Rating **  

  Eliminating petroleum products from my every day living is more of a challenge than I expected. Add to it, my recent desire to live "green", and I have a full time job ahead of me. I decided to start by spending one day consciously observing my everyday habits and investigating the origins of the items that I use daily. I vowed to question how using those items might affect my granddaughter's generation. I have to admit, I was surprised at what an ecological hog I had become. My morning routine of getting off to work and packing my lunch box alone showed my gluttonous addiction to advertised convenience products.
 

• Sandwich - wrapped in one plastic baggy
• Grapes - wrapped inone plastic baggy
• One slice of cheese - individually wrapped in plastic
• 4 crackers - wrapped in one plastic baggy
• Water - in one plastic bottle
• Iced tea - in one plastic bottle
• Hot tea - poured into one styrofoam cup with plastic sip top
• 2 paper sugar packs
• wooden stirrer

    Not only did 7 of those items use petroleum products to produce, all seven of them were not biodegradable. Although the plastic bottles could be recycled, there was no hope for the Styrofoam cup with the plastic top.  It would be around for the next 100 years or more. I briefly considered writing, "I'm sorry" on it, so that someone in the future who picked it up would feel a little better about not being able to breathe easily. The paper products and wooden stirrer were a bit less offensive, but still impacted global warming by causing another tree to be cut down simply because I had become too lazy to dig my teaspoon into a canister to measure out two teaspoons of sugar, and then stir with the same spoon. I won't even go into the fact that the lunchbox itself was plastic lined to make it easier to clean. Of course, it never needed to be cleaned since the food was all individually wrapped and therefore, no food ever actually touched the lunchbox!
    
     I laughed when I realized that my lunchbox looked like detective Monk had packed it. When had I decided that it was a crime for my food choices to touch each other? It was clear where I had to start.  Today I packed my lunch in the following way:

• Sandwich (which could feasibly fall apart all over the other food if not wrapped in something) wrapped in wax paper (still impacting trees, but definitely less offensive than all those plastic bags).
• 4 slices of bulk cheese and crackers placed on top of the above sandwich and wrapped with the same wrap
• Grapes - placed directly in the lunch box, unwrapped ( I noticed that nature wraps them in skin)
• Homemade iced tea stored in glass bottle
• Tap water carried in glass bottle
• Tea in large pottery mug with
• 2 teaspoons of bulk sugar measured, and then stirred into the tea with the teaspoon

    I'm feeling so proud of myself as I imagine some beautiful tree saved by my efforts. I feel absolutely gleeful that foregoing plastic bags will remove a fraction of the country's dependence on oil (albeit a very small fraction). I pat myself on the back saying, "Not bad for 5 minutes' work!" For this foray into conscious living I gave myself a rating of two smiling grandchildren!

** Nona's Smiling Grandchild Rating

  reduces footprint in one area of concern
 reduces footprint in two areas of concern
 reduces footprint in multiple areas of concern



For more on Enlightened Grandparenting visit Nona Nita's Nook
and click My Path Productions for ideas that support conscious living.