Monday, September 28, 2009

When tiny choices contradict...

Recently, I have been all about making small choices to just be better...some things for ecominic reasons, some things for environmental reasons, some things, just because.  One of my new favorit sites is Tiny Choices. It inspires me to just take baby steps. 

But, my latest quandry is that sometimes those tiny choices contradict. So, I am having a little personal dilemna...  An example...

About a year ago, I starting using resusable shopping bags.  At first I bought those black or green ones from the the local grocery store, but now, I have been replacing them with all those cute prints that you can find just about any where.  So, good for not using plastic or even paper.  But, I seem to have found a way to make it work for the shopper fashionista deep inside me.  Not sure if that is in spirit with the whole "less waste" for the environment lifestyle I am trying to embrace.  And another...

This school year, I started sending cloth napkins to in the girls school lunches - yay, me!  Less waste, right?

But, last night, I sat up and put pretzel goldfish and smores goldfish that I bought in family-sized packaging into little plastic snack-sized zip-lock baggies to keep in my car for our daily commutes.  (If you have never traveled with a 3 and a 5 year old for more than 30 minutes at a time, let me alert you to the fact that they ALWAYS get hungry sometimes during your 50 minute commute.  Snacks on hand are a must!)  So, I am doing good by saving money and no buying those little individual-sized packages of snacks, but I am still producing waster - and plastic waste at that!!  Oh, little snack-sized zip-lock baggies, how I love thee!!!  You are like that bad boy that I knew my parents wouldn't like, but I couldn't seem to stay away from.  You have a sweet, sensitive side that the rest of the world just doesn't see...

I am not sure if I am reducing our carbon footprint, but I am trying really hard to at least not make it any bigger.  Maybe the best I can hope for is to break even...

2 comments:

  1. Perhaps you could use reusable containers to portion out the snacks into. You could reuse something (like cream cheese or sour cream containers) or you could buy a one-time stock of dedicated snack containers (Munchkin snack catchers or Sassy snack cups are both really good because their lid designs minimize spills).

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  2. Thanks, Amy! Yeah - that is a good idea - someone else suggested it to me as well - and honestly, you would think it would be obvious since I pack thier lunches in reuseable container... (did I ever tell you I used to be blonde..lol...). I am going to look around and see what I can find, must be small and easy to open and close so the girls can manage them on thier own.

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