Costco: The Vault of Plastic

           (photo: http://orlandobulletin.com/orlando-fl/costco-wholesale/)

So I was walking through Costco in Orem, Utah with my sister Sarah while she was grocery shopping for her family. Urban Utah is mostly comprised of suburbs and chain stores. In Orem, it is harder to find a non-chain store than it is to find a bar. If you've been to Utah, you know what I mean.

As we peruse the aisles of Costco, noticing all the needless plastic. I smirked to my sister, "The only product requirement Costco has, is that the product must be wrapped in plastic".

My sister replied, "No, I really don't think so." Then she paused, glanced around the store (cue: crickets), then replied "Yeah, okay, maybe." I agreed with a nod.

As much as I love Costco and their free samples; I have realized in my recent plastic-less days that Costco is a vault of plastic.

Take this into Consideration:
-You need a plastic card to get in.
-The shelves are stacked three stories high with crated goods, wrapped in so much plastic they could float a sinker tank.
-A box of cold medicine will be wrapped in a case of plastic so over sized that it could also fit a box of Costco pizza in it.
-Even plastic items, such as plastic jars of applesauce, will be wrapped with additional plastic labeling and strapped to other plastic jars of applesauce with additional scarves of plastic.

Even sampling food was out of the option because the paper cup sample had little plastic spoons in each sample. (But I made it work, I stole a sample before the sample liaison spooned it.)

It was ironic, telling my sister how I have managed to live without buying plastic this year, while walking between the vast plastic parapets of Costco. But the point is that I have lived without buying plastic and that although so many people subscribe to the plastic way of life, I am forging a way that proves that plastic consumption is not necessary for survival and that there is a way to live plastic-free and be happy. Part of that life is not shopping at Costco.

One night stand with Plastic

"Multi Coloured Plastic Installation" -John Dahlsen

There is a tempting, irresistible practicality of one-use plastic products:  straws and lids for morning coffee, zip lock baggies for afternoon lunch, or a Wisp (Colgate’s one-use disposable toothbrush) to freshen up the bad breathe from the coffee. It’s easy to be taken away with the utilitarianism of one-use plastic products.

But, what once was a handy-ass plastic love affair becomes tomorrow’s garbage, garbage found on our beaches, our nature places, places where true love should bloom not plastic garbage installations. Instead of walking down the beach, hand in hand with one’s true love, one will be tripping over a plastic litter, falling face first into the ocean (which is also polluted – with more plastic).

Stiv Wilson had a similar experience. And after encountering plastic garbage on a remote surfer’s beach on the Oregon Coast, the Portland Writer and Environmentalist, “made the Plastic issue his own,” according to James Pitkin of the Willamette Weekly (March 16, 2011).

Wilson now works for the non-profit 5 Gyres Institute. Their mission is to end plastic pollution through conducting research and communicating about the global impact of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans and employing strategies to eliminate the accumulation of plastic pollution (5gyres.org). Wilson is also heading out the bill to end the use of plastic bags in Oregon.

“We’re not trying to rid the world of plastic,” Wilson says. “If I go to the hospital or want a tattoo, I sure as hell want the stuff. But so much of it lasts forever and is used for seconds. That’s what we’re trying to prevent.”

Single-use plastic is the one night stand with plastic. “It lasts forever and is used for seconds.”  America’s unhealthy relationship with plastic is creating a lot of ‘baggage,’ literally and figuratively.  Reducing and reusing plastic is like meaningful, long term relationships, which are more beneficial, than destructive. This is the type of relationship I desire to have in my life, not only with plastic but with all resources and people around me as well.

Plastic: use mindfully.

Plastic Free on a Budget

Plastic-Free Eating, on a Budget

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sethandalexa/3651256633/sizes/z/in/photostream/

I have been spending $25 a week on food, without buying plastic.

Here’s how:

A grocery shopper’s guide to eating on a budget

                A consumer’s guide to plastic-free purchasing:

Get Bulky

o   Buy bulk and bring your own containers (reusable/ paper).

o   Beans, rice, oats, flour, nuts, peanut/ almond butter, are all inexpensive bulk items that can be used in or paired with almost any meal to bulk it up.

Stay Out of the Aisles

o   There are very few plastic-free items in the aisles. When entering an aisle have a clear goal in mind (lest you get caught in the tempting web of plastic-contained items!).

o    Almost everything you need can be found on the periphery of the store: Fresh Produce, grains, meat, and dairy, and you will find much less plastic on the periphery of the store.

Make It Yourself

o   There are certain items that are packaged in plastic that we cannot live without. With these items buy the ingredients and make yourself.

o   If you cannot buy the ingredients because:

~They are in plastic

-Do everything you can to go to the original source. When making hummus I had to do this. Tahini was one of the ingredients. It came in plastic, so I made tahini too!

~Not sold in the stores.

-Find a food substitution. http://www.foodsubs.com/

~You do not know what they are (is that a food label or a chemistry book?)

For example what’s partially hydrogenated soybean oil or disodium phosphate?

-Partially hydrogenated soybean oil is a Trans fat and is not good for the heart or blood vessels. (Add a few Hydrogen atoms to Trans fat and you have plastic – that is basically what plastic is – fully hydrogenated fat.) (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/nutrition-news/transfats/).

-Disodium phosphate is one sodium ion away from being a cleaning agent (look on the label of any T.S.P. cleaner container).

These are food additives that are not necessary in foods and are unhealthy. So, forego them (unless you want to add a cleaning agent to your hummus - yummy!)

o   I have found it very rewarding to make my own food even though its time consuming.  I love the creative process, I love using my hands, I feel flattered when people compliment the food I make, and you can make extra food to freeze or store for later. But ultimately when you make it yourself you save money (especially if you follow my next steps).

Shop the Source

o   Meet the farmer.

-When was the last time you knew the eye-color of your farmer and food provider?

-Buying from the farm or farmer can save you 50 percent or more and they can package it in paper or in your reusable container, upon request. Plus the farmer can tell you exactly how they handled, raised and grew the food. Meeting the farmer makes your relationship with food personal again.

o   Bakery

-Buy your bread at a local bakery. Most the time they use paper bags. If not, bring your own and ask them if you can pull a loaf fresh from the oven. Yum!

o   Produce Stands

-Produce stands or discount produce stores not only provide cheaper prices but often have more local foods and fresher foods. Bonus!

o   Eat in Season

The cheapest produce in the market is the produce in season. Eat in season, and save money.

I have found that not buying plastic while working with a budget has:

-          Brought me a personal relationship with my food.

-          Taught me how to cook.

-          Made me friends with my ingredients

-     Made me afraid of the ingredients I have put in my body before this goal.

-          Helped me eat healthier foods, more local foods, and fresher foods.

      -          Made me excited about life! 

Who would have thought avoiding plastic while buying my weekly groceries would do this for me? Fantastic!

Just the Beginning

I have officially not purchased plastic for 8 weeks. This may not seem like a long time, I mean I still reuse plastic existing within my realm of consciousness, I just don't buy it. So what's the big whoop? What is so hard about not buying plastic? Well give it a try. Try not consuming plastic for a week, two weeks, a month. See what happens. See what I mean.
        It all starts in the aisles of the grocery store. See what happens as you peruse the grocery aisles on your weekly shopping trip. Stop at any given moment, look within your range of view. Are you not wooed by the aggressive flirtations of plastic? Now give this a try. Hold your hands over your eyes, peek through the cracks like a kid during a sex-scene of a movie, and try not to see any plastic within the slits of your fingers. I tried this. Parades of multicolored plastic chip bags, concourses of plastic condiment and dressing bottles, plastic tags, even stickers on the fruit and vegetables-plastic bags to bag the produce and plastic knives to cut them with, with plastic signs labeling how much they cost. Plastic, plastic, plastic: the Savior of the super market. The challenge was to see anything but plastic. Even as I gazed at the ceiling, curtains of plastic hung displaying the food in that aisle. No matter how hard I tried plastic impregnated my view. Whether it was the container, or part of the product, when in a store, I was wooed by the unending lines of part-plastic products waiting to be used like a hooker in the night, a one night stand with plastic.

My commitment to non-plastic life was planted in my mind, in freshman biology. Professor Gates asked all of the students (hundreds in the class) to write a paper about how to lessen our ecological footprint. He suggested a quiz at www.myfootprint.org measuring how much "nature" it would take to sustain our individual lifestyles. Although I was already an earth conscious person, according to the ecological footprint quiz, if everybody lived the way I did, it would take 4.15 earths to sustain the human race’s lifestyle. Yet I discovered an average American's lifestyle would take 7 earths to sustain. 

Wow! Instant awareness of how much I was trashing the world. Something had to change for me. I was determined to know how I could live in congruence with the earth instead of in competition with it. Previously my mentality was subconsciously like some game, "okay earth, let's see who will cause the other to cease to exist first, you or me. Ready, set, go!" This is not a game!  At this point I made an ardent effort to figure out how I could reduce my waste.  I realized going non-plastic would completely eradicate my waste creation and decrease my ecological footprint significantly.  So this year for my New Year's Resolution I decided to stop purchasing plastic. I do not support the consumption and waste of plastic. I reuse plastic that I find, or that I already have, but I do not purchase it. My philosophy behind not using plastic came from the realization that plastic is not biodegradable, it is often not recyclable, and the majority of my waste is plastic.… And I was just one person out of millions adding to this.

I am approaching this New Year’s resolution with the question ‘is this even possible?’ Well that’s where we will see. I, Rose Allred, am not purchasing plastic for one year.  I commit to this.

Well what’s the big deal with plastic? What is so wrong about the incomprehensible amounts of plastic around us in any given second?  What’s wrong with throwing away my coke bottle, or my cheese wrapper, or my iPod touch packaging bubbles? Good question. And these are the very questions I am exploring this year as I refrain from what feels like the inevitable: plastic.