This has been another eye-opening challenge. Thanks to Bill for organizing. I've become more aware of my usage and available alternatives and have hopefully made some lasting changes in my routine (e.g., bar soap/shampoo rather than liquid forms in plastic bottles, growing some of my own food, bamboo toothbrushes (I'll be asking my dentist to promote these when I go for my cleaning next month), more community activism (just signed a petition to encourage Amazon to cut the plastic from their packaging), etc. It's encouraging to know that so many people care about being good stewards of our planet.

Wow, plastics are everywhere and avoiding its use is almost impossible in many settings! This challenge has made me much more aware of my plastics use.  I’ve come to think the key issue (in many cases) is *single use* of things we use, whether that’s plastic, paper, glass, or metal. All these materials are fairly durable and reusable – whey are there so many cases where we use them just once? (Or in some cases, why do we use them at all – straws, extra packaging around toothpaste tubes, takeout bag around something that needs no bag, etc.) And in many cases plastic is the best material -- lets use it infrequently and appropriately.

Terrific challenge this year! A few habits I picked up which will likely stick:

Getting a bit more "granola" every year :)

This has been a great learning experience!

Missed you all this weekend at the clean up around Green Lake on Sunday! If you're bummed you missed out and still want to participate - you're in luck! They do this every Sunday morning and he has a nice model to follow if you have a site around your home you'd like to 'adopt'. The guy who leads it (Todd) even has a website - https://greenlakelitterpatrol.com/. Who knows - maybe you'll find $50 like Todd did or a pocked knife like I did among the rubbish. 

I was happy to learn this weekend that the Kroger grocery store chain has a plan to remove plastic grocery bags from all their stores (Fred Meyer, QFC). https://www.fredmeyer.com/f/zero-hunger-zero-waste?cid=ema.pro.PDC_FD_20190726_FM&xg=45727758

I noticed their target date is 2025, which seemed a long way off so I emailed them and asked why it will take so long. This was their response:

Dear Anita,

Thank you for contacting Kroger Customer Connect. The timeline is generous as we do not want to rush our customers. We, along with our customers will need time to transition to a new and better way of doing things. We do not want to assume what makes sense for one customer makes sense for everyone, and will respect the needs of every customer and want to make sure we don't impose any burdens on our shopper's. However we are confident we can deliver on our long-term goal. As this time we do have new Zero Hunger reusable bags and for every purchase of these bags we donate a meal to feed hungry families in our communities.

This is a major change in outlook, requiring a great deal of preparation on our part, and on the park of our customers. We want to have a defined plan and retail division ready to go before announcing the complete phase-out.

We also have a sustainable packaging goal of reducing plastic use by 10 million pounds, and to increase recyclability of Our Brand packaging. We have joined the sustainable packaging coalition in 2017 to help advance our company and industry-side efforts to reduce packaging impacts.

You can learn more about this information at http://sustainability.kroger.com. 

Hopefully their competitors will follow suit. 

Finally started my "garden" this weekend. These will soon move to my front yard but for now they're on the back deck. The one in the back is a chive plant I've had for a long time. Keeps coming back. This weekend I planted Oregano, Basis, and Parsley, and two kinds of radishes. I'm starting Spinach and Chard seeds inside and will transplant them when they are ready. I anticipate a tasty summer and autumn. Yes, I realize I put everything in plastic, but I already had these planters. So at least they aren't going to a landfill. You can see one of the Oregano plants is flowering. I'm not sure if I should cut it back or just leave it be. The chives flower every spring and I've always left those alone.

Any tips on zero- or low-waste meal prep? I've gotten pretty good about prepping the amount I need, but I always have compostable waste from inedible pits, rinds, etc.

This week I feel like a phony. I received some packages from Amazon, and there was so much plastic wrapping each individual item... ugh.