Thursday, November 02, 2006

Trashy, Yet Demure

In our old apartment building, we had a trash chute. When we wanted to empty the trash, we would simply walk out the front door, down the hall and around the corner, and dump the trash down the chute. We were mindless consumers, throwing out bags of trash hither and yon, whenever we damn well pleased. Well aware of our reckless abandon with the trash, we self-deprecatingly called ourselves the Trashy Blah Blahs.

When we moved to the house now nearly a month ago, I said to Sweet Dub, “Um, this trash thing could be a problem.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking,” he said. “We generate a lot of trash. A lot.”

And then we singlehandedly burned a hole in the ozone layer in the atmosphere directly above us and laughed and laughed. Oh, how we laughed!

What we have discovered, actually, is that more than half of our trash – in fact, easily two-thirds of what we used to throw away – is recyclable. In our apartment, it would be a hassle to be green, at least in terms of recycling. I did explore this option at one point, and abandoned it altogether due to our lack of space and the pain-in-the-ass (PITA) factor of trying to find somewhere to drop off recyclables (which evidently could not all be dropped off in one place). But apparently the City of Los Angeles, while pretty much giving the finger to anyone who resides in an apartment, lives to make life a bit easier for those who dwell in houses. At least in terms of trashiness.

Heartened by this discovery and eager to be more considerate to our dear planet, I boldly went where I had gone once before and ordered shopping bags, wrap-n-mats, and SIGG aluminum bottles from reusablebags.com. I have purchased stuff from them before when there was all the hullabaloo in the news about lead in lunchboxes, and got Viva a very charming lead-free lunchbag made by Mimi the Sardine. When I got home last night, the box was sitting by the back gate, looking pretty much like a plain brown box and not a box that was going to transform life as we know it and simultaneously save the earth.

Nonetheless, when I made Viva’s lunch this morning, I wrapped up her sandwich in a fetching red-and-white-checked wrap-n-mat instead of putting it in a plastic sandwich baggie. The rest of her lunch (grape tomatoes, apple slices, YoKids in a tube, sesame crackers, and Teddy Grahams from Halloween) also traveled along in little reusable containers. But here’s the kicker: after I dropped her off, I went to CVS to pick up a few things before heading back to work from home. I made my purchases, drove home, and realized when I walked in the door that I had forgotten my lovely new ChicoBags at home and was bringing another damn plastic bag into the house.

Day One of Reusable Shopping Bags was thus a bust, due to my not having a fucking brain in my head. How is your day going?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! That sandwich wrap thingie is so incredible. I've had to resort to Dollar Store ziplock bags for my first grader because she can't figure out how to unwrap her lunch if it's contained in Saran Wrap. And I've hated using it. I had recently purchase some Tupperware boxes that look like Bento containers and nifty waterbottles for both kids to get away from the plastic wrap, etc. but she can't open her new lunch box either! (Thankfully the other sister can.) Thanks for posting!

Lisa Blah Blah said...

It works pretty well, too. I realized today that I mis-typed the name -- it's actually called a wrap-n-mat, and they have their own website: http://www.wrap-n-mat.com/wrapnmat-works-i-7.html. Those Bento box things sound cool, though. I'm thinking I might need one!

Anonymous said...

It's called the "Lunchn' Things Container" and the nifty waterbottle is called "Stow N' Go Sports Bottle" (www.tupperware.com). I ordered online... that way I avoided someone trying to get me roped into a Tupperware party.

Lisa Blah Blah said...

Ah, yes - the Tupperware party. One of my very dear friends sold Tupperware for a while. I even threw a little Tupperware party at my apartment. I got a free storage bowl for hosting!