No Plastic Vow - Day 5

Day 5 was very simple. I worked from home all day, ate food I made from scratch or picked from the garden, and had a wonderful car ride with my daughter to see her horse in Newberg, OR. While I don't love the idea of burning the gas to drive that far, I do love that time alone with my girl. I get to enjoy her questions, opinions, thoughts, quirky sense of humor and edgy taste in music.

On my way home from the barn, I did have to make a stop at the grocery store. As I lamented yesterday, we still live far from the co-op, so I decided to see what I could get away with in the Albany Fred Meyers. I checked the deli department for bulk cheeses. I basically found that they have the standard brands of cheese, wrapped in the same vacuumed-sealed plastic as the refrigerator case. They're bigger, so you can buy a chunk without taking home plastic, but in the end, they'll end up wasting almost as much plastic as I would if I bought large blocks of cheese myself.

Walking from the deli through the bakery to the produce section I saw plastic cake covers, plastic bread bags, plastic gloves, plastic berry containers, plastic-wrapped melons, plastic fruit and veggie trays and plastic bags of salad. I used my own handy dandy recycled plastic mesh bags to get a few apples, broccoli and bulk peanuts. I couldn't buy carrots, because they were in plastic bags or peanut butter, because the jars all have plastic seals around the lids to show they haven't been opened, and the bulk peanut butter machine had plastic containers to hold the peanut butter. I bought non-organic milk in cardboard cartons, because all of the organic milk containers have handy plastic nozzles and caps on the sides. At least the organic, free-range, veggie-fed eggs don't have any plastic on the containers. Another really cheap visit to the super market - $20.

When I got home, my husband said, "I got us Thai food." I said, "Ummm...To go?" He said, "Uh-oh. I forgot." At least this Thai place uses reusable, recyclable plastic to-go containers rather than styrofoam, but I would have preferred to actually eat at the restaurant and avoid the plastic altogether. It's amazing how normal and convenient plastic has become. We don't even think about it. I can't blame him. I'm making a conscious choice to be very focused and mindful not to buy any plastic right now, and just the other day, I realized I bought an inexpensive 100% cotton t-shirt that was nice enough for work, without even noticing that it had 6 plastic buttons on it. There goes the "no plastic" part of my vow. I'm still trying though. Growing into an almost no plastic kind of girl.