The Litter Bug

"There aren't many things that are universally cool, and it's cool not to litter. I'd never do it." - Matthew McConaughey

(this was seriously the only quote that I could find regarding littering. It may not have been said in the most eloquent way, but it is true nonetheless)

I witnessed the most horrifying act today (perhaps I am being a little dramatic, but still!) - I was driving behind a silver Buick on my way home from work and as we pulled up to a stop sign I saw the driver roll down the window and throw out a Tim Horton's cup! I was so mad that I made a mental note of the time and licence plate number as if I could report it to someone. There is some sort of bylaw against littering in Halifax (not that I ever saw it enforced), but I wonder if a similar law exists in rural Ontario? It just makes me so sad to see garbage lining the edges of rural roads that navigate between beautiful farmers' fields. And do people seriously still litter? I think I learned not to litter before I could talk. It is just so disrespectful to the environment and to your community. It actually disgusts me to see someone litter. A note to my future boyfriends - do not let me catch you littering (or being rude to waitstaff ;) ) because it will be over very quickly!

Another thing that horrifies me is the amount of oil that goes into producing plastic bottles (not to mention the amount that is consumed to transport these bottles around the globe). To quote my Go Green calendar directly, "The Earth Policy Institute estimates that it takes 1.5 million barrels of oil to make the plastic water bottles Americans use each year, 77 percent of which end up in the landfill." (Check out http://www.earth-policy.org/ for more information). There is a lot of controversy surrounding plastic bottles - some say that plastic bottles leach harmful chemicals into the water and some say that bottled water is just tap water. I do not know if these statements are true, but what I can say is that in my house plastic water bottles make up a large proportion of our recyclables and I would guess this is true for many other families. One of my goals for the year is to reduce the amount of waste I produce and that includes reducing the amount of recyclables. The ultimate goal would be to produce zero waste. I usually have a reusuable bottle with me, but I have to admit that I am guilty of using the odd plastic water bottle. No more plastic water bottles for me - I will let you know how it goes.

I want to end with a thank you note to a former lab partner from Dalhousie. He offered me some grocery store advice via email, which I used this week with great success. He suggested bringing resusuable containers to the grocery store for meat products to avoid the excess packaging. The people may give you a weird look at first, but it is totally worth it. Great tip, thanks!