a plastic world...

So I realize it's been an awfully long time since I blogged. (And I don't usually blog about things besides our travels here.) Our life has recently been a whirlwind of decisions about the direction of our career(s). Whenever the dust settles, news will be shared. In the meantime my brain has been too pooped to write. Today I was snapped out of my complacency, though.

With the possibility of frequent moves once more looming in front of us, I've been remembering that I will probably never again have so much free time, so I've renewed my efforts to organize and minimize our lives. This week is when we take down our Christmas tree, so I decided to focus my efforts on, naturally, organizing our Christmas stuff. Minimizing the space it takes up, making it easier to pack and unpack, and considering the possibilities of breakage during said frequent moves. The ornament question has pretty much been solved (thanks to a little help from my friends :)), so I moved on to gift wrap. Inititally I totally wanted this thing:



So cool! Holds everything! Becomes a table! Stores flat or on its end! Has a tape caddie and clippy thingies for gift wrap rolls! Neat! I was thisclose to getting it but then noticed the price... $84.99. Ouch. I figured I'd look around some more but was pretty confident I'd come back, convinced that nothing else I'd find would be so handy.

Next I came across this,



which I'd seen before. Cheaper, certainly, and smaller, but not enough room for ribbons, blah blah blah. I half-slept as I scrolled down the page until I got to the following notice at the bottom:

"Due to extreme price increases in resin and petroleum, Rubbermaid has temporarily increased the cost of this item."

Wow. This completely stopped me in my tracks. And reminded me of something we all seem to forget on a daily basis: plastics come from oil.

Everyone's always talking about how much gasoline people use. True, we need to get off our dependence on gasoline. Second in line are the oft-mentioned ways to reduce electricity usage, including the ubiquitous reminder to switch to compact flourescent bulbs. (And you'd better believe that my Christmas list includes getting LED bulbs instead of incandescents for next year.) But everyone seems to conveniently forget how much plastic- and therefore oil- is in our day-to-day life. CDs! DVDs! Touch screens! Baggies! Tupperware! No-iron poly/cotton shirts! Milk jugs! Yogurt cups! Shampoo bottles!

We all very much need to reduce the amount of plastic we use. Sure it's hard, and sure some of it is unavoidable- but that's the point. When oil's over $100 a barrel, and when it starts to run out, there's more than switching to electric cars at stake. Can you imagine a world without plastic? No? Then you'd better start minimizing your use of it now. And yes, a lot of plastic can be recycled, but conserving should always be the first step.

What can you do to minimize your use of plastic? (Besides the delightfully-growing-in-popularity "bring your own bag" movement...) Buy large-quantity hand soap refills instead of buying a new pump each time. Buy powdered dishwasher and laundry detergent in boxes instead of liquid in bottles. Buy refill rolls of tape instead of new plastic dispensers. Get a reusable box to bring sandwiches to work and on picnics instead of using those omni-present bags that always end up in the trash. Buy (organic!) all-natural fiber clothing/towels/sheets, not polyester. Buy things that are made to last from real wood and stone and metal and MAKE them last instead of buying some new plastic thing all the time. (It will save you money in the long run!) And if it must be plastic, make it recycled whenever you can. Many of these things have been mentioned over the years- I remember a phase as a kid when hand-soap refills were very easy to find- but they seem to have fallen by the wayside while everyone gets excited over the technology of compact fluorescent bulbs etc. But let us not forget these small efforts, nor where plastic comes from!

As for me, I've decided to go with this gift-wrap holder.



It's recycled fiberboard! It has easy-carry handles! The metal reinforcements make it strong and long-lasting! Most importantly, the two plastic baggies I'll use to separate ribbons (real fabric ones which I keep and reuse every year) and tags (the fronts of last year's Christmas cards) inside the box are phenominally less plastic than that big ol' divided tub would be. And clearing off a flat surface to wrap presents is a very small effort to put forth to prevent that much more oil from being used.

So what do you say, people? Are you with me? What are some other ways to reduce your use of plastic? Spread the word!