I think that given the two choices, you made the right decision about the peanut butter. I guess the best choice would have been to have foregone the peanut butter and eaten something else until you could get to the co-op. But cravings are cravings, and we can’t be all good all the time, can we?

I’ve thought about your suggestion that I should include my husband’s cottage cheese containers in my weekly tally. But I don’t think that they are the same as your benefiting from visiting parents. I don’t actually get any benefit from them at all because I don’t eat cottage cheese. And if I weren’t reusing his containers, I’d be reusing glass containers, so it’s not like I need him to keep buying cottage cheese so I’ll have containers for storing leftovers.

Like I said, if he brings something home that I can’t resist, I will add it to my tally, even if I’ve only taken a small spoonful. But not if it’s something just for him. He’s his own person and would be buying these things for himself whether he lived with me or not.

(We’re a pretty independent kinda couple.)

I think it’s important for everyone to remember that ditching all of your tupperware and then buying brand-new fancy glass storage containers is BAD for the planet. I really appreciate the thought you’ve put in to your waste management hierarchy, especially the emphasis on reduction and reuse.

I have one, small critique of your reporting method: I think you should report the spousal cottage cheese containers. I know it’s not fair to have to claim materials that weren’t your choice to begin with, but hey, isn’t that what the entire planet is doing? When I visit the parents and participate in their unsustainable lifestyle, I’m benefiting from their abuse of resources. This doesn’t mean that I won’t visit my folks (or that you should ditch the spouse); we just need to acknowledge the ways we are implicated in their decisions. So let’s see the cottage cheese on the list (with kudos for reusing them — I do this too).

Now for confessional time: I had a choice yesterday at the supermarket. I was caving in and buying peanut butter. I have been refusing to buy it for a while, telling myself that I’ll make the trip to the co-op and grind my own at their cool bulk peanut butter machine. However, the last time I stopped by the co-op, I didn’t bring a reusable jar (which is the whole point of my abstinence at the neighborhood grocery) and since I bike to the store, I don’t get out to the co-op that often and blah, blah, blah, excuse, yadda, yadda.

I should note that when I say peanut butter, I mean a jar of something that only has peanuts as an ingredient (and maybe salt).

The dilemma: peanut butter in a glass jar, proudly labeled “recyclable jar” and packaged with lots of green on the label implying (but not explicitly saying) that it’s organic or something and shelved in the cooler next to the organic juices and dairy, but (in the fine print), containing salt and made by ConAgra Foods — ADM’s competition to be the evil empire and put more local farmers out of business OR a plastic jar (which, it should be noted, is also recyclable even if it is less sustainable than glass) with no salt and made by a small company in the next state over which specifies no GM peanuts. (Caveat lector: I have no idea whether ConAgra uses GM peanuts, this could be a sneaky marketing ploy by the smaller company if they know full well that no one uses GM peanuts, but aren’t bragging about it — but I would consider it likely that there’s some frankennuts out there in Nebraska.

I chose the plastic — what’s a radical garbage man to do? This is the kind of anguish that reading your blog produces, so keep up the good consciousness raising work!