So here it is right from the start..i don't know where it started but mostly from my being here in US and with the whole sustainability move in the Architetcural industry...and part of it taking LEED exam...anywhoes the last memory stems from me starting to recycle items after i got married back in 2006. Ones which i thought were recyclable. But mostly cans and bottles and anything plastic that i wanted to throw. Then i started taking my own cloth bags but not regularly. I think the craziness kicked in mainly when i got pregnant with my daughter Fianna. i did worry about how it would affect my little one. I stopped using perfumes. Stopped nail polish back then. ( i am back to wearing them now and i know I should stop it).
This post would be not complete without the background of what i grew up with. While growing up in India some things that i remember right away was that my mom would always carry a bag with her for bring back grocery and even the green grocers or the dry grocery stores didn't hand out plastic bags back then..infact they were pretty stingy about handing out plastic bags coz it cost them money. The dry grocery store folks use to have little packets made from old newspaper for handing out the grocery and then my mom or dad would put it in their large bag and take it home. No pre packaging...so in short bulk grocery shopping like stores like wholefoods..already a sustainable practice...
There are many such sustainable practices more from the fact to reduce the cost of many things. Maybe i will write another post on sustainable pratices i was raised with.
For now back to US life. Good thing is right from the start I didn't like canned or frozen food coz my mom always made fresh food. So didn't need to worry about the packaging for that. Started shopping local at farmers market and organic in fear of all the pesticides i might consume...when finally Fianna came i knew right from the start i am going to make her part of my green ( sustainable project). I used cloth diapers for her for mostly 80 percent of hte time unti lshe was 14 months and started day care ( They refused to consider cloth diapers due ot hygiene). i always had her on organic fruits and vegetables..mostly for her not to ingest the chemicals...trying not to buy plastic toys and get wooden alternates if i could.
Also after starting to work at Gensler i was introduced our sustainabilty group and we discussed a whole lot of things including sustainable business. Which included starting from our office and how to make it greener. Encouraging use of our own silverware as opposed to disposable ones.
Also i think it was always intuitive for me that since plastic was not a natural product and was a product of so many chemical processing that surely having food in it was not a good idea. Then through various vendor presentations about hte products if they degenrated in the sun and that got me to thinkign that all plastics degenerate and leach out their chemicals with time.
Then of course the book i am reading my Beth Terry "My Plastic Free Life"
It mentions why plastic does not break down when it hits the landfills.
Her explaination really convinced me why. She says that there are gazillion polymers in the world naturally occuring..like tree sap..honey..too many to name...but these polymers have been around for centuries and the microorganism which help break down these have had the practise of doign that for centuries too. But hte man made polymers have been around only for a few years and there are no organism who have evolved to break these down..hence they wil take many mroe centuries to break down..and even more the plastic leacing chemicals will leach from the lanfills in ot hte water tables into our drinking water.
Thsi conversation of mine can extend into pages but for now i covered msotly the begining of my thought. i have a long long way to go and a long way to break my laziness too and logn way to inform eveyone i know that they have a duty for our kids and the future generation for a better environment for all the wild life..bu that will have to be another post.
This post would be not complete without the background of what i grew up with. While growing up in India some things that i remember right away was that my mom would always carry a bag with her for bring back grocery and even the green grocers or the dry grocery stores didn't hand out plastic bags back then..infact they were pretty stingy about handing out plastic bags coz it cost them money. The dry grocery store folks use to have little packets made from old newspaper for handing out the grocery and then my mom or dad would put it in their large bag and take it home. No pre packaging...so in short bulk grocery shopping like stores like wholefoods..already a sustainable practice...
There are many such sustainable practices more from the fact to reduce the cost of many things. Maybe i will write another post on sustainable pratices i was raised with.
For now back to US life. Good thing is right from the start I didn't like canned or frozen food coz my mom always made fresh food. So didn't need to worry about the packaging for that. Started shopping local at farmers market and organic in fear of all the pesticides i might consume...when finally Fianna came i knew right from the start i am going to make her part of my green ( sustainable project). I used cloth diapers for her for mostly 80 percent of hte time unti lshe was 14 months and started day care ( They refused to consider cloth diapers due ot hygiene). i always had her on organic fruits and vegetables..mostly for her not to ingest the chemicals...trying not to buy plastic toys and get wooden alternates if i could.
Also after starting to work at Gensler i was introduced our sustainabilty group and we discussed a whole lot of things including sustainable business. Which included starting from our office and how to make it greener. Encouraging use of our own silverware as opposed to disposable ones.
Also i think it was always intuitive for me that since plastic was not a natural product and was a product of so many chemical processing that surely having food in it was not a good idea. Then through various vendor presentations about hte products if they degenrated in the sun and that got me to thinkign that all plastics degenerate and leach out their chemicals with time.
Then of course the book i am reading my Beth Terry "My Plastic Free Life"
It mentions why plastic does not break down when it hits the landfills.
Her explaination really convinced me why. She says that there are gazillion polymers in the world naturally occuring..like tree sap..honey..too many to name...but these polymers have been around for centuries and the microorganism which help break down these have had the practise of doign that for centuries too. But hte man made polymers have been around only for a few years and there are no organism who have evolved to break these down..hence they wil take many mroe centuries to break down..and even more the plastic leacing chemicals will leach from the lanfills in ot hte water tables into our drinking water.
Thsi conversation of mine can extend into pages but for now i covered msotly the begining of my thought. i have a long long way to go and a long way to break my laziness too and logn way to inform eveyone i know that they have a duty for our kids and the future generation for a better environment for all the wild life..bu that will have to be another post.
Love the post! I have been following a plastic free life but not very hard onto it. Sometimes I do fall in the glitch because finding an alternative is hard. For those plastic grocery bags I re-use them as trash bags. Only if I can find a greener alternative for trash bags and cut on some toys (which I already have) I think my place would be a lot greener :)
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