Thursday night environmental musings

The Princeton Environmental Film Festival is back and on right now. Over 50 films are being shown in just two weeks! I'm thinking of seeing No Impact Man tomorrow night but I don't know if I'll make it over there or not.

So let's reassess how I'm doing with environmental issues.

2008 was the "year of no bottled water" for me (and the whole reason I started this blog, before sewing and crafting took over). I still don't have much to do with bottled water unless I'm traveling. I have a few metal bottles and they suit me just fine. I've become accustomed to bringing my own water with me and it's really not a big deal.

Seeing Addicted to Plastic really left an impression about my plastic consumption. I had realized shortly before seeing the film that I was continually throwing away the plastic bags the newspaper was delivered in, and it was beginning to annoy me. My newspaper carrier and I had a discussion about it and I interpreted that she actually has to pay for the bags. So now I have a drawer in the kitchen where I collect the bags, nice and flat, and then when the drawer fills up, I roll them up, rubber band them, and leave them on my car, where she collects them in the morning. She is also kind enough to leave my newspaper on the windshield of my car every morning upon my request (I saw her one morning and it turned out she was getting out of her car anyway so that she could minimize the distance for flinging the paper). This trick was especially helpful to me during the worst of my back pain, when I really couldn't pick anything up off the ground (I used the grabber to pick up the daily paper, but it was really hard to pick up the Sunday one!)

When I go grocery shopping, I always bring reusable bags with me. I have a bunch from grocery stores in England. Most of the bags stand up on their own, unlike the majority of floppy ones sold here. When I go to other stores, sometimes I bring in the bags; other times I don't. But overall I'm consuming less, which makes a difference.

I brought a real fork, knife, spoon, plate, and bowl to work, and use them daily. I don't use disposable stuff at work like I used to--only at birthday cake celebrations.

But then there's home. I didn't really cook much for myself before my back injury, and after it I completely stopped. So I'd say I'm about 75/25 on the disposable to non-disposable ratio at home.

I recently got a library card for the Princeton Twp library. It's a visually appealing place, and so far I've borrowed some very interesting books. It's much more convenient to go to that library than the one in my own town.

This weekend I'm going to participate in the refashion contest on SPR. Check out what others have made so far. There's some interesting stuff!