It is hard at first to get folks at restaurants to pack your food in your own container, but it just takes practice. Just remember, you don’t have to do it all at once. Keep making steady progress on the stuff in your home. And maybe start with asking the restaurant not to give you any utensils, condiments, napkins, etc. if you’re not already doing that.

Here’s a wild thought on a replacement for vinegar for cleaning… citric acid. It can be challenging to find, you might have to order it online. I use it instead of vinegar for my hair (the “no poo” thing) and I also use it occasionally in the washing machine to clean out hard water build up. I prefer it to vinegar because it’s odorless. All that being said, I’m not exactly sure how much better it is plastic-wise. I get it in powdered form, but the powder does come in plastic. sigh. But since it takes much less of the powder to get the equivalent of the liquid vinegar it’s less plastic. But, who knows about the relative environmental impact of producing citric acid vs. vinegar. Maybe it’s just six of one, half dozen of the other, who knows. But I prefer it for my hair because of the odor issue.

I don’t have any great suggestions on the rock salt, except to say that I’ve never used de-icer of any kind except in extreme circumstances. I am in sunny Colorado, but I’ve found that if I shovel before anybody walks on it, there really isn’t any ice. I wonder if you could just use a little sand for traction?

It’s so frustrating isn’t it? I mean we all want to do the “right” thing, but when you dig down into the nitty gritty, it always ends up doing the “less bad” thing, and even then, I often wonder if it really is “less bad” or not, because EVERYTHING has an impact. Sigh.