48 reasons I should have been named Daisy....
And here is where you become fully acquainted with the depths of my garbage guilt.I am mailing away my trash.
And I am thrilled about it.
I am personally paying, out of my own pocket, to box up and mail away my garbage. And before you even begin to scoff or shoot me a sly knowing looking from under your eyelashes let me specify that this is not a prank. Although can you imagine the look on Aunt Ruthie's face if she received my trash in the mail for her upcoming birthday? I can......hmm.....
But this is not a joke, it's reality.
Plastic #5 and I have a love hate relationship, I love the sour cream that comes in this number, but I hate the plastic. Or do I hate the fact that my county does not recycle this plastic? Or do I hate the fact that people would package and sell stuff and make it available in a county that does not recycle it? Or do I just hate the fact that I have been seriously trying to figure out if I can make my own sour cream so I can avoid all of these packaging issues but the allure and ease of store bought is like a siren in the oceans of temptation and I am the ship full of sailors about to be dashed upon the rocks?Well, for the time being, I am no longer lost at sea. I have a solution, perhaps not the BEST solution in the world but it's a step. I am mailing away my trash, all of the #5 plastics I have saved up and squirreled away in my closets with desperate hopes for inspiration to come down and conk me in the head so that I may make something with all of these sour cream containers and assuage my guilt that I even have them.
I could throw them away.
In fact I confess I have tried.
I have winged an empty #5 plastic sour cream container in to my trash can and walked a way. I made it about 3 steps before the wave of overwhelming guilt engulfed me. I just can't. Some people can't rob banks, some people can't get tattoos, some people can't say the Lord's name in vain but I just can't throw away a fricking sour cream container.
So I have been saving them. And occasionally when I open my craft closet they stand in there, a towering plastic monument of either my dedication or insanity, or more like a weird mixture of both. As a statue, it symbolizes my love of the environment, of my part in taking care of the earth, my awareness of trash production and contributing to the landfills but also that we might be sour cream addicts.
However no longer will this monument of #5 plastic mock me. Because I am mailing it away. There is a company called Preserve that creates products from recycled plastics and they accept mailed in contributions of #5 plastics. Their program is called the "Preserve Gimme 5". Before the hard core people jump on my back like lunatic monkeys, yes I realize mailing things off, consuming fuels and all that stuff has it's own negative impact on the environment as well but this is a start.
Also the company Preserve has done a study to analyze the impact of mailing #5 plastics away. And since they said it so much better and probably with less words and more punctuation than I ever could:
So you see, it's a step. It's not the ideal solution. I do not know what the ideal solution would be. For the world or me. Maybe for me it would just be completely weaning off of items that are packaged in #5 plastics. We already have started this to a point. We buy as many products as we can that come in containers we can recycle. I save what ever can't be recycled and at least try to reuse it, giving it an extra life, one more purpose at the very least before being shipped off to some mysterious hole in the ground.
I have a dream.
Zero trash household. Ohhhh I got goosebumps. Like most things this will be something I will have to work at and for. It's not the sort of thing that is going to happen over night. But you never know......can you imagine how fabulous it would feel to some day not be responsible for any non-recyclable trash? Ohhh goosebumps again.
If you also suffer from #5 plastic guilt then perhaps we ought to start a support group. I can bring cookies and coffee and tubs of sour cream and we can share our woes over the lack of acceptance of #5 plastic in our own counties. And then we can make enchiladas and decorate boxes of trash to mail away.
It'll be fun.
For the time being I have 48 less reasons to feel guilty when I haul my trash down to the curb. Though I do now have 48 reasons to seriously consider the sour cream consumption in this household of two people. Seriously you'd think we gulp down mugs of the stuff for breakfast lunch and dinner. They say the human body is 70 % water, not here, we have to be at least 70% sour cream by now.....Labels: environmentally friendly, recycling, slice of life
5 Comments:
I am in! I will join the support group.
Perhaps we should publish a sour cream cookbook.
Have you slurped?
Ginny, the only thing about this sour cream book our support group should publish is that at least 90 % of my recipes go like this" "Add sour cream to the side of plate, enjoy" or my favorite "scoop a dollop of sour cream on top, enjoy" hahaha
A *Driving Miss Daisy* you are! Oh Miss Tace, it felt gooooooood to read up in your stories today from my own chair at my own desk with my dogs at my feet (which are surprisingly cold here in CA after playing in the snow just a few days ago - my body is all out of whack).
Anyway, things I need to tell you today . . . thank you for making me smile so many times while I was away. Your friendship and support and fun comforting comments meant more to me than you could possibly imagine. I could not bring myself to blog read while I was away because I was so darn tense and getting very home and art blog-sick. But I read the comments people left for me and you made me a little less homesick and happy and relaxed. So, thank you, my friend, for being you and for being my friend.
Next, CONGRATULATIONS on your driver's license! Wowwee! I know about conquering mountains. Did you know I was afraid of flying for the last 12 years (bet you had no idea, wink, wink) and I flew twice in two weeks and did not fall apart NOR did I have to be slapped out (by a flight attendant fearing for the safety of his/her other passengers) of a hysterical fit. I managed to quell quietly the 2 gazillion swarming crazy butterflies in my tummy and hide my white knuckles and play it all very cool and subdued and somehow my plane didn't crash and I didn't either. So, cheers to us for conquering our mountains of fear and for putting one foot in front of another and doing what we were afraid to do. That is what bravery is my husband would tell you, to do what you're afraid to do. So, we're brave, you and I. We are strong women, just as we suspected and should do just fine in our shelter thing we're going to build and live in when the world what is it now? kabooms? That's not the word but you get the idea. We could have possibly built said shelter from your sour cream containers, though, you know. At least we know we need to plan for and stock up on slim jims, sour cream, asparagus, and books that I can organize as I am strangely looking forward to, realizing I am strange to find that silver lining in the idea that the world might kaboom and I look forward to organizing the leftovers.
Oh, it's good to be home and Tace's stalker. Happy upcoming Anniversary! I look forward to a story about that.
Love you like a stalker
marsha
Helllooo Ms. TumbleFish, so good to see you back *home*, so to speak!! I wonder if we can get merit badges, what with your flight not once but twice and my license we surely ought to get gold stitched merit badges to sew on to our sleeves and flash in every one's faces. Something subtle but elegant, the sort of patch that could take us from the chilly aisles of a super market to the smoky interior of a las vegas casino....
I should have thought of making my post boom locka boom shelter out of sour cream containers, I would probably have enough for 36" thick walls by the time the boom locka boom happens. But alas, the sour cream production could be gone by then and the torment of that logo staring me in my post boom locka boom face, day after day after fricking sour cream-less day....it could be too much.
On an unrelated to sour cream or post apocalyptic-ness note, I occasionally order my books. Just the Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb ones. The organization usually lasts about a minute and a half. ;)
Toujours moi says, OH, My Gosh!!!!
Poor Aunt Ruthie and your tubs on her birthday. I might have a few I could add since there may not be enough of yours. Just let me know.
(Duh, what exactly do they mark about her birthday, clue me I won't tell)
p.s. I have to sign this way I forgot who I was,er, am, er Oh heck does it matter?????
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