My Ziploc Stash

I use a great deal of ziploc bags. They are great at holding goldfish, cheerios, cubes of frozen baby food, puzzle pieces, baby wipes, dirty laundry, extra cheese, cookies, and deli meat. Ironically, plastic bags ... including those advertised to be practically indestructible ... are viewed as trash. Not just disposable; trash. Did you know how many times or how long the same bag can carry your sandwich, that extra bit of cheese, or puzzle pieces? Thicken them up a bit, add a top, and they become tupperware, or make them bigger and they become the now universal plastic organizing bin; obviously not trash.

How do we distinguish between trash and not trash? Or better yet, how do we decide to reuse something verses throwing it in the landfill bound or recycling center bound bin? Its all in the packaging and the advertising, not in the item.

How many times have I reached for the cheaper option, knowing full well that it will likely last 1/2 the time that the slightly more expensive option will? How many times have I thrown out a ziploc, just because I didn't feel like cleaning it? Back to my politics of a dishwasher post. Imagine you treated your glassware, or the plates in your kitchen, that way: throwing them away rather than cleaning them. Imagine considering the true lifespan of a product before bringing it into your life ... i.e. purchasing it or borrowing it.

Now, here's an image. Rural, yes; applicable to urban living, absolutely! I am about to introduce you to my aunt. After boarding horses at her farm in Oakdale, CA (the other home of Hershey's chocolate) for many years, she moved north to a plot of land abutting her dad in the coastal redwoods. She and her husband lived in a trailer for over a year while they built their off-the-grid dream house. She gets her electricity from the sun, water from the forest spring/wells, vegetables from the organic garden whose "soil" is all composted table scraps and horse poop from the two elderly horses she brought with her. She makes an overabundance of vegetables that she eats herself and she sells the extra at the farmers market in town along with potted native plants (forest weeds that she repots in donated plastic -- reusable --pots). She has a side business of landscaping in native plants for summer homes of the wealthy up the road. How much trash does she output? This is an area where there is no trash pickup. She goes to the dump ONCE every OTHER YEAR and she has the same number of barrels as my neighbor in Medford. TWO. She is a reduce, reduce, reuse, reuse, recycle queen.

I look to my aunt Cate for guidance and know that she would at least partially approve of my box of reused ziplocs and the lunch I sent Charlie to school with this morning: 3 tupperwares. One had a sandwich, one had goldfish, and one had a peeled, boiled egg. The only trash will be his juice box and the Stonyfield Farm YoBaby container. At home, we would throw away the juice box and reuse or recycle the yogurt container after throwing away the seal. No hope of that at preschool, hence the tupperwares. I am tired of loosing ziplocs from my stash.

My message of the day is adopt a "Aunt Cate" attitude today. See how much money you save; see how invigorated you are by that extra little bit of time and effort you put into your life. As for me, I am trying to channel her wisdom bit by bit.