My husband is known as the green one in our family. He rides his bike to work and petitions the city council for cleaner energy. He wants to compost our dog’s poop, but that’s another story.
To be honest, he has had to drag me along into greener living. Despite the fact that I believe that global warming is a real threat, it took me a long time to stop sighing and rolling my eyes, and begin cooperating with his green schemes.
But, slowly, I have gotten on board. Now, when he turns down the heat, I put on a sweater. I bring cloth bags into the grocery store. I water the plants with what’s left in my water glass. We never order takeout because it produces too much trash.
Plastic trash makes my husband particularly crazy because it is virtually indestructible and can take up to 1,000 years to decompose. You will not find disposable plastic forks or straw in our garbage. You won’t even find plastic garbage bags in our garbage cans.
I thought it was painful to adjust to life without garbage bags. Then, my husband insisted that we stop buying sandwich bags. I thought he was trying to kill me. You can take away my paper plates and plastic forks, but this is a form of plastic I need. How do we make lunches without sandwich bags or keep leftovers without storage bags?
It turns out reusable Tupperware works perfectly well for these tasks. I stopped buying plastic baggies.
As he was taking out the trash cans one day, my husband proudly noted that our family of five had produced only enough garbage to fill a quarter of the trash can. The rest had been diverted to recycling, compost, or reuse.
I also realized recently just how far I have come. My oldest daughter and I met another mother and daughter for a hike in a nearby park. The other mother emerged from her car clutching trash in her hand and she headed for a garbage container.
I meant to say “Hello” but what came out was: “Wait! Where are you going with that?”
Amid the trash in her hand was a plastic sandwich plate, a beige-green color found only in institutional cafeterias. It was not a color you would want in your kitchen on purpose, but it was otherwise a fine, sturdy plate.
“I am going to throw this in the trash,” she said, marching purposefully toward a garbage can. I sensed she was feuding with her college-age daughter who had been treating the car like a rolling landfill.
“It’s just a plattrashe from the college cafeteria,” her daughter assured me, as if I was concerned she was trashing heirloom china by mistake. “It’s been in the car for three weeks.”
The plate was old, reliable cafeteria melamine; perfectly shaped without a scratch or chip.
“You are going to throw that out? There’s nothing wrong with it? You should give it to Goodwill. You should recycle it!” Spit was flying from my mouth as I tried to stop her before she hit the trash can.
It worked. My friend turned on her heel, back to her car with the crusty service ware.
“No, you’re right, you’re right, I should recycle it,” she muttered. Her jaw was set. I knew that look because I had given it to my husband dozens of times. She didn’t roll her eyes, but she might as well have.
Actually, I hope she didn’t try to recycle that plate. Turns out, melamine is such an offending toxic plastic you can’t even recycle it in your recycling bin. It contaminates other plastics. I looked it up.
Later, my daughter and I talked about the plate incident.
“Mom, you’ve joined the crazies,” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “We should all be so crazy.”
Mary Helen Berg is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles who wishes her favorite Thai place would package takeout in compostable containers so she could order food without guilt!
