Spring Break (What's That?)

SustainableSpringBreakHaikus

just another week

helping the Man make a dime

exploitation, yeah!

nothing green thats new

the same old uphill battle

trash in heaps and piles

friends-costa rica

and that's where i should have been

good job be damn-ed

at least the roommates

flip the plastics over now

finding ones and twos

yet still there are those

who, trash cans they blindly choose

despite the green bin 

is this bitterness?

why yes, yes i think it is

bad haikus abound

Baby Steps

It's time for a confession.

Prior to this semester of IPE classes, I:

-Had never used my green recycle bin

-Was a Clinique junkie, as well as other silly and expensive shampoos/conditioners/crap (which I looked up on Skin Deep's cosmeticdatabase.com and found were HORRIBLE for me and the environment)

-Didn't really know what the big deal was about Ethanol, and filled the terrible inefficient Land Rover with whatever was closest when the gas light had gone ignored long enough

-Never Ever Ever took my lunch to work, but would get Charleston's, Olive Garden, Whatever

-Was vaguely aware that there were little triangles stamped on the bottom of  plastic products, but had no clue that there were numbers within them, or what they meant

So . . . I'm making baby steps, and though I know I am still incredibly ignorant, I'm just trying to keep reading and learning about changes that need to be made.

Progress . . . ?

Okay, so I have discovered Native Roots, Forward Foods, and The Earth, which all sell organic and locally grown produce as well as pretty much everything else you might NEED.  These places also seem to be frequented by intensely interesting people who offer good conversation.

I promise I'm not a sot, I have four roommates who contributed to this (and the other, we have to have two).  Okay, well only one of the roommates helped me consume the wine, but there ARE five of us.  
Stuff that's actually not full of chemicals and produced at the expense of the environment or people.

Not doing so well . . .

Still driving the Land Rover . . . I figure it would be worse to just toss it and buy a new car.  And I try to drive it as little as possible, and to plan ahead . . . Everything about this car and its life has been inefficient.  I bought it on a whim for my birthday several years ago because I had always wanted one.  I had also been wanting to go to Boston, so I flew to Boston and bought one there and drove it back.  Yeeeaaaah, not the best thing for the environment.  But solo road tripping is a lot of fun.  I think a lot of my ecological vices have to do with travel, and I'm not really sure how I am going to work that out.  

 

Zola Goes Green

It's funny . . . I've had my dog for a little over a year, and I have always refused to feed her any "human food," because I didn't want her to learn to beg, and because we are told that it is not good for them.  What a laugh.  It's really not good for us either a lot of the time, but that's beside the point.  I had not really thought to wonder what was in dog food until I read "Against The Grain" by Richard Manning, where he discusses the origins of the dog food industry as being just another way that large corporations are able to transform their scraps and undesirables into profit.  A little more digging, and I found that many of the brands whose commercials feature bouncing happy puppies next to savory dishes of lamb and beef are in fact helping us feed our dogs rotted grain and corn, grease, cow brains, sheep guts, and even EUTHANIZED ANIMALS.  Are you kidding me?!

I've since switched Zola to Life's Abundance.  I don't know if this is where I'll keep her, but initially I was just looking for ANYTHING better.  I don't know an incredible amount about what I should be looking for, but the ingredient list is full of things like chicken, brown rice, oat groats, dried beet pulp, flaxseed, lettuce, blueberries, broccoli, etc.  And their website maintains that their products have No artificial flavors, No artificial colors, No corn or corn gluten, and No wheat or wheat gluten.  I also love that the products have a shelf life and actually expire, as opposed to the stuff you buy at Walmart that is probably already as old as I am and could outlive me.  

The food is manufactured at three different sites in Illinois, California, and Florida, and ships directly to your house via UPS.  I don't know enough to know if this is necessarily a good thing, but it sounds good . . . I just have it shipped to my work, where I handle all the inventory and we get UPS shipments several times a week anyway.  

So yeah, here's to Zola going green . . . She loves the food, and is able to eat about 1/3 less than she did when I had her on Science Diet.