Comments on: Plastic-free Thanksgiving: Pumpkin Pecan Risotto, Brussels Sprouts, Winter Salad

By: Fake Plastic Fish

Fake Plastic Fish — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:57:00 +0000

Hey, Hayley. I hope you will stop back and see my answer to your awesome comment. Thank you so much for posting. It's not too long. It's truthful, and that's what matters.

Hayley, you can only do what you can do. You can't change your parents. You really can't change other people. Other people will change if and when they are ready to, and maybe not at all.

But what you can do is change your own actions. Educate yourself as much as possible. Read about plastic in the North Pacific Gyre, for example. Read the article, Plastic Ocean and pass it along to your friends. Read about other environmental issues. Then, decide that you will do and do what you can. Don't beat yourself up if you slip up. Just keep trying the best you can.

Your example will help others to see what is possible as long as you are not "preachy" or self-righteous about it. Bring your cloth bags shopping. If your mom collects more, that is not your fault. Bring your reusable water bottle with you and fill it up. Turn off lights and other electronics when not in use. There are all kinds of things you can do personally.

Think your small actions won't make a difference? They will. They will change the most important person -- you. They will help you to more fully become the type of person you already are -- someone who cares about more than her small self. Someone who realizes that she is connected to everything and that her actions affect everything around her.

What to do with those plastic bags -- how about creating your own bag monster and then using it for a plastic bag action at your school. You could plan your own "Day Without A Bag." E-mail me privately and I'll hook you up with folks who can help. beth [at] fakeplasticfish [dot] com.

By: Hayley

Hayley — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:53:00 +0000

Oh dear, be prepared for a super long post.
I've been lurking at this blog for maybe three months now, waiting and waiting over and over again to introduce myself...
And I now I've finally gotten down to it. As I tend to be rather tangential, I wouldn’t advice reading all of this post. But I’m going to write it because I want to.
So, here it is:
I am Hayley you-don’t-need-to-know-my-last-name, your 13 year old worst enemy.
Worst enemy? Well, environmentalists worst enemy. My family is, uhh, well…”well-off”. Three, formerly four, of us live on the lakefront of the North suburbs of Chicago, in a 5 million dollar custom built house, with a small forest behind our backyard, a 20k pond, a personal movie theater…and, well, you don’t want to know. But I’ll tell you. We have a giant house-wide sound system which can store up to like 600,000 songs, and takes up an entire closer. My parents refuse to talk about money, but I’ve managed to gather some figures by careful observation.
My Dad is your personal worst enemy, Beth. He owns a private equity firm (which buys companies, makes them worth more and then sells them) and one of his companies is a major producer of…you guessed it, plastic bottles. He also has roofing and flooring companies, furniture companies, pill-counting machine companies…I don’t know exactly how much he owns, but while I was working on his website he slipped and said that $225 million was very low.
So why am I here? Because I do care, I just can’t alter my family’s lifestyle. I can’t, and don’t want, to stop the flights upon flights that bring us to our various vacations, I can’t stop my Mom buying plastic-packaged food, can’t get my Dad to do anything at all for the environment if it makes him go out of his way. I could do a lot more than I do, but it is hard. Its hard to not buy anything to drink every lunch, hard to resist the pop sitting in our small drink refrigerator (okay, so we have six refrigerators in the house. Big deal). I can bring plastic bags to re-use every time I go with my mother to the grocery store, but can’t stop her from bringing home more plastic the rest of the time. And there is no way I can negate the three giant hunks of plastic that are my asthma inhalers, or the three constant subscription drug bottles from ending up in my trash can. And honestly, I’m often just to busy to bother to fish out plastic bags from my garbage can or nag my parents. I have school (with lots of homework-I hate honors courses), hours of swimming, extra-curricular activities like Science Olympiad or Latin…
I try some, but I fail. And I should try harder. I’m working on that one…

End of introduction, I’ll get to my two answers to your question and a few questions of my own.
-Nope, recession hasn’t changed a thing for me. I can’t figure out how much money we lost, but I know it’s a decent amount, but its not enough to really effect us.
-Madonna x)

-What is something useful I can do with the plastic bags I collect that I don’t need to reuse? I’m paranoid about making anything that might waste them, but don’t want to just recycle them…help?

By: Carmen

Carmen — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:14:00 +0000

Sorry – just saw the question was already asked!!

By: organicneedle

organicneedle — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:14:00 +0000

Thanks for the mention! My bags are thin organic fine mesh, so they do not add too much to the weight, but they aren’t good for flour. I am working on a good bag for super fine stuff that won’t add too much to the weight. Store clerks can sometimes be a pain about taring. Easier to just have a lighter bag.

By: Carmen

Carmen — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:11:00 +0000

Question: How do you buy food from the bulk bins without using a plastic bag? I’ve been struggling for a solution to this.

By: Small Footprints

Small Footprints — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 02:07:00 +0000

Mmm … your recipes sound yummy!

I recently discovered pomegranates … and you’re right … the peeling and digging is half the fun … so are the red fingers.

Take care!

Small Footprints
http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com

By: SusanB

SusanB — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:29:00 +0000

That all looks yummy, Beth. We went 90% local for Thanksgiving this year, which entailed a bit of plastic as packed by the farmer — fresh local bird in plastic vacuum pack, local cheese in plastic vacuum pack, and local lard (for pie crust) in reusable plastic container. Um, guess you can tell we’re not vegetarian.
I’ve made savory pumpkin risottos that used a more traditional preparation. The only key to keeping milk and sugar from sticking is stir, stir, stir and watch your heat.

By: Coconut Bunch

Coconut Bunch — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 04:39:00 +0000

Hey! We had Brussel sprouts too with our turkey, at the Txsgiving buffet, Moana Surfrider, on the beach at Waikiki! Yours were no doubt better.

Unfortunately, no creamed onions.

But they did have a wide assortment of raw & cooked fish stuff, which the couple from Japan who were sharing our table enjoyed thoroughly. And they did try the turkey as an afterthought.

By: Robj98168

Robj98168 — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:41:00 +0000

The risotto sounds Lucious, and I love love love brussel sprouts!

By: Fake Plastic Fish

Fake Plastic Fish — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 23:02:00 +0000

HI Susy. I too use cloth bags for dry bulk goods. Organic Needle makes some, as "make a bag" mentioned, and you can also get them from reusablebags.com and ecobags.com. I believe my Whole Foods sells them as well. Make sure you let the checkout clerk know the "tare weight" to deduct so they don't charge you for the weight of the bag. Cloth bags are heavier than plastic bags.

If you use them for anything sticky, be sure and rinse them out and hang them to dry right away to avoid mildew.

I also sometimes use brown paper bags that I reuse over and over (for coffee, for example), emptying it into a container when I get home.

For wet food (like hummus from deli counter, meat, etc.) I take stainless steel containers, like you can buy from likewithoutplastic.com or to-goware.com. The grocery store staff at Whole Foods and other bulk places are able to deduct the weight of the container from the total price.

And Green Cat, reusing plastic containers is allowed!

:-)