Tuesday, April 17, 2012

April Musings

blue flowers
Source
April was the beginning of a new quarter, but I didn't make any goals as I usually do.  I've been tied up with a lot of projects and this routine of mine has fallen by the wayside.  The good news is I've had a lot of good things happen this month.  Remember the cookbook project I blogged about a while back?  We got approved for a grant to fund it!  So now the timer is ticking and I've got to pull it off within 3 months.  

In addition, our inner-city ministry, Grace and Main, put together a  party in a park in a neglected corner of the downtown/Main Street area and we had about 300 people attend.  The entire event was great, but one thing I'm especially proud of is that we made it a green event.  Although it wasn't important to the attendees or for the event itself, it was important to a number of us organizers.  So we purchased compostable forks, knives, spoons, plates, and trash bags.  And we set up separate trash receptacles for 1) compost; 2) recyclables (drink cans and bottles); and trash.  Although most people didn't notice the signs and just put their discards in the closest can, I tried to monitor everything and ended up sorting through some of the bags.  In the end, we only had three medium-sized trash bags going to landfill - and if we had been brave and obsessive, we could have sorted through that and it probably would have only been one bag.  Not bad for a party for 300!  The recyclables went to the city recycling bins and the compost went...well...to our compost pile where it will have to bake for at least a year.  And then we'll have lovely new compost to add to our gardens.

I continue to focus on a more vegan lifestyle.  I've stopped buying cheese and dairy for myself and can say I don't really miss it anymore.  I do indulge when I go out to restaurants but that is fairly rare.  

My quest to eliminate plastic has hit a wall.  I cannot see how I can reduce any more.  Our trash now consists mainly of plastic bags from various food products that I purchase.  As we don't have a store with bulk bins nearby, I sometimes have to buy items in plastic.  After I finish school, I'll rethink some of the items I purchase in plastic bags and see if I can eliminate them by 1) making some of the items myself from scratch or 2) excluding those items from our diets altogether.  It's all a journey.

1 comment:

Shona~ LALA dex press said...

Well... I gave in and have bought a 2nd clock of cheese from Trader Joe's and have been eatung a slice with lunch almost every day. What it came down to is that I have restricted (or eliminated) SO many things that I've been letting up on a few things here and there and taking the "in moderation" approach. I've been buying yummy (fair trade) dark chocolate and eating more than my usual one square a day (gasp!). Doing good with my quest to buy things in glass and even with bulk available to me, I still have plastic bags. Honestly, some things are just considerable more in bulk, and some are not, so I base my purchases on this factor. Phew! this should have been an e-mail