A Plastic Free Life :: HA!

:: The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands. ::
- Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life, 1923

Since January 2011, I've attempted to reduce the amount of plastic I bring into my life.  It began with a contest posted by Beth Terry on her site My Plastic Free Life.  I posted weekly pictures of my plastic waste, its' weight in grams, distinguished between recyclable and non-recylable items (like bread wrappers and packaging for nuts), and any acts I took to reduce my plastic waste that might be helpful to other contestants.  I’m not an expert, environmentalist, lover of ocean creatures, loather of garbage dumps or a hippy.  I’m not auctioning off my plastic lawn chairs on EBay, though I did give away a heck of a lot of plastic storage bins associated with my move from Austin to Merida.   I'm not praying to my dark gods to smit my friends for drinking out of red plastic cups at parties.   

I am being practical.  There is always a chore in your life that you don’t enjoy doing but must do to maintain order.  Some people love cooking but dislike cleaning the dishes.  Others don’t mind washing and drying clothes, but folding, ironing or hanging them up is a bore.  For me, it is has always been taking out the trash; the task marked my dislike of Monday mornings since college.

During the first nine months of my encore life in my little fishing village in the Yucatan, everyday felt like a Monday.  Like many rural communities in the United States, parts of the Yucatan don’t have regular garbage or recycling services; this is not to say there are no recycling efforts or initiatives in the Yucatan.  So, my initial effort to reduce my plastic waste in Austin, Texas was really to practice for my life in the Yucatan.  The first Austin shopping experience after entering the competition was difficult.  Although I had brought along my brilliant yellow totes, which by the way I had owned for two years and used perhaps two times because I forget they existed, I was unprepared for how difficult it would be to purchase items that had no plastic components.  Why do I need a cellophane window on a box marked with an image of lasagna and the word “lasagna” to know I’m buying lasagna? 

After months of practice in Austin, I thought I was prepared for Mexico.  </FAIL>!  Between my moments of joy of living here and moments where I was freaked-out that I was living here, the last thing on my mind was saving the planet.  At the beginning of my encore life I was in survival mode.  I would forget to take my Dorthy in Oz yellow totes out of the car on my grocery run.  I would forget to put my chop sticks, glass straw, and glass container for left-overs in my purse.  Actually, I still forget, but more often than not, I'm putting these practices as a priority.  My main motivation is still a dislike for garbage days, except right now it has more to do with the garbage workers being on strike as they renegotiate their contracts with the new political party recently elected.  The trash pick-up has been terrible for weeks!  When my garbage wasn't being picked-up on the days when everyone else in my hood had theirs disposed of, I discovered I didn't have a contract in place for garbage collection service.  Poco a poco I learn the laws of the city. 

My simple action list:

• I bought two glass straws from Glass Dharma  They are beautiful!  Be sure to use a baby bottle nipple brush to keep them clean.  Mine came from a dollar store in Austin, but I've found them in Merida in the baby section of almost all of the grocery stores here.  I haven't found any that don't contain plastic.  Let me know if you do or have an alternative!
• I use linen produce bags.  Won these through the Plastic Challenge from Molly de Vries.  No one, accept for the planet and the guys at the beach garbage dump, cared that I don’t use single use, non-recyclable produce bags.
• I keep a Klean Kanteen in the freezer.  When I make my runs requiring a car, I always have cold water on hand. 
• When I'm on the go and want something besides water, I will only buy soda or juice that comes in a can or a glass bottle.  The tienda store owners do care a bit about the glass bottles.  When returned you are going to receive a credit, and they can return a full case for their own credit. 
• I brought down glass water/juice/tea jugs.  Mine were bought at thrift stores where they were conveniently missing their plastic lids.  I used lipped glass candle votives for lids.  Voila!  No plastic lids!  I love the whole upcycling process!  You can buy these jars in Mexico.
• Believe it or not, we have sushi in a few of our grocery stores and plenty of Chinese buffet restaurants where you can pick-up a wooden pair of chop sticks.
• I buy paper wrapped toilet paper.  The individual packs probably came wrapped in plastic, but I don't have to deal with disposal of it, and I use the paper in my compost pile.

My more complex action list:

• Though I receive less junk mail than I did in Texas, paper still comes into my life.  I take my bills, handbills for events tucked between my wipers and window shield, toilet paper wrappers, hot cake and cereal boxes, and run them through a paper shredder.  This becomes part of my compost pile.  Be sure you don't shred the thermal receipts from grocery and department store receipts as those are coated in BPA, a plastic additive that causes cancer.  Due to high chemical content, most magazines are not good for compost.
• There are plenty of ways to buy water here in the Yucatan.  My issue isn't so much with reusing the huge plastic water bottles, but that those bottles are left in hot trucks leeching BPA, a known cause of all types of cancer.  I also am a 90 lbs weakling and can't lift those things.  As both Austin and Merida sit atop a limestone foundation, the water has a high concentration of calcium carbonate, lime and other minerals.  You can have a water purification systems installed in your Mexico house for around $3,000 US.  I may end of doing this later as the calcium sits on my clothes and eventually, will kill my water heater.  Until that time, I chose other options.  I brought two water purification systems with me - a Brita water spout filter that helps reduce the calcium build up on my dishes, and a counter top water purification system that uses carbon filters.  Between the two systems, my water is drinkable.   

In the United States, less than a quarter of all plastic beverage bottles are recycled.  In other words, 30 million plus single service beverage bottles end up in US landfills (EPA).  The recycled ones are shipped to China, but China is beginning to reject our trash.  So, what do you think is happening in Mexico with limited designated resources for recycling initiatives?   Those expats living on the beach of the Yucatan Peninsula will tell you that they are cleaning the beach of plastic waste on a daily basis.  It's really disturbing to find pen caps, straws, bottle tops, Q-tips, and diapers washed up on the shore of a beach.  We don't like it one bit!  When it comes to water, that recommended 8 glasses of water per day, at US tap water rates, comes to about .49 cents per year; that same amount of bottled water comes to $1,400.    Wouldn't you rather use that money to fund an antique or junk store shopping trip in Merida?

Create the life you want!
The Broad

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