very durable. It's easy to hand-wash it and it dries quickly. It is a move in the right direction, as they say in the FAQ's. I agree. The material is good for the bright designs and colors that make them attractive to people, so maybe they WILL use them more. The inks and dyes are eco-friendly. And if your bag has gotten past its prime, you can send it back to them and they will recycle it.

So, yeah, it's made from polyester. And I will continue to use it. And I will gift them to people. This is one of those times when convenience isn't an evil word. It is VERY convenient to toss this bag in my purse, in your backpack, your messenger bag, laptop bag, etc... it is easy to roll up, people notice and and maybe think about getting one too. I totally love the look people get on their face when such a small little thing becomes this huge bag that holds everything. I love that my husband is OK with carrying it because it isn't too girly. And I love that this company is trying to do things right.

Holidays are coming. This is a Good Green Gift alert. The company started in Australia and yes the bags are made in China... PLEASE go to their FAQ page to find out how those are good things. The link is above. Not everything made in China is completely evil, either. Expand your knowledge. It is your best arrow in your quiver.

And start your holiday shopping at Envirosax. Sure, I'm a big fan of the bags, but they have other cool stuff to check out as well. If enough of us use things like this, then we are teaching by example. When we whip out these bright bags, people will be curious and maybe even ask. If we gift them to people, they will use them instead of plastic throw-aways. (Well, we hope.)

These guys and this company and this product CAN help. So, yeah, I have some good things to say for a change. Nothing but good. And my Yuletide gifts? Guess!