Hello April

We are happy you are here!  I love all the seasons for a variety of different reasons and Spring has special qualities as the earth wakes back up sending green shoots out everywhere. It’s about coming back to life after the long winter deep sleep. And yet even though it feels like Spring today with birds chirping, warm weather mixed with a little rain ~ Groovy Girl doing homework outside at the patio table ~ we have to be ready for anything as last year we had a heavy snow fall right in the middle of April. I’ll wait until May 1st to take off my snow tires.

In my last two posts I’ve put my thoughts out there about garbage bags and the need to find one that composts everything inside of it. I want to take this idea one step farther and propose that all new plastic items be made out of plastic that already exists. I am a huge recycler of everything the recycling center says that I can recycle.  My family and research shows that our recycling program is a bit broken. Landfills are overflowing and people all around the globe produce way too much trash. Too many single use items everywhere. So my proposal means that all single use items like those stupid crinkly plastic bottles should be universally created from existing plastic already out there. This would give purpose to recycling again.

People could get paid for bringing in pounds of plastic collected instead of it ending up in our waterways and eventually the ocean. This reuse idea would use far less petroleum and while factories would need to restructure to be able to reuse the plastic instead of creating new ~ it would be worth it because there would be a constant influx of old going to make new.  And I still think some plastic items just need to go like plastic grocery bags. Kudos to cities that have already banned them and stores that encourage you to use what you have or what they offer like boxes. Perfect.  I would decree this if I were to be elected president or Queen.

Oh, it just started to pour outside and I love that sound. That is a sound of Spring ~ hopefully not enough to cause any floods.  Groovy Girl and I are on just a major rush of trying to find healthy ways to live our life without being earth destroyers. She’s interested in finding sustainable and recycled clothes. It’s just good to think about ways we can all be more earth-friendly.

I spent the weekend out of town in the major metropolis of Davenport, part of what is known as the Quad Cities. Groovy Girl had a dance competition event on Saturday. We found a good Asian place to eat and had a lot of good mama/daughter time. I had fun watching all the dancing but it also gives me a good chance to read.  I am almost finished with Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid.  Wow. This was my Book of the Month Club selection for March and if this is a sign of what’s to come I am very happy. This novel is so good and fun to read. I have about 3 friends in mind to pass it on to after my husband finishes it. It’s a lot of sex, drugs, and rock and roll so it isn’t for everyone but for me, it took me places I hadn’t thought about for years. So beautiful.

Happy peaceful week everyone!

Vacation waste

I love vacations! It’s tough being a super green person while you travel though.  There is a lot of waste in the journey and it’s painful.  One quick stay at a hotel can yield a ton of waste. I tried to research about hotel waste and all I could find was statistics in the U.K.

Driving, off course, uses gasoline to get to your destination.  And while you can bring healthy snacks along the way you can’t eat a main meal.  Well, I can because I’m a snacker, I can eat a lot of little meals and be just fine but others in my family have to eat a bigger real meal. My husband begins to snarl if he doesn’t eat a real meal along the road and his preferred sandwich shop is Subway.  We are anti-most-any-fast-food places but there are a few we are willing to stop at through any trip.  Meals here are made for throwing into the trash. Gross.  None of the containers are bio-degradable or recyclable (and if they were, they don’t provide a place to recycle it at the restuarant!)  This could change-and wouldn’t that be great.  So road trips create waste as you dine along your journey.

Hotels now provide breakfast which is a newer and good feature so you aren’t pushed out into your new location searching for a breakfast place every morning.  My husband would never do that anyway-we pack cereal in that case.  We’ve been to one amazing hotel in Minneapolis that used real plates, cups, and silverware for their breakfast and we loved it!  Most places have styrofoam or paper plates, all meant to be tossed away, and the trash can, after a breakfast with many sleepy people, is overflowing! It’s kinda gross to us.  You’ve all been there and many don’t even give it a second thought.  We think about it and try to figure ways around it.  One trip we actually packed our own plastic picnic plates for everyone to use.  Our teens were a tiny bit mortified but they used them amidst the stares of other diners.  We were only trying to impress ourselves and to not add to the huge overfilled garbage can.

Our last trip we forgot the plates until we had our first hotel breakfast and my husband and I both looked at each other and groaned.  To be fair it was our first trip in our newer Prius and packing was an issue.  Plates were not high on the list.  Next time though I will bring them no matter what especially if it is more than a one day trip.  A small thing we did to appease ourselves was to save our little plastic juice glasses and used them all three days we were there.

On the other hand when my two friends and I traipsed off to Greer’s Ferry for our reading retreat we made minimal impact on the environment.  Our compost waste was bigger than the small trash bag we barely filled.  That kind of travel lifted me up and made me realize how much this way of life is just part of me.  I use cloth napkins everyday.  I don’t use any excess paper products at home and it makes it very difficult to be that way out in the greater world. I bring my own travel mug to the coffee/tea shoppe.

Our trip was great though and it was wonderful to visit with friends for a few days.  The reading retreat, our meal at The Root in LR, Mary Poppins at The Rep, the fantastic bluegrass in Mountain View and The Old Mill in Little Rock were just a few highlights.

How do you deal with this on the road?  Any tricks you can pass on…