Live and Learn for Mother Earth

All of the environmental learning I've been doing is birthing yet another new consciousness within me. I'm learning how to cook. I'm learning how to eat healthier food. And importantly, I'm making time for meal planning, meal prep, cooking and even (drum-roll please) ... cleaning up the kitchen. This, from someone who works in her business from sunup to sundown.

Ah, but a new day is dawning, and filling me with eager enthusiasm for the changes ahead. This morning I woke up early. I packed up my cooler, grabbed my cloth grocery bags, and at 7am drove up to Siesta Beach to walk on the crystal sands. Walking is a part of my new healthy lifestyle. I'm pretending I have a dog, so I have to get out of the house and walk the dog at least twice a day. This morning, as I walked on the beach, I feasted my senses on the surf rolling into shore, gazed at the pelicans and shore birds who make their home there, and happily dreamed I lived in one of the villas near by.

Next, I headed up to Morton's Deli for homemade rice, beans, and tofu salads. Satisfied with my finds, I went on to C'est La Vie on Main Street in downtown Sarasota for my favorite bread, an old-fashioned French Baguette. Finally, I walked the aisles at Whole Foods and selected nutritious vegetables and beautiful soups  that will support my new way of being. Three hours later, I was home. I went directly to the kitchen to clean out my freezer, my fridge, and my pantry to make room for the new wholesome, organic natural food I'd purchased.

I put any raw fruits or vegetables that had spoiled in my new compost bin. I'm learning how to buy just the right amount of food as well as the right kind of food, so I can get better and better at eliminating waste. I love that I am a part of the composting consciousness. It makes me feel that I'm doing my part to help the Earth, if even in a very small way.

With joyful determination, next I found and cleaned out all the glass jars from sauces that were years past their expiration date. Throughout this process, I discovered a dozen plastic bags that had various leftover meals or breads or pizza dough in them in the back of my freezer. Here comes the lesson: Did you know that if the plastic bags we all dutifully put into the recycle bin at the grocery store are wet or dirty they will be thrown in the trash instead of recycled? Horrors. I thought the recycle people had some massive washing machine that cleaned it all before breaking it down into some other form to make bags or bottles with.

Since I learned this, I've taken care to rinse out any plastic bag that's outlived it's usefulness and hang it out to dry. Today, however, I had a dozen, and after I'd washed them all I realized my little kitchen could not handle them all. Eureka! I made a clothesline as you see in the photo above. It cracked me up, seeing all those plastic bags hanging out to dry. So I'm sharing it with you. Enjoy! - Raphaella Vaisseau

New Fe Bailey PSA from Tropical Healing: What can you do to reduce plastic consumption?

Fe Bailey's new Tropical Healing PSA video (below), "What Can You Do To Reduce Plastic Consumption?" states that "we all have the choice, power, and responsibility to reduce plastic consumption." This is something I have been more and more committed to in recent months since I learned that recycling simply isn't taking care of the problem. Conscious people have been carefully recycling for decades, believing we are making a positive difference in our world. Yet much of the plastic we think is being recycled is not. Some is down cycled or simply shipped to third world countries.

I discovered this while listening to an interview with Annie Leonard about her book, The Story of Stuff. Here's a link to one of  Ms. Leonard's videos: The Story of Bottled Water.

As this relates to the Tropical Healing PSA below, The Story of Bottled Water also answers the question, What can you do? In the notes below the video is this suggestion: "Before the bottled water craze hit, we took it for granted that public fountains were part of any public building: schools, offices, sports stadiums and parks. Let's bring them back! In the U.S., many state building codes mandate that there be one source of public water for every 1000 people the building has capacity for. Why not subsidize public water fountains as part of local efforts to build green?"

As for me, personally, what I've done (am doing) is using cloth bags for groceries, and I fill glass water bottles to have in my fridge and to bring with me instead of buying the little disposable plastic bottles. It takes an extra effort and planning ahead, but it's working for me and I feel good about it. Next step for me: I will discontinue using plastic merchandise bags even if they claim to be made with recycled bottles, and switch instead to paper bags.

Please share your thoughts and comments about this and your actions and ideas about reducing plastic consumption in your life. Bravo to Fe Bailey and her crew for making this film, and to Annie Leonard for her work on reducing consumption in many areas of our lives. Thank you to both of these women for their proactive contributions to making a better planet for us all.
-Raphaella Vaisseau