Believe me, I am not a purist, an environmentalist or a vegan, but there are some things that just get to me. I have problems with garbage on the road or in parking lots and also careless over production of waste. People have gambled their environment for convenience.
Like everybody else, I use plastic containers to bring my lunch to work and to store food. But once I came across information about the “plastic ocean”, I became a mad woman. I emailed everything I could find to my friends because I could not believe what I saw. But nonetheless, I really was not surprised due to the way people live their lives.
Have we become so lazy that we can’t wash a glass or a plate? What’s wrong with a reusable coffee mug for coffee or water? So many food items have gone “single serve” for convenience, but who pays for this? The consumer does because it’s more expensive and the rest of the world and future children pay too because of the ever increasing garbage that we can hardly handle. Try switching to larger packages and portion it out yourself to cut down on waste and cost. Because in today’s economy, who can afford to waste money!
We are lucky to live in North America where there is a lot of uninhabited land (future dumps), but in places like Italy, garbage piles up in the streets for months because they have nowhere to put it. As much as I love Italy, I would not want to deal with their garbage problems.
That’s why I was so happy to see that a large food company like ConAgra Foods is now using 30-40% recycled plastic for their frozen meal containers.
The company claimed it will:
- “Eliminate about 8 million pounds of plastic from going to landfills, which is the equivalent of approximately 128 million 20-ounce plastic bottles, per year.”
- “Save 236 million BTUs of energy, which is enough energy to run 2,593 average American homes for one year.”
- “Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15,200 tons of CO2 per year, which is the same as taking nearly 2,000 cars off the road each year.”
I don’t even eat frozen meals and I am all excited about this! I would love to hear what you are doing at home or in your community to help and if you have a little part in the big picture, because every little bit counts.
Thank you.
- Josee
For more information on plastic check out:
Nutrition Action's links
Recycle Now
Grinning Planet
Labels: Healthy Planet, Josee, Lifestyle Change
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