Category: frugal

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flea markets and thrift stores

I spent Sunday meandering around the ginormous antiques fair in Alameda and Monday I did research at several local thrift stores. In all of my travels, I looked at how much plastic is discarded and reused, as well as what alternatives there are for non-plastic use in the home. The items in the photo are some of my finds. I’ll name them, clockwise: ice tray, canisters, cheese grater, nut chopper with new red handle, soap-chip swisher, lawn sprinkler head, jar grabber and fireplace bread toaster. The item in the center is a wall-mounted bottle opener (obviously not mounted anywhere yet). As I start to weed out some of the plastics in our house that may actually be harming us (Teflon, for example), I have been looking out for non-plastic items that would work just as well.
The nut chopper has a plastic top that broke when someone dropped it, but instead of discarding it, I found a new handle, a wooden one for 10 cents, as I mentioned the other day. This way, I can keep using the nut chopper as long as no one else drops it. If they do, I’ll then see about replacing the plastic lid with a metal one, so I can keep chopping nuts the old fashioned way (no electricity).
I don’t expect to use the bread toaster so much, except when camping or cooking out, but it’s nice to have non-electric options. The sprinkler head is brass and will probably work for another 50 years. The canisters are enameled tin and will work as well as Tupperware for keeping my baking ingredients dry and tasty. My favorite item, however, is the soap-chip implement.

The other day LisaPie asked what I do about the impossible issue of plastic bottles of dishwashing soap. Well, here’s your answer, LisaPie! I’ve had the swisher on the right (with soap chips) for a year or so. They cost just a few dollars at thrift stores or flea markets, and if you see one, get it! You put your leftover soap chips and slivers inside the little cage and then swish it in water. This makes soap suds for washing dishes or fine washables. It also uses up those pesky little soap chips (unless you use them already to make homemade laundry detergent or liquid hand soap). There’s no plastic involved in this handy instrument; it’s a wooden handle and metal cage. I use it in a sinkful of water, then set it in the silverware drainer to drip dry.
If you can’t find one in your antique shop (I paid $4), try using the plastic netting that your onions come in. Put the soap chips into the netting and tie a knot. Voila — you have dish soap! That netting will last you quite some time. (Onion netting is also a great kitchen scrubber. I sew mine into squares but just tie it into knots and start scrubbing. They *never* wear out.) Yes, the onion netting is plastic, but since you’re reusing it (forever), you are not wasting the effort of making it, etc. It’s a reuse that also avoids further need for plastic-manufacturing, transport, packaging, etc.

That’s how it’s done…(dusts off hands).

What I noticed about plastics at the antiques fair is that there *aren’t* a lot of old plastic things that are useful. Most of what I saw seems to be kitschy stuff like toys or decor that people have saved but not worn out. In other words, not really useful but more fun or decorative items. Another way to consider this is that perhaps plastics don’t hold up under heavy daily wear. I notice that plastic food storage as well as bags get sticky-feeling after a few washes, and then the bags start feeling too gross to reuse. The sticky Tupperware takes a while to get really grody, but when it gets there, who wants to use it? At that point, it;s not going to become an antique. It’s going to get recycled — or very likely just thrown away.

In my thrift store travels, I was happy to find lots of cast iron and simple stainless steel kitchen items. I got a cookie sheet to replace my Teflon ones — the Teflon pans will go into the garden or garage for non-food use. They make great art trays, by the way, keeping beads and such from rolling off the table, if you’re replacing your cookie sheets. I also found several glass containers to use instead of Tuppers for storing food items like rice, nuts, raisins, and so on. I bought metal shower curtain hooks, a wooden Lazy Susan, a couple of baskets and wooden boxes for storage, heavy pressed paper placemats (British-style pub placemats), and a really ugly ceramic tape dispenser (it has a sailboat on it and is so ugly that I can’t bear to show it to you — but… no more Scotch tape dispensers). Since I was thrifting, I don’t think I spent more than a dollar or two on each item, and because they are used, that fits my Compact pledge (the buy-no-new stuff group to which I’ve belonged for four years now). On the other hand, there were lots of cheap plastic toys and tons of polyester clothing, all of which smells bad (polyester traps body odor and then releases it when warm, yuk).

It feels like all I’m doing is shopping and talking about shopping — my point is to show that it’s not expensive to replace harmful items in your home, and I will be able to donate or recycle the plastics I have now and wish to replace. Getting rid of plastics is not an elitist thing. I’m not trying to make people buy stuff — rather, the greenest option is almost always to buy nothing at all! Ordinarily I wouldn’t be out shopping anyway, since mass consumption is not good for my budget or the planet. But as part of the project, I think it’s important to show readers that there are other ways, and that you have choices, and those choices can avoid plastic if that’s what you choose to do.

Last item for the day: another scourge upon the earth…Mylar.

I honestly don’t know what to do with these. They are not even plastic. I can’t recycle them. I was thinking that I;d save and reuse them for gift wrap, but at some point they will be too torn to reuse. Eventually, these will go to landfill. I don’t buy these anymore. My kids sometimes do, and I can’t stop them from every bringing a Mylar bag to the house again. When I start to think about how many billions of bags of chips are eaten in a day, a week, a year, I start to feel like Carl Sagan talking about the universe…”Billions and billions….” It makes me feel sick to think of how much trash is generated by the 5-minute eating of grease and fat and salt that constitutes these snacks.

I can say “no more plastics.” I can refuse to buy these things. But lots of people do, and that’s not likely to stop soon. I know there’s a plan by Terracycle to recycle these, if your school or company chooses to participate. None of my kids’ schools are participating. Terracycle doesn’t accept individual bags. I really don’t want to make a purse or a bracelet out of this stuff. So I’m just offering these if anyone wants them. You want my garbage? I’ll pay the postage.

In 14 days, I’ve grown the point where these really make me feel ill and depressed, knowing how long they’ll sit in landfill. Sigh.

Your thoughts?

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fresh fruit & veg

One of my favorite weekly outings is to the Alameda Farmers’ Market — we’re lucky enough to have a twice-weekly market about a mile or so from my house. Yes, it’s a bike ride away. I take my own bags, fill up the panniers and pedal home again. Easy peasy. Even better, none of the produce that I buy at the farmers’ market has even one of those stupid fruit labels on it. Plastic! ptooey!

There was a funny Rhymes with Orange comic printed a few years ago that cracked me up: The lady is sitting in front of an x-ray machine and the doctor sees all these fruit labels in the woman’s belly. “I think I know what’s bothering you,” he says, or some such. (Wish I could find that link!) The point is that those little stickers are inedible, indestructible, impossible. Awful. Criminal! I have seen them floating around my yard after they’ve decomposed off the fruit rind or skin in the compost, then blow away. I’ve read that these fruit stickers gum up the works in plumbing and sewage treatment plants. Can’t the grocery stores teach their checkers a few numbers or have a master list without poisoning our produce with these egregious little fiends?

The farmers’ market doesn’t use the fruit-label stickers. There’s no middle (wo)man. You get your veggies directly from the farmer (more likely his employees or family). They will happily put your fruit and veggies in a plastic bag, yes — but they’re also delighted to let you use your own bags. Yay for no plastic!

I also find that the produce prices are drop-dead affordable at our farmers’ market, though I’ve been to some markets where this isn’t the case. There is ongoing debate about affordable organic produce — how it’s an elitist luxury because it’s so expensive. But I do very well with my budget at the farmers’ market, getting heads of lettuce for $1, pounds of fruit for just a dollar or two per pound, and the vendors are generous with the lagniappe — the baker’s dozen of plums or tomatoes. One extra, no charge. They’re great about cleaning house at the end of the market, willing to bargain for crates of bruised fruit for jam or less than perfect veggies for a song. Our market accepts food stamps (EBT) as well, and in my opinion, there’s no better place to get the freshest produce. Knowing that I can avoid plastic is just one more reason to love the farmers’ market.

Another option for some people is the CSA (community supported agriculture) box which is delivered weekly, semi-weekly or monthly to your door or a central pick-up location. We get a CSA box in winter months; in summer, we don’t need it because of our own prolific vegetable garden. Here’s the link to our vendor, but there are many in the Bay Area and elsewhere. One thing I like about CSAs, or at least this one, is that you can tell them what you like and dislike (please, no garlic or mustard in my box!).

I forgot I was expecting a delivery of veggies last week and opened the door one morning to see my box of fresh produce — woo hoo! There were a couple of items wrapped in plastic in the box — endive was shrink-wrapped in Styrofoam, plus there were one or two large plastic bags surrounding the other veggies. It’s much less plastic than I would have faced at a regular grocery store or at the egregious produce-wrapper, Trader Joe’s (infamous for its clamshell packaging of four sterile apples or tomatoes and anything else that once grew on a tree). However, I plan to write an e-note to the CSA main office and request no more plastic or Styrofoam in future boxes. If that means I miss out on endive, oh well, too bad for me. I’ll also miss out on the Styrofoam and plastic.

Garbage can tally as of today, Day 9, on the night before trash pickup: just three items in the can, including the chewed gum, plus a granola bar wrapper (Mylar) and a weird piece of plasticky stuff that came on a food package. I went through our adult daughter’s trash can and it was pretty gnarly, but I wore gloves and stood next to the recycling and green waste cans to do it. I rescued 2 glass jars (gonna wash), a perfectly good orange (gonna eat it), a couple of bruised leftover lunch fruits (gave to the chickens), a bag full of fabric and doll parts (gonna give to an artsy friend), a ton of cigarette butts/ashes (argh! green waste), a bunch of plastic (moved to the plastic recycling bag that I return to the grocery store), a couple of items of clothing (washed and will give to Goodwill), a handful of new unwrapped Bandaids (put them in my pocket for later use) and a whole bunch of paper and foil from various sources (recycled). This was a disgusting job, but part of the routine now, if I plan to keep our actual waste output low. But do it in gloves. Seriously — ick.

With three small items in our new 20-gallon gray can, I have no reason to put this on the curb, thereby saving everyone a little energy. I’d call this a win over plastics for the week, wouldn’t you?

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Shoppy Shop Talk, Part II

Yesterday’s shopping adventures included the purchase of several personal care or cleaning items. I made the leap and purchased a wooden comb and a wooden-handled toothbrush, both by Bass, silk dental floss, tea tree oil toothpicks, and a box of baking soda. Why baking soda? Because, in addition to the many other uses of this amazing ingredient, from cleaning the sink, toilet and floor to washing your hair, brushing your teeth, washing clothes, and eliminating odors, the 1-pound box is about $1, and it’s cardboard. A pound of anything for $1 is a good deal, if you ask me, but this stuff is truly miraculous. And unfortunately, I found almost nothing else for household cleaning that wasn’t in plastic packaging. I also can’t find any toothpaste that’s not in a plastic tube. If I want to be truly plastic-free, I’m going to have to start brushing with plain baking soda.

I will add kudos for this Seventh Generation laundry soap package (see photo): It’s HE detergent so you use just a little; the shell is made of compostable cardboard; the plastic cap and inner bag are recyclable; and the company is a solid “green” company that has proven its stance on protecting the environment. This package was purchased at Alameda Natural Grocery ($19.79). The price, however, made me gag.
I will go back to making my own laundry detergent when this is gone (2 cups baking soda, 2 cups borax powder, with about half a cup to 1 cup of grated soap — any kind, leftover chips from the bathtub, shell- or flower-shaped gift soaps, Fels-Naptha or whatever you have leftover from hotels, etc.) I store this in a plastic ice cream tub (a great reuse opportunity) with instructions for 1/2 cup per load written in Sharpie, and the half-cup left in the tub, so anyone can use it. Our clothes come out very nicely with no residue and no fake scents. I add a half cup of white vinegar sometimes if it’s a Stinky Boy or sports load. That’s it, and my soap costs way less than $20, I’ll tell you! Costco sells a 10 -12 lb. package of Arm & Hammer baking soda in a plastic sack for about $6. (Here’s where I’d weigh the benefits of the outcome over the plastic packaging.)

I don’t mind cleaning; in fact, I like to clean and will clean anything — IF I have gloves. No gloves? No touchee. I’m super-squeamish about touching nasty stuff with bare hands, and wear gloves for many projects, inside and out. I even wear them on public transportation because ew, ick, germs. But most latex gloves, one-use gloves, etc? Bad, bad, bad. (Read up on latex and rubber if you want to know how the production  of these ingredients has destroyed forests and led to international wrangling, downright hostilities and oppression of native peoples.) To cut to the chase, however, I found a pair of cotton-lined ethically sourced latex gloves that are biodegradable, plus recycled/recyclable packaging. The company is If You Care; check them out and see if they can help you help save the planet, too.

I mentioned the wooden comb and toothbrush only to show that a gal can get overexcited in the presence of non-plastics. I will eventually need a new toothbrush, so that’s OK, but the comb was an impulse buy. I already stated for the record that I wasn’t going to randomly throw away stuff that’s good and working, just because it’s plastic. Here’s where I spit the bit, as Mr. Husband would say. (I’d chalk up one for plastics here, but plastics didn’t earn any points. So ha ha.) I also bought silk dental floss — you may not be aware that all of these “glide”-type flosses have Teflon coatings and nylon filament instead of cotton or other organic materials. What is nylon? Plastic. What is Teflon? Plastic. It’s indestructible in nature, and birds have been known to eat it or get tangled. So consider seeking out a natural alternative, including a spool of cotton quilting thread (doesn’t break too easily, and you get about a mile of it in one spool). I bought the tea tree toothpicks to replace Flos-Piks, a take-along dental pick that is plastic, often wrapped in another plastic wrap, inside a plastic bag. Yeesh! Bad news, bears! Grab a toothpick if you need to, and try to avoid the ones in plastic wrap.Back in the day, long ago when Jane Austen walked the planet, a dandy could get a silver toothpick to carry in his pocket. Now wouldn’t that be dandy to have?

Other items of note from yesterday’s ventures: My family likes burritos, and I was pleased to see paper-wrapped fresh burritos to go at the Lucky deli counter (in the cheese display). Great for grab and go! Bagels are available fresh at Lucky and Safeway bakery departments, and you can take a paper bag to fill, or bring your own bread bag. Specialty bagel shops, including Noah’s, or Alameda’s House of Bagels and Boogie Woogie Bagel Boy (both on Park Street) sell fresh bagels by the piece or as many as you want — I haven’t asked, but surely they will let you bring your own bag instead of giving you another plastic bag. Ask for the cream cheese *on* the bagel instead of in a plastic cup, or ask for a paper cup, or go buy your own cream cheese, which, as I mentioned last week, still comes in foil and paper.

One of yesterday’s stops was at Farmstead Cheeses and Wines at the Marketplace in Alameda, and Jeff Diamond, the owner, couldn’t have been nicer. Although cheeses are displayed in plastic wrap, the chunks you take home are wrapped in paper. I got two artisinal California (locally made!) cheeses — California jack and Point Reyes blue — for about what I would have paid for similar at the grocery chains, and got to skip the plastic. I heartily recommend buying cheese from a cheesemonger if you have access to one.

I have to address the financial aspect of non-plastic shopping, and will return to this topic again, as well. Instead of my usual $150 a week, I spent more than $300 yesterday, and that is simply not sustainable in our checkbook. True, I bought wine, vodka and that flippin’ pricey bottle of laundry soap. The organics and specialty items are way pricier than the store brands and massed produced foodstuffs. However, there’s a learning curve at play. Since I’m still adjusting to how to live without buying plastics, I’m hoping to discover better prices, more shortcuts, a way to use coupons or bulk buys to save money, and so on. I’m doing the legwork to show y’all how it’s done, in your own town, and I hope, to inspire you to let go of the plastics in your life, too.

Tomorrow: The farmers’ market and CSA home delivered produce — how to avoid the stupid little plastic sticker on your fruit.

News Updates:

  • I picked up our dry cleaning and they kept their promise about no plastic. I took the clothes home, no problem. In future, if I had a lot of white shirts, for example, I think I would take along a clean sheet and wrap the clothes lightly with the sheet if I was really worried about keeping them clean, if weather was bad, etc.
  • Garbage tally for the week: 1 piece of chewed Nicoret (nicotine) gum. That’s it. We have the new 20-gallon can and the only thing in it is a piece of chewed yellow gum. Everything else, so far, has been diverted from landfill by composting or recycling. Julia, 6; plastics, 3 (I added a point to plastics when I had the blues on Monday).
  • I made an exploratory trip to Berkeley Bowl en route to another destination and my Lawd, I think I found the Promised Land. Will discuss this type of store in more detail soon.
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shoppy shop talk, Part I

I’m back from a full day of grocery shopping and exploring non-plastic items. I went to three stores today as well as the farmers’ market and a small cheese shop. I have good news to report almost everywhere, except at the bank. There, the news is scary. See that shopping cart in the photo? Those two bags of groceries cost me $98. (falls over in dead faint…) There’s so much to tell that I’m gonna spread this over two days. Because who doesn’t want to talk about food prices and plastic, ad nauseum? I do, I do!!

Today I went to Lucky, CVS, Alameda Natural Grocery, Farmstead Cheeses and Wines, and the Alameda Farmers’ Market. (Last week I went to Safeway, Trader Joe’s and Raleys/Nob Hill.)

Usually I don’t grocery shop much on alternate weeks because we’re out of ready cash. In pay weeks I do a Big Shopping, and in off weeks, a Little Shopping. Little Shopping can mean a trip to the farmers’ market, plus stops for milk and bread. Big Shopping has meant, prior to the Plastic Purge, cutting of coupons, reading of sales circulars, schlepping around town to various stores, a triumphant return home with about 20 bags full of BOGOs, rebate items, sale items and so on, with about 50 percent savings at each location. Then we coast on this food til the next payday. This isn’t how the financial planners would have us do it, but this is how we do it; it’s imperfect, but does the trick, and the savings has really helped us cut back on debt. Cutting out the plastic wasn’t really in the mix — buying local and organic items was higher up the priority list than plastic packaging.

So, shopping:
Snacky things are always on the list for my family — I have two adult daughters at home who work fulltime and frequently need to grab and go — coffee on the run, a granola bar and a piece of fruit. When they get home, they also snack. So does The Boy, who is hitting a growth streak and suddenly wants to eat everything. Snacks, besides fruit and cheese and nuts, are always in demand. As for me, I have a sweet tooth. What’s out there for a sweetie like me who wants candy or cookies — without plastic?

I bake most of our cookies, cakes and pies, but today I purchased a tin of Danish butter cookies. The tin is reusable until the End of Time, and there’s no plastic. Sometimes these tins will have an Ambient Plastic wrap around the edge but this one didn’t. Yay! I was also happy to put an Almond Roca tin in the cart, a roll of Mentos (paper and foil), a paper box of Good-n-Plenty, and two kinds of chocolate bars. Hershey’s — the larger size is paper and foil, but most smaller sizes as well as minis are wrapped in plastic, and possibly packed inside a plastic bag, too. Cadbury and Toblerone bars are also in paper, foil or cardboard. There are a number of exotic chocolate bars that are packaged in paper and foil, if you can spare $4 to spend on a candy bar. I’m trying to keep my shopping as mainstream as possible, if I can — thus, a large Hershey’s, at about $2, and not plastic wrapped, works for me. (Another challenge would be to eat only fair trade foods, in which case Hershey’s would lose out big-time and the other exotics would win a big gold star.)

I’m sorry to say that hard candy, Altoids, and any kind of gum except possibly Tiny Chicklets are out of the question, in terms of avoiding plastic. Altoids is in a tin, then taped shut with shrink-wrap — feh! I am still unable to find any kind of health or snack bar (granola, cereal, protein, etc) that isn’t packaged up like a fly swathed in a spider web. Potato chips, aside from Boulder Canyon and Sun Chips, continue to disappoint me in their packaging, even the most wholesome, organic, flax-seed-studded crunchy thing. Nope. All wrapped in plastic. Since I have yet to find tortilla chips in anything but plastic, I will try using Sun Chips as a base for nachos and tacos later this month. The original variety will work well enough.

I did discover a gem in the cracker aisle — an old friend, the Wasa Crispbread. In several varieties, with a low price point, Wasa is widely available and very tasty. It’s wrapped in paper (though there is a variety in plastic — avoid!), and one could put this into a Tupperware bin of some sort to keep them crispy longer. These are wonderful with cheese or as a pizza base. Every other cracker box (I poked my finger into some and shook and rattled others) has a plastic bag inside the box. Friends, we’re talking about 30 different kinds of crackers at four different stores. Wasa is the only one I could find without plastic. Not even matzos are exempt from plastic, and that’s just not kosher, in my book. A reader mentioned that Grape-Nuts comes loose in a box, a la cat kibble, but I tried several sizes and brands (faux Grape-Nuts are terrible, by the way). All had a plastic bag inside the box. Bah!
I will add that I bought Triscuits, despite the plastic bag inside (I poked my finger in to be sure). But Triscuits has an interesting campaign going on now, encouraging home vegetable growing, and includes a packet of basil seeds in the cardboard of the box. I thought it was worth buying that to explore the green steps Nabisco is taking. Check out the link to the Plant a Seed, Grow a Movement Web site.
Snackwise, I was able to buy sunflower seeds in bulk (raw, so I’ll have to brine and toast them myself for Mr. Husband’s softball nights and spitting pleasure) and pretzels in bulk. I found plenty of bulk dried fruits, nuts, yogurt-covered pretzels, raisins, sesame twigs, and carob or chocolate covered fruit and nuts. I will definitely be back with my own containers for a dip into the bulk bins at Alameda Natural Grocery as well as those at Nob Hill last week. Another plus at ANG is the bulk cereals: Everyone with bins has bulk granola, and I make it myself, so who cares about the bulk granola? But I love my cereal, 24/7, so I was thrilled to discover organic corn flakes and a kind of oat Os (a la Cheerios) at ANG. I brought my own containers to fill and it was easy to do. I wrote down the bin numbers in a notebook frm my purse for check-out. I have already tried the corn flakes, and they blow Kellogg’s away. Much crisper, and they stand up to the milk. Yum!
Speaking of milk, I plunged in and bought the half-gallon of Strauss milk in the glass bottle. True, it has a plastic cap that can be recycled, and there was a $2.50 deposit on the bottle. But at $4.29 for a half-gallon of organic whole milk, from a local dairy, in a glass bottle, with cash back when I return the bottle — this is a sweet purchase. And it’s delicious on the organic corn flakes. I also bought the Strauss half and half, a pint for $2.19, with a $2.50 deposit. I usually pay about $2 for a quart in a general grocery store. This is one change I can commit to — milk in glass bottles. Yes!
Not only that, but I took another reader’s suggestion and sought out St. Benoit yogurt. This comes in plain or honey flavors and is a quart jar full of yogurty goodness. It set me back about $6 for 30 oz., which is more than I would have paid for a dozen Yoplaits, but with one glass jar I can reuse or recycle, instead of a dozen plastic tubs. This was also from ANG. Another highlight from Alameda Natural Grocery: I found ketchup in glass bottles, several varieties. Can’t wait to try it. Got that smoked paprika I was looking for, for when I make my own ketchup this summer with all my homegrown tomatoes, and the spice is in a little tin. I love that!
Other items in bottles purchased today include wine (but why must wines have that stupid plastic wrap over the cork? It’s not lead, it’s plastic.); vodka (glass bottles, yes, metal caps, yes, but a little plastic built-in jigger! What if I want to pour a large tot? Can’t I be the judge of my drink strength?), and locally made vermouth (Gallo, with a metal cap and no plastic). Juice in glass bottles tends to be pricier, so I’ll buy less. And juice is not all that good for you — it’s just sugar, whether you buy the HFCS kind or pure juice (fructose is still sugar). So it’s better for our health if I don’t buy much juice. I just got one quart today, Santa Cruz lemonade, made in Chico, not Santa Cruz.
I found fruit in glass at two locations: the store brand at CVS, where for $1 a jar, you get peaches, fruit cocktail or apple slices in light syrup, and at Lucky I got a jar of mandarin orange slices, about $2 for the jar, same amount as you’d get in a $1 can. I also swooped on some grapefruit segments in a glass jar. These are all great in salads, over cottage cheese, in a lunch box, etc. I like being able to see the fruit, and I appreciate that it’s in a better quality package than plastic — but the downside is that glass is heavier and weighs more to ship. That could add to extra fuel to ship, making the food miles for a glass product greater for a glass item then a plastic, canned or paper-wrapped similar item. (Read up on food miles if you’re unfamiliar with the term — it’s an important part of my selection of locally grown and produced foods.)
As I said, I have lots more to chat about, re groceries, and will continue tomorrow. My purpose here isn’t to tediously outline everything we buy and eat, but to show what is and isn’t available without plastic, and how to decide what’s a better buy. More to come in the Plastic Purge — tomorrow, cleaning supplies, bathroom items, and some surprise discoveries, plus fun at the farmers’ market! Woot!
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Sunday musing

One of the pleasures of a Sunday morning (besides a tasty bowl of cereal) is the newspaper, that fat bundle lying like a gift on the front step. I (heart) the Sunday paper. The nice delivery person, a mystery visitor to our home once a week, leaves the paper on the front step, so close to the door that I could fetch it bare nekkid and still be OK. So why does s/he feel the need to wrap it in plastic? Not just on rainy days, but every week?
Note to self: contact San Francisco Chronicle and have the plastic bags stopped. The worst thing that could happen without the bag is that my paper gets wet, and guess what? It will dry. I know sometimes they put little samples of Tide or gum or something in the bag. Guess what? I don’t want that stuff, either. Which reminds me: I should also call my local newspapers that deliver once a week and ask for no plastic bags.

I know some people use these slender bags for dog poop pick-up (yay for using them a second time!). I vastly appreciate the picking up of dog poop by the owner and do not like having to clean up after irresponsible folks who let their dogs roam free to poop, willy-nilly, on my lawn. However, wrapping dog poo in plastic only makes it easy on you. It’s not actually good for the planet. Consider taking a few sheets of newspaper instead, so that the little package you pick up has a chance of decomposing a little more easily. It’s just a suggestion; don’t hate me.
Another much more annoying item on the front walk is the plastic-sheathed Kohl’s circular, delivered with annoying frequency — two or three times a week, it seems? Come on — how much stuff do you have to sell, and how many times do you think I will read about it? Word: I never read it, and have always, previously, just thrown it in the garbage, being too annoyed even to strip the plastic and recycle the paper. Note to self: Contact Kohl’s, track down who is making these local deliveries, and demand that they stop dropping this on my walk. If I have any success, I promise to post it here, for your benefit. (There, now you don’t hate me as much.)
Also today: Mr. Husband came home with fast food from Taco Bell, and made sure to avoid anything (like the nachos or enchirito) with a plastic tray. His paper food wraps are all compostable, but he was given a lid and straw with his drink. The hot sauce packets are foil, but he said no to those and a spork (plastic, also wrapped in plastic), since we already have taco sauce packets at home and regular silverware. I’m not recommending fast food, but if you do eat it, there are ways to reduce the plastic. I’d call the score even on this one — avoided some plastic, punked by some plastic.

I’m going to have to sit and look over our budget for the month of June, because money-wise, buying food without plastics has already proven to be more expensive. It’s also proving more time-consuming, re cooking and snacking from scratch, as well as much healthier. But money is money. Our food budget for 5 people is usually less than $500 per month. It tops out at about $800, with more mouths and fancier food during the holidays (Dungenness crab, hello!), but usually we do pretty well. If buying better food in order to avoid plastic is a new direction for us, I will have to seriously consider other budget items: gasoline, cable TV, entertainment, pocket money, and other semi-flexible expenses.

On the other hand, forays to Taco Bell notwithstanding, we are eating like kings. Delicious cantaloupe and berries, fresh salami on whole grain baguettes, local dairy butter, olive oil, wonderful turnips, carrots, kale and bok choy, and the occasional gourmet potato chip or mint Milano. No complaints as to quality, while a year ago, on the Food Stamp Challenge, we were eating hot dogs, cheap cuts of chicken, and lots of starch.

If eating well and helping to keep some plastic from the waste stream is the end result of this Challenge, then “no plastic” may well become a lifelong change.

Results:
I called the San Francisco Chronicle (800-310-2455) and they put a note to my distributor to ditch the plastic bag. Julia 5, plastics 2.