Mom Goes Green

No, that isn’t a typo. I’m not missing an “l”, but let me explain, before you gag.

Our family took our beloved Black Lab/Australia Shepard mix dog, Bella, to a community pool for a doggie swim day. It’s the last day the pool is open and everyone is welcome to bring their dog to swim and give a donation for the right to fill the pool with canine swimmers. The proceeds go to an animal rescue - an obviously worthy cause.

When we arrived and gave our donation, we were given a “doggie bag”. I, at first, shoved it in our pool bag, but when I looked later I was really thrilled to see that it wasn’t a standard doggie poo bag. It was a DOGIPOT biodegradable poo bag! What a great option for all of the dog owners that justify their acceptance of plastic bags from retailers by saying that they use them to pick up after pets. I appreciate the thought, but those plastic bags don’t biodegrade. They sit in a landfill — filled with the poo. (Could I possibly say “poo” any more?!?!)

The funniest thing is when I checked out the DOGIPOT site they don’t really mention the biodegradable part…they don’t know what a great product they have. And although they don’t sell direct to consumers, you can buy direct from Care-A-Lot Pet Supply. They are unbelievably cheap for giving peace of mind ($6.99 for 200 bags!  That’s only three and a half cents per poo!)

So, just a side note about the outing. It seemed like it would be a fun time and it was!…however, (isn’t there always a “however”…) the bonus drama of the day was me SCREAMING at our 3-year old son to “GET OUT OF THE POOL!” because I saw him surrounded by 3 piles of immersed doggie poo. How nasty! (I promptly took both kids to the shower for a scrub down!) He later told me “Mommy… doggies are supposed to poop on the grass, not in the pool!” and rolled his eyes.

No kidding, sweetie. Biodegradable poo bags really DO work best on land.

Today, like so many of you, I had an errand to run.  It was a 5 minute trip into the drugstore for a couple items and (perish the thought!) I DIDN’T take my reusable bags in with me.

Before you start booing me, it was simply because I was buying a few small items and I knew I could just carry them out by hand.  Simple as that, right?  Well, not so quickly.

As the cashier started scanning my items, I got distracted by my ringing cell phone and didn’t get to tell her “no bag, please.”  When I came back to earth, I realized that she had put everything in a plastic bag that she placed on the counter top.  When I said “oh, I’m sorry.  A bag isn’t necessary.  I can carry them out”  she took them out of the bag, handed them to me and (deep breath)…threw the bag in the trash.  I…was…amazed.

I quickly told her that she didn’t need to throw it away and her rebuttal was that it was already “used” and too hard to put back on the rack.  In an instant my whole purpose was defeated.  The bag I chose NOT to take was sitting in the trash can.

So, I asked her for the bag. She looked at me blankly, handed me the bag and, I’m fairly certain, she thought I was insane.

At least I knew I could take the bag to be recycled.  But what a waste.  It all goes back to my frustration with lack of store policy and training that teaches cashiers to be responsible. And for the love of Mother Earth, I nearly pass out when I see someone double- or tripled-bagging with plastic!

No matter how many glares and stares I get from cashiers, I won’t be responsible for helping to create plastic bag trash.  Just look at what it creates.  These are sad visuals I hope no one forgets the next time they have that choice.

The useless has landed.  Warning!…the useless has landed. What am I talking about?  Phone books. Loads and loads of phone books.

In my county alone (one single county) there are over a half million households.  So that’s one book for the yellow pages and one book for the white pages.  And that’s just the company that calls themselves “The Real Yellow/White Pages.” And there you have a million(!) phone books.

Next enters another competing company that is producing what they call the “Yellow Book” and “White Book”.  Here we are, one county – TWO MILLION phone books.  That equals about 32,000 trees!  And what about the businesses?   They aren’t even included in these numbers.  I shudder to think.

I want them to go extinct themselves.

My husband has a studio office space in a building outside of downtown Cleveland.  A few years ago the delivery for the entire building arrived…on a pallet.  Funny thing is, there aren’t enough businesses in the building to warrant a pallet of phone books, but a lending company was next door and they had a ridiculous amount of phone numbers, so a book was sent for each number.  It was sickening.  I drove there, we filled our SUV and I drove them to a recycling dumpster at our zoo.  At least THEY didn’t wind up in a landfill.  But if others don’t recycle them, that’s where they’re winding up.

Undoubtedly, phone books are generational.  The younger you are, the less likely you are to count on phone books, and the more likely you are to count on online listings. I learned about a website that is setting its sights on trying to help people opt out of phone books – yellowpagesGoesGreen.org.  They will contact the publisher of your phone book and tell them that you want to opt out.  There is no guarantee, but this should be considered more of a movement to make the industry sit up and take notice…we want our earth to STOP being polluted by unwanted phone books!

So, if your “fingers aren’t walking through the phone book”, let your fingers do the walking on your keyboard to opt out (at least to have your voice counted in disapproval).  And then make your feet do some more walking to the recycling can with your old books.

(*Curbside recycling won’t accept phone books?  Go to earth911.org to find a location that will!)

As we celebrate Labor Day (by doing little to no labor, hopefully!) I’m asking Mother Nature to go easy on New Orleans and all of the gulf coast regions in the path of Hurricane Gustav.

And please send Tropical Storm Hanna out to sea.  They’ve had enough.

Stay safe, everyone…please, stay safe.