Oy! Too much plastic this week. You’d think that I wouldn’t have brought back plastic from a meditation retreat. And you would be wrong.

Here’s the tally:

Plastic items used this week but acquired before the plastic project began:

• 1 expired Chase VISA card. Wondering if these cards will be biodegradable eventually. Like some gift cards these days. Or renewable without having to destroy the old card?

And the new plastic waste:

• 1 big World’s Best Cat Litter bag. We went back to SwheatScoop this week, even though I don’t really like it, to save the plastic. And then Soots, who seemed to have grown out of the habit, pooped on the floor. *Sigh* I think little kitty likes the World’s Best Cat Litter better. I tried explaining to him about plastic, but he didn’t understand because he’s… you know… a cat. Also, the corn litter just smells better. Maybe we’ll try mixing the two kinds and see what happens.

  And yes, I said I’d try making my own newspaper litter like Allie does ^[1], but first things first. Let me get in the habit of making their food ^[2] first!

• Packing tape from two packages sent to me this week. I’m going to have to start spreading the word about paper packing tape ^[3].
• 3 plastic envelope windows. From Chase VISA, Financial West Group, & Kaiser Permanente. All mailings I can’t avoid.
• Bandaid from Red Cross blood donation. It should have been included in the tally a few weeks ago. I also end up with a long plasticky bandage wrapped around my arm, but instead of taking a new one each time, I bring back the old one and ask them to reuse it. And yes, they look at me like I’m nuts.
• Plant identification stake. From squash plant. Not reusable because it’s printed on both sides. Next year, I’m going to grow veggies from seeds and avoid all plastic.
• 1 Snyder’s pretzel bag. Thursday night, I got to my meditation retreat center too late for dinner and was starving. I grabbed a bag of pretzels from the snack table to tide me over until the next day.
• 1 Hershey’s miniature chocolate bar wrapper. The second night of the meditation retreat being Halloween, our retreat leader Jon showed up in bunny ears and a cotton tail and passed out candy bars. How could I say no?

I just got back from phone banking at the Obama campaign ^[4]. The first time I’ve ever done this in my life. Enjoying listening to George Lakoff ^[5] on NPR as I write this. Looking forward to tomorrow’s results. Hoping my candidate wins and that the Propositions I care the most about win and fail in the ways I want. But mostly, being grateful that finally the suspense will be over and we can get on with the work ahead, regardless of the results.