Green Challenge #4

If you are still with me after last week's post - thanks for sticking it out!  I will talk a little bit more about last week's challenge at the bottom of this post under a disclaimer line in case you don't want to read more about "that stuff." 

This week's challenge, sadly is not creative, but will take a lot of effort.  It's hard for me to put a ton of time into thinking about my green changes, because I am working nearly 70 hours a week right now.  Soooo...I'm repeating my failed green challenge from last new years. 

Green Challenge #4:  No more plastic or non-reusable bags

This means no more plastic grocery bags, no more plastic produce bags, no more shopping bags from the mall.  Only reusable bags that I either buy at a store or bring myself.  I feel more prepared for this challenge now than I did last year, because I have accumulated more reusable bags since last year.  When I get back to Pennsylvania I plan to make some cloth produce bags to take to the store to buy my fruits & veggies and by store I mean farmers market ;)

There are benefits to giving up plastic bags for you too!  Some stores will give you 5-10 cents back for using your own bag and...a reusable bag is much cuter than a plastic bag!

My favorite new bag, which Sief bought me while in San Francisco ahs a coupel of cute pockets and is extremely useful!

In case you can't read it.  The little boy says "How come you don't come to see me anymore?" 
And the little girl replys "I'm conserving my energy." 
:)



photo taken from: http://angrylittlegirls.com/index.html

 Here are some facts about the environmental impact of plastic bags:

• Globally plastic bags cause an estimated 1 million birds & 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtle deaths each year from entanglement in or ingestion of them
• there are tons of carbon green house gas emmisions put into the air each year due to the manufacturing of plastic bags
• between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide each year
• ~60-100 million barrels of oil are required to make the world's plastic bags eacy year
• most plastic bags take over 400 years to biodegrade, some figures indicate that they could take over 1000 years - either way it's waaayyyy longer than our lifetime!!!

***Disclaimer*** time to talk about how last week's green challenge went

No more tampons - how did the week go without you ask?  It went great.  The first day was a little weird and it took some getting used to, but after that it only got better from there.  It was easier - no hassle of having to worry if I had tampons in my bag or with me.  I knew that I was set - couldn't really lose it.  Also, using my moon cup saved TONS of toilet paper.  It made me realize how much extra toilet paper I use when on my period, because each tampon gets individually wrapped.  So not only did I save money on not needing to buy tampons, I also save money, because I'll be using less toilet paper and....let me tell you toilet paper is BAD BAD BAD for the environment, but I guess that could be a story for another day. ;)

If you have more questions regarding the moon cup and my personal experience with it - please feel free to email me if you would like more intimate/gorey details.