The Last Straw

early morning view from the window of my cousin Katherine's house near Swannanoa, NC

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

(Sign that hung in Albert Einstein’s office in Princeton, NJ)

For most of us, summer is over.  People are returning from vacations all over the place.  Teachers are back in schools and if the students aren’t, they will be soon.  All of this and it is only mid AUGUST with a high of 95 degrees predicted today here in Durham, NC.  Monday morning the on-line New York Times had a feature entitled The Unplugged Challenge where people all over the country had volunteered to drop their media connections for a week.  Writers began to write by hand, kids gave their parents their cell phones and stopped texting for a day, and giving up Facebook was discussed again and again.  As I listened/watched the videos of many of these individuals, I kept thinking about how the internet, the web, texting, etc, etc etc–have become ubiquitous.  I know a lovely 10 month old with a Facebook page.  Over and over I tell friends don’t text me–I don’t YET text.  Where is Marshall McLuhan, author of The Media is the Message, now when we need him more than ever?  How is all of this rapid knowledge and communication affecting us?

Sunlight and shadow--a glimpse of a mountain stream near Hot Springs, NC

All of these streams of information, have become integral to our daily lives.  We pick, we chose, we answer our emails, we join Facebook or twitter, or not. Always we SURF the web expecting knowledge to be at our fingertips.  Last week, I spent two nights at my cousin’s house in the mountains near Swannanoa, NC.  I went mostly to visit friends and family, and to spend time with her lovely new baby, but I did find myself alone for a brief time in a mountain stream.  The water was cold, rushing over the slippery rocks and roots of rhododendron.  Solitude.  A gift.  A small diamond of time alone in the woods–a moment I will keep in my pocket  as I rush along the highways of my busy world.  And, yes, there was plastic in that remote stream–a black piece from the bottom of a PETE soda bottle and a knob of something, both caught under stones and branches surrounded by the flowing water.

Plastic straws and lids found on the pavement and two plastic items found in a remote stream in western NC

Like cell phones, like the internet, can it be like Facebook, plastic is something we will never ever live without again.  For so many reasons, many of them medical, we would not want to.  Somehow I have found that I can, even while tired and traveling, dodge the “single-use” stuff.  What this means is not going through the drive-through anywhere, so that I can get a drink without a plastic straw and plastic top on it.  It means taking my steel water bottles along and keeping them filled.  It means wishing I had remembered to bring some nuts and dried fruit along on my drive to Asheville, but even so, somehow resisting the plastic wrapped candy stuff at the gas stop along the way.  I never know if I am going to really hold out, but, somehow I do.  I think I must really want this.  To know it is possible gives me a sense of control, a tiny bit of power in a crazy world.

"kitchen soap" in a bar, Rebecca's lotion in a glass jar, and Ecover--the only detergent I have found in a box with a cardboard rather than plastic scoop inside-

So, here’s some good news.   Last week, my friend Rebecca, author of LESS IS ENOUGH, and I got together and she showed me how to make lotion!  This stuff is amazing, and took only  a short time to make. Wow.  The recipe is below.  Next, my cousin Monty, of granola fame, gave me a bar of hand-made “kitchen soap” that a friend of hers had made…Wow, again.  I can just rub this on a wet sponge and plenty of soap lathers up for me to wash the dishes in my sink.  She has promised to buy me a bunch of these bars from her neighbor when she goes back to New Jersey this fall, plus try for the recipe.

Meanwhile have a lovely last few days of summer. If you live anywhere near Durham, NC don’t miss Paper Hand Puppet’s ISLANDS UNKNOWN taking place at UNC’s stone ampitheatre the next few weekends. I hope you are also able to spend some time in a pool or a lake or maybe just looking up at the moon and stars while the cicadas sing before the seasons change.   This spinning world is always a place of mystery and amazement, when I remember to take the time to notice.  Sunlight and shadow.  It’s all there.

RICH LOTION FOR CHAPPED HANDS.

REBECCA in her Kitchen with the beeswax

from Better Basic’s for the Home by Anne Berthold-Bond

2 1/2 ounces apricot kernel and avocado oil

1’1/2 ounces shea butter

1/4 ounce beeswax

1 tablespoon pure vegetable glycerin

1/2 teaspoon grapefruit seed extract

20 or so drops of essential oil as desired

Combine the oils, shea butter and beeswax in a double boiler over medium heat and cook until wax is melted.  Remove from heat and add the rose water, glycerin, grapefruit seed extract and essential oil.  Blend with an electric mixer until creamy.  Store in a glass jar.

Peaches from the tree in my yard that came from a peach pit in my compost pile, and toilet paper from CVS

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.

~Meister Eckhart

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

One of the greatest discoveries a man (or a woman, come on now, Henry)  makes, one of his (or her)  great surprises, is to find he (or she) can do what he (or she) was afraid he (or she) couldn’t do.

Henry Ford (sort of)

Here’s something I figured out a while back–It doesn’t take that much money to live well–I mean really, why would I be an artist at all, if I thought money would give me answers.  I am fortunate in that I have been able to make my living working as an artist almost all of my adult life.  Where am I going here?  Isn’t this blog about trying for a disposable plastic-free year?  Good question…..The thing is, by now, half way through the year, it is not really such a struggle.  I think this is partly from educating myself as to where and when to buy.  How to dodge take-out containers and such.  The other part is, I think I am used to living on a budget, figuring things out, being thrifty, shopping smart–I have done this all of my life.  Making yogurt and granola, my own ice tea, whatever to avoid plastic has not been a huge step for me.  And I am RELIEVED  to be dodging the big box stores, the homes of plastic and plastic packaging, as I am now thinking of them.  I do not need what they have.  Over and over–I have thought–ummm–here is a place I will have to use some plastic, and then, voila, next thing–I figured out a way not to.

A week or so ago, I was planning a short camping trip to a lake up in Virginia.  As I was gathering and borrowing a tent, cookstove, etc, I thought ummm-okay, I will need to buy those plastic bags of ice–no choice.  And 15 minutes later, I was taking ice cubes out of my freezer and storing them in glass jars to put in my cooler.  And then when telling my carpenter friend Dave this story he says–”so Bryant–where is the nearest store with their own ice machine?  Couldn’t you just take your cooler in and ask them to fill it directly?”  Duh– I kind of feel like the little engine that could.  If I just keep saying I think I can, or more exactly, there is some way that I can do this if think hard enough—well, I usually can…Okay!

So here are a few recent surprises.

The “butterfly bush” in my garden which grew and grew but never had flowers turned out to be a peach tree which sprouted from a peach pit in my compost.  This year, I harvested over 20 peaches.  They were small, but very sweet.  And the price was SO right.

Hurrying through CVS last week, wondering why I was there, I looked up and saw rolls and rolls of toilet paper wrapped in paper (not plastic film) on sale for 50 cents each. Gosh, I just love it when big chains actually pay attention to the environment.

I am in love with LUSH cosmetics.  This company is out of England and is doing  a good job of being environmentally friendly.  I have been buying terrific shampoo in bars from them this year.  Plus I can get chunks of bath stuff that bubbles and moisturizer in bars. None of these products are wrapped in the “what do I do with this now” shiny plastic film…..  No plastic in any of it.  They do sell plastic pots of cream and things that they recycle, and this plastic-free year, I am not going there, but it is such fun and a relief to buy the products listed above and seen below.

LUSH stuff--shampoo in bars, a bar of moisturize in a tin, and soap and bubble bath in chunks, sold by weight in compost-able paper.

BIRTHDAY PRESENTS: Flowers, blueberries, tomatoes, pastry, chocolate, and cards........

And finally–My birthday!  This year, I was wanting to fly low, under the radar, no big deal anywhere–Joan Baez with some good friends on Sunday, lunch with another close  friend, taking the blueberry pound cake I had made to my yoga group and then having my young friend Rachael accompany me to meditation.  All of this was sweet and then here is the deal–what I noticed last night as I inhaled the huge slice of watermelon one of my friends had given me–anything any body gave me in the way of celebration this year was not made of plastic or packaged in it.  Wow–how lucky can I be to have such thoughtful generous friends who are PAYING ATTENTION to my quest.  Cards, a good book, chocolate,  fruit and flowers from the farmers market—And none of it needs to be thrown away.  I did not plan this, but scouts honor, it happened.

It seems that life is full of surprises.

Thank you.

North Carolina beach sand complete with shells, sticks and plastic

“We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody. Buckminster Fuller

watching, or maybe not, the Durham Bulls

It is hot and steamy here in North Carolina as only July in the sultry south can be.  My single-use plastic-free year is more than half way over.
I would like to think that I am mostly successful at this experiment if you give a me break here and there. Like at the Durham Bulls Ball Park last night, I had scanned the food as I walked by all of the concession stands on my way in and figured out I could buy a hot dog or a pizza
without getting any throw-away plastic packaging along with my food.  And I had my steel H2O bottle full of cold water.  It was my godson Theo’s birthday, and a bunch of us, including his 9-month-old daughter, sweated and laughed and sort of watched the game.  So I was surrounded by plenty of plastic cups of beer and ice cream with plastic spoons, plastic bags full of cotton candy and ice cold slushies in styrofoam cups.  And yes, like  the baby I was holding in my lap, I demanded  my share out of her mother Rachael’s cup of orange Italian ice.  I mean, I am not perfect here, and it was so hot–who could resist ice cold bright orange crushed ice even if it was in a styrofoam cup?  Certainly neither of us.

plastic detritus on the shore of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, after the Hurricane Agatha, June 2010

When I think of all the single-use plastic that gets thrown away at one such ball game, I could ask my self the question–why bother?  What difference will it make?  First and foremost, I am curious and amazed at absolutely how much of that stuff is out there, everywhere, and all of the time.  And Second, YES, I have to believe that paying attention to recycling and reuse makes a difference.  If I did not, then I could turn myself into an apathetic blob of denial–boring boring boring.  This year I have noticed so much about plastic that I was ignoring in my rush through life.  Also, and this is very clear, I am seeing and hearing all over the place, that I am not the only one who is beginning to REALLY notice that we have a problem here.  The other day my friend Blair Pollock of Orange County Solid Waste told me that at least 3 countries, South Africa, Ireland, and Bangaledesh, plus the city of San Francisco have actually banned the use of plastic bags.  And earlier, I wrote about the town of Concord, MA doing the same.  Now why is this happening?  For many complex reasons for sure–the mess of non-biodegradable bags blowing and floating around everywhere being a big one.  I have heard stories of rivers in India clogged with those cheap plastic bags and I certainly saw many similar signs of our over-use of plastic while on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.  Taking something out of the earth and making it into a material that has a very short time of value and then tossing it away is simply not a workable equation.  Our world is big, and we have been able to hide this for a long time.  I am thinking our time for ignorance on this issue is about up here.

The world of plastics has changed  and keeps changing–all of the time.  I began this post wanting to speak about recycling plastics, telling what I have learned about which plastics are and are not recycled.  Googling the solid waste offices of the 3 municipalities closest to me here as a citizen of the Research Triangle Area of North Carolina, USA, I got 3 ENTIRELY DIFFERENT and VERY SPECIFIC lists.  Humph–why is this?  Why aren’t there any simple answers out there?  I mean, I want to do the right thing, I really do.  Why do THEY make it so hard.  I mean really, I am busy here….This year, my job is thinking about those questions.

HERE IS WHAT I KNOW:

1)  The number surrounded by those arrows on all plastics is ONLY an industry label as to what type of plastic it is.  The 3 arrows DO NOT  mean it is recyclable.  Is this confusing and misleading?   ABSOLUTELY.  Is the plastics industry interested in changing this confusing signage?  NO, they are not.

2)  The plastics we are able to recycle are the ones that our local municipalities or in some cases, stores, have found markets for.  Why is this different for each municipality?   Recycling is about finding markets–i.e. someone who wants to buy the product to use it again.  These markets are not huge.  They change just as our desire for this or that plastic product changes.

3)  In the past 20 years plastics recycling has become EXTREMELY  complicated.  There are so many issues involved here.  We have made more and more things out of this cheap “throw away” stuff called plastic.  We are so smart that we change the chemical make-up all of the time to suit our particular needs.  It looks to me like the people of the  plastics industry are not working together, but running a race to make as many different incompatible types of plastics which, when combined together, do not decompose, and sabotage the chemical composition of each other when mixed together.

All of this and more are what our recycling professionals are dealing with when they look for markets for our throw-away plastics, and when they attempt to get as much of the recyclable plastics together to sell.  Blair Pollock of Orange County Solid Waste just wrote an article explaining why his organization recycles what it does and does not. He says two very interesting things: 1 ) Those rigid clear clam shells which we buy fruits and vegetables in are made of many different types of plastic, many of which will pollute the big PET plastic drink bottle collecting that is happening.  2) Next, all of those plastics made of corn are only compost-able in big industrial composters–they pollute the other plastics when melted with them and you cannot compost them in a back yard compost pile.

So now I have to ask, “why is everyone buying those corn cups and spoons?”  To make ourselves feel better?    Because you want to “do the right thing?”  It can work.  Guilford College in Greensboro, NC has an Earth Tub which does compost them.  Do you have one of these?  I do not, nor do I have access to one.

Okay, now here is the final complicated news.  The industry has developed stuff called OXO chemical additives which will break plastic down into smaller and smaller particles.  Is this actually helpful?  It looks to me like this answer is No.  What good is it to make plastic LOOK  like it is gone when it has not?  Also, I understand that these chemicals pollute the other recyclable plastics when mixed together.

I have written above about what I understand about the complexities of current plastics recycling.  YES, I am an opinionated novice here, possibly on my way  to becoming a ZEALOT. YES, I am.  These are very complicated issues.  If you would like to know a bit more, please read Blair’s article.  All I can say about doing the right thing plastic recycling-wise is to do your research. Find out what your town or county recycles, where they want you to recycle it and in what form.  Why should you do this?  Does what you do matter?  YES.  We are all in this together. YES.  Paying attention and doing the best you can matters.  YES.  YES it does.

Two of my recycled crows, both of whom are diligent recyclers themselves wherever they are.

eggs from the farmer's market in perfect compost-able, biodegradable, non-plastic packaging

In California, they don’t throw their garbage away – they make it into TV shows.  Woody Allen

Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg until it is broken. MFK Fisher

So here is a question. How many compost bins do you think there are in Beverly Hills? Anyway, this just in from my friend Rebecca Currie, who writes the blog LESS IS ENOUGH and has been a huge resource for me in my attempt to live single-use plastic free this year. For tips on eating plainer and simpler and just musings on life’s curiosities in these crazy times, be sure to check out her blog.

After reading my post, We are our Compost, Rebecca sent me the following…

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
A Guest Post by Rebecca Currie (a.k.a lessisenough)

I was talking on the phone the other night to a friend who started the year with a bunch of things she was hoping to accomplish, and she was feeling a little bit down, like she hadn’t made much progress. She said she wrote out the list of everything she’s done but when she looked at it, it didn’t seem like much.

I said, “Did you include taking out the garbage?” (She really hates taking out the garbage, and that was one of the things she wanted to do a better job with.)

She laughed and said, “No! I forgot that. I’ll have to add it.” Then she said, “Did you ever read that poem in Where the Sidewalk Ends about the girl who wouldn’t take out the garbage? Cynthia something Stout who wouldn’t take the garbage out?”

She said, “I’ll add that to the list, that I didn’t turn into Cynthia Stout and wasn’t buried by my garbage.”

The next day I got an email from my friend with the text of the poem, and as I read it, I was struck by the fact that poor Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout wasn’t buried by garbage at all, she was buried by food waste, and if she’d only had a worm bin this whole tragedy could have been avoided.

And that made me think of my friend Bryant’s last post, so I wanted to contribute this guest post for her, to reiterate what she said:

Reduce! Reuse! Recycle! Compost compost compost!

It will change your life. And spare you from the terrible fate of poor Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout, who would not take the garbage out.

Hello–It’s Bryant again.  I have to end this post by thanking Rebecca  and telling you something amazing I learned about her the other day. After reading my post, she told me, that actually she only needs to take her garbage out once or twice a year.  Wow Rebecca–just wow.

This has got to be because of how carefully  she shops, how much she recycles and uses her worm bin.   And she is a great cook. She leads a full and interesting life with less garbage than anyone I know.  Check out her blog, LESS Is ENOUGH and you will be amazed as well.

You suppose you are the trouble


But you are the cure


You suppose that you are the lock on the door


But you are the key that opens it


Rumi



Guatemala City landfill in action, on a rainy day in late May 2010

Vultures watching from above.

Hanley Dennings, the founder of  Safe Passage, saw in her heart what needed to be done and did it.  The very same week Hanley visited the families who worked in Guatemala City Landfill for the first time  because of the urgings of a friend “…..she sold her computer and her car and, using some money she had in savings, opened the doors of Safe Passage (known in Spanish as “Camino Seguro”) by enrolling 40 of Guatemala’s poorest children in school.  These children couldn’t afford the books, school supplies, and enrollment fees required by the public school.  This initial group received tutoring, a healthy snack, and the care and attention they so desperately needed.  Another 70 children participated in a drop-in program when they weren’t working in the dump.”*

Hanley Dennings who founded Safe Passage

Now over 10 years later their programs include a Guarderia for small children, a school for school age children and an adult literacy program.  After completing their degrees many of the women in this program have been granted scholarships in nursing or some other profession.

Camino Seguro has a professional staff which is augmented by volunteers who come from all over the world to work there.  ”Today Safe Passage provides approximately 550 children with education, social services, and the chance to move beyond the poverty their families have faced for generations.”*

A pile of plastic pulled from the Guatemala City landfill for resale

Every Thursday they offer a tour of the landfill. This tour begins in a cemetery.  The day I went it was very rainy.  We walked from the parked bus past graves large and small until we stood  on the edge of a cliff, looking down with the vultures into the landfill far below.  Trucks rolled in and dumped their garbage and tiny ant-sized people, all mostly covered in yellow plastic rain ponchos, swarmed the piles and sorted through it for items of value for resale.

In the United states we pay workers to sort our recyclables in what is called a Material Recovery Facility (MRF).  Still, it is not a job I would want.  Would you?  Most of us, everywhere, just want our garbage to go AWAY.  After all, we threw it AWAY, now didn’t we?  When my friend Blair Polluck gives tours of the Orange County, NC Landfill, he begins by welcoming people to AWAY.

some of the homes of the landfill workers

While I was in Guatemala I was given the opportunity by Carlyn Wright-Eakes who is the art teacher at Camino Seguro to do an art project with the kids.  So, bringing “stuff” donated by the Scrap Exchange of Durham NC and with the help of Bonnie Wright, mother of Carlyn and Julia Gartrell, store manager of the Scrap Exchange, we made recycled  mariposas (butterflies) with the children.  On the tail of each mariposa, the children wrote their hopes for all of the Guatemalans suffering from the ravages of the recent landslides caused by Hurricane Agatha.  The kids were joyous.  The staff and volunteers were very helpful, as were the teachers.  The Safe Passage Facilities are situated in Guatemala City, near the landfill operations and the homes of the workers and their families, and are large and welcoming, with gardens, lots of light, good food.  It was a great place to be.  Below are some of the butterflies the children made.  Their English was usually much better than all of my high school Spanish.

Julia and and kids at Camino Seguro with their butterflies, made from mostly plastic stuff from the Scrap Exchange.

I have been writing this year about my attempt  not to use disposable plastic.  What I have discovered over and over again is that it is everywhere. Being in a country where people do not drink their tap water until they filter it, makes bottled water, or water in a plastic bag, another story entirely.  I was mostly successful here, but not always. Everybody everywhere likes to give you one of those filmy plastic bags for everything.  Guatemala is certainly no exception.  Experiencing Hurricane Agatha on Lake Atitlan, hearing booming thunder-like sounds and finding out that they were landslides, was a sobering experience.  And after the storm was over, after the sun came out and the people began digging the mud out of their homes, doing their laundry on the rocks, fishing along the edge of the lake and salvaging firewood which had washed down into the lake, you could not help but see the plastic detritus which was floating everywhere.

So, while in Guatemala, I was able to see and experience just a bit of the amazing organization Camino Seguro–go to their website–and you will be amazed as well.  Also, I was reminded in many ways, of how very vulnerable we are as human beings.  What we give to each other every day really matters, all the time, no exceptions.  Whether we are teaching school, or riding a bus, or cleaning up after a hurricane–our skin is only a thin membrane around our bodies, our bones, our brains and our hearts, yet we can do and affect so much if we put our hearts to it.  Not only did  Hanley Dennings know this, she acted on it with all of her heart–Camino Seguro  for all of us.

Special thanks to David Chatt, The Scrap Exchange and the fiber Department of Penland School of Crafts for donating materials for our mariposa project, and again and always to the people of Camino Seguro, all of you.

Also, thanks to my intrepid travel companions, Liz Love, Carlyn Wright-Eakes, Bonnie Wright and Julia Gartrell.

* means I quoted directly from the Camino Seguro website

Debris on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala after Hurricane Agatha, 2010

Travelers going home on the eve of Hurricane Agatha--Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

What gives value to travel is fear.  It is the fact that, at a certain moment, when we are so far from our own country, we are seized by a vague fear, and an instinctive desire to go back to the protection of old habits.  This is the most obvious benefit of travel.  At that moment we are feverish, but also porous, so that the slightest touch makes us quiver to the depths of our being.  We come across a cascade of light, and there is eternity.  This is why we should not say we  travel for pleasure.  There is no pleasure in traveling, and I look upon it more as an occasion for spiritual testing.  If we understand by culture, the exercise of our most intimate sense–that of eternity–then we travel for culture.  Pleasure takes us away from ourselves in the same way as distraction, in Pascal’s use of the word, takes us away from God.  Travel, which is like a greater and graver science, brings us back to ourselves.

Albert Camus–Notebooks 1935-1942

Last night I returned from two weeks in Guatemala.  During my stay I experienced the power of Hurricane Agatha, the aftermath of the volcano Pacaya eruption in Guatemala City which left it covered with black volcanic sand, and along with many industrious Guatemalans, climbed over a landslide on my way down from Lake Atitlan last Tuesday.

The purpose of my visit was to work with the children of Safe Passage, an organization in Guatemala City.  I was invited by Carlyn Wright-Eakes  who is in charge of the visual arts program there.  Through her, I met many dedicated volunteers, teachers, students, mothers and administrators of this amazing place. Stay tuned for a post about this amazing organization. It well deserves its own story.

A fresh landslide over the road. We eventually joined these folks and crossed over ourselves

Today, as my body is adjusting to another time zone, as I turn on the tap and know the water is safe for me to drink, as I call friends to reconnect and settle in, as my physical body adjusts itself to food I am used to and a bed I am familiar with, as a local industrious teenager cuts my grass, I am wondering about what is normal.  I keep remembering a small Mayan woman deftly climbing over the striated earth of one of the recent landslides in Guatemala which had blocked all traffic because of the rains of Hurricane Agatha.  She was dressed in the traditional traje of a beautifully colored woven skirt and embroidered huipil.  Balanced delicately on her head were a huge bundle of  calla lillies.  Not missing a beat, up the wet brown and red earth across and down the other side she went.  The sun was shining, laundry was drying, and the grass and crops on the mountain sides were a million shades of green.

We live our lives, we count our days…….we are all traveling, across waters great and small, along streets paved, cobbled and pounded out of dirt.  When we are lucky we fly like birds above it all and all of this time, all we ever really want is to come home again.

Safety, a home — Isn’t that all we really want.  Isn’t that why we fight our battles for education, for environmental justice, for food for all….for all of these passions of our hearts.  All of the things we see and feel are important in this world.

Can you tell I am glad to be home?  I give thanks for my journey and my own safe passage.

Stay tuned for tales of mariposas with the children of Safe Passage in Guatemala City, and musings on all of the single use plastic I saw everywhere in my travels.  But those are other stories for other days.  Right now special thanks to all of the wonderful people there at Safe Passage in Guatemala. Hi Carlyn, hi Liz, hi Carmencita, hi Gabe…love to you, the rest of the staff, the kids, the volunteers, all of you and thank you.

Recycled mariposas. The children wrote their dreams for the people of Guatemala during the aftermath of Hurricane Agatha on their butterflies.

some of the Mariposas the kids at Safe Passage made out of recycled stuff from the Scrap Exchange

Me and my crew installing bales of PETE plastic bottles in front of the Durham Arts Council in 1992 for my show entitled “Natural Selection.”

Americans now drink more bottled water than milk or beer — in fact, the average American is now drinking around 30 gallons, or 115 liters, of bottled water each year, most of it from single-serving plastic containers. Bottled water has become so ubiquitous that it’s hard to remember that it hasn’t always been here…….Millions of Americans still drink tap water at home and in restaurants. But there is a war on for the hearts, minds, and pocketbooks of tap water drinkers, a huge market that water bottlers cannot afford to ignore. The war on the tap is an undeclared war, for the most part, but in recent years, more and more subtle (and not so subtle) campaigns that play up the supposed health risks of tap water, or the supposed health advantages of bottled water, have been launched by private water bottlers.

From ‘Bottled & Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water’ by PETER H. GLEICK

When we’re done, tap water will be relegated to showers and washing dishes. —Susan Wellington, president of the Quaker Oats Company’s United States beverage division.

Driving home earlier this week, I heard Peter Gleick talking with Terry Gross on Fresh Air. He is a MacArthur Fellow whose book Bottled & Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water has just been published. Here are a few things I learned–our tap water is very good.  Tap water and bottled water are regulated very differently–we are not requiring bottled water to adhere to the same standards as our drinking water–hum.  And another factoid or two.  If the name of the bottled water has the name of a spring in it, then the water is probably patched together from a bunch of different springs from wherever.  If the name is something else–dansai, artic whatever, etc.,  then it is tap water with the minerals taken out and the companies’ own special mix put back in.

Gleick says we cannot afford for ALL of us to ONLY drink bottled water.  It costs too much and we are only recycling a small percentage of the PETE (Polyethylene Terephthalate) bottles that it comes in.  What is the deal here?  What happened to our water fountains?  Why have so many of us been carrying around those plastic bottles of water?  I know, I know and I used to say this–well, “I keep filling it up with tap water.” In and out of the car, the freezer, the refrigerator–again and again–ummmm–I have certainly done this.  I am just not doing it any more.

Here are 2 interesting news items:

My steel water bottles. I have carried the orange ones around since January 1, this year. Check out the new blue one! Our local "Save the Wetlands Beaver Queen Pageant" has gone SINGLE USE PLASTIC free!

Concord Massachusetts became the first US town to BAN, yes that is what I said-BAN bottled drinking water.  Telling this to a friend who works in the recycling industry–she forwarded me an email which someone had entitled–“Duke provost ditches plastic water bottles.” Apparently, after listening to jackson browne speak on the need to reduce single use plastic when he received the Leaf Award at Duke last month, he took action.  Here is what this provost said: “By switching from plastic bottles to a cooler and paper cups, annual drinking water costs are cut by $1,700 – almost 80 percent. Not only that, but many employees have purchased water bottles and mugs to use instead of paper cups, cutting out even more waste.”

It was around 20 years ago that curbside recycling came to my town.  In that first blue bin distributed by SUNSHARES, a non-profit which was developed for neighborhood recycling, we were able to put our glass bottles, and tin and aluminum cans.  No plastic–there was not enough of  a market for it.  Gradually, plastic bottles began to be collected–just the PETE soda bottles and the HDPE (high-density polyethelyene) milk jugs.  These days the plethora of plastics begging to be recycled is mind boggling–with much conversation about it within the industry.  One thing to remember is that recycling any of this stuff is about there being a market for it at the other end.  Those numbers surrounded by the 3 arrows on each container are the plastic industries’ label for what kind of plastic it is.  More and more our personal recycling should be about PAYING ATTENTION to what our local waste industries can handle–i.e., what they have found markets for.  Even so, I feel it is important to understand that much plastic is down-cycled.  This means that is will be made into something like carpet or plastic lumber, not into itself again as in aluminum cans and glass bottles for example.  This is all reminding me of William MacDonough’s quest in his book “Cradle to Cradle”  where he challenges us to develop an economy where all our once-used goods are not thrown away but reused in a valuable way.

bottles from one of the 5 large masses of plastic in our oceans.

As I write this and have been looking at pictures of plastic bottles in our oceans, along our rivers and in our landfills, I can’t help thinking of the oil pouring into the waters of the Gulf Coast.  Are we the willing victims of our own industrialization?  Oil is spewing from the depths of the ocean coating our wetlands and we cannot stop it.  Plastic bottles are being tossed away everyday all the time. Can we ask these industries to act responsibly, to make decisions that are sustainable for future generations?  Will they hear us if we do?  Gleick says we recycle less than 30% of our plastic bottles.  Which of these rivers of petroleum or its by-product will be more deadly to us in the long run?   Will we be smart enough politically , scientifically and personally to see these wake-up calls for what they are?  Are we willing to take action and assume what  responsibility we can? In my life time, I have been responsible for a LOT of plastic bottles. How many of them did I actually recycle?  I am not sure, but I know many were probably just tossed. I cannot be self righteous here, no way.   My friend David  Chatt has promised me that if I ever start pointing my finger at him he is gonna call me by the name of a crazy neighbor of his who has a conspiracy thing going about plastic. So I TRY to be careful.

Perhaps we all walk a careful line in this huge universe, which is spinning so fast every day around and around and around.  Forever.  Or so we hope.

“I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path.” The Dali Lama

“The answer to life, the universe and everything is 42.” Douglas Adams in “the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy”

plastic collection May 3, 2010 Nags Head, NC

These days, when I see a friend I haven’t seen is a while, someone who knows about my –okay, take a deep breath–SINGLE USE PLASTIC FREE YEAR–, well naturally, they just want to know–”how am I doing?”  So for them and for those of you who might be wondering, I am reporting in.  Here is what I promised  myself in a post dated January 6, 2010:

1)  Always carry my own re-useable bags and REMEMBER to tell clerks–”no bags please.”  In many stores–like almost any drug store, I have to be vigilant and say this again and again for each purchase.  augh……

2) No plastic water bottles, styrofoam or plastic cups.  I now have 2 steel water bottles that travel with me at all times.  I would like to say here that 132 days later–I still have those same 2 water bottles!  A major miracle for me!

plastic collection May 4 2010 Nags Head, NC

3) No plastic silverware–I have decided to carry a knife, fork and spoon with me.  I think plastic drinking straws are definitely in this category.   For my own enjoyment, I am using my Mom’s beautiful sterling silver  (Lily of the Valley pattern.)  ahhh….

By now I am sorta trained in most of this.  I try to remember to scan restaurants when I enter to make sure that they are not using throw-away plastic utensils, bowls, plates, etc.  Mostly, I remember to ask the waiter NOT to put a straw in my glass.  Some places I have worked deals–Bahn’s my wonderful local family owned restaurant which serves Vietnamese on Wednesday and Saturday, lets me bring my own bowls.  The other day, when I picked up my friend Miriam for lunch, I even remembered to bring a bowl for her as well.

plastic collection, May 5 ,2010 Nags Head, NC

I keep the space behind the drivers seat of my truck stuffed with reusable grocery bags.  In the bags, I have smaller bags and/or bottles for bread or vegetables or things from the bulk isle or farmers market. When in grocery stores, I usually head straight to produce and ignore most of the rest.

Traveling is tricky–Last week while enjoying a residency in Camden NC,  I just made a PB and J sandwich for myself for lunch–plus fruit and my water bottle, I am fine here.  I do a lot of work in schools and they ALWYAS have lots of styrofoam, so rather than be frustrated, I do the above.  This week, I am working in Duplin County.  This is a very large NC County on the way to the beach with lots of farm land, and many pigs–most of whom I have not seen.  I just ate lunch in a sweet restaurant in Downtown Kenansville called a Change of Venue.  There I was even served my beloved sweet tea over crushed ice in a glass.  Last year, I might have eaten at the small restaurant that I saw on my way into town.  The plate glass window was steamy and the handpainted sign on the side of the building said “Barbecue, Skin & Ribs”, and there were lots of cars and trucks in the parking lot.   Just my kind of place, usually, but betting on the Styrofoam of most of these small establishments, I just traveled on.  Dang.

plastic collection, May 6, 2010, Nags Head, NC

When I see someone walking around with one of those large (non-recyclable in any sense of the word) Styrofoam cups with  a plastic straw through a plastic lid, I remind myself, that this time last year, it would have been me.  I guess you could say, my view of the world has changed quite a bit since January 1, 2010.

I am surprised at how comfortable I am getting with using less plastic.  Though, I still miss plastic drinking straws, I am not missing packaged crackers, cookies, and cereal. My life is fine without processed frozen foods.  This I can say because I happen to know for sure and certain that I can buy both Edie’s Ice Cream and Yum Yum Ice Cream out of Greensboro NC in cardboard cartons.  If you are trying out Yum Yum for the first time–DO NOT pass up the black cherry!

I am eating much less meat and cheese, and more eggs, bread and vegetables.  And because Weaver St. Market has chocolate chips in bulk–I am good there.  Ummm–and I suggest you try the yogurt covered almonds in the bulk bin at Whole Foods is you want something to eat until you die of the joy of just eating.

There are still dodgy issues that I am working on.  A lot of take-out containers are, well,—plastic–duh.  Cosmetics are mostly plastic covered.  I am still hunting for an affordable face cream in a glass jar.  I have not run out of what I have yet, nor have I given up the search.  Many things, which I thought would be impossible to solve, have often been the opposite.  Making my own yogurt is an excellent example of something very easy to do, which tastes great and means no plastic container!

So the true answer when people ask  ”how are you doing?”  Is fine–just fine.  I am constantly coming up with answers, solutions and other ways of doing without plastic.  Mostly, except when I am very tired and possibly hungry as well, I am having a very good time with this.  And when  I get  tired and grumpy, the thing I have to do is eat an apple, or maybe some nuts, and then I feel better.  So, if Douglas Adams says the answer is 42, I am thinking for me right now, my answer  to the meaning of life thing is apples–pretty sure –gotta be apples.

Five apples from Durham attempting to impress an orange they met in Duplin County