Driving Update & Depressing Plastic

Driving Update
Over the last week, C and I have driven a horrifying 287 miles! GAH! It seems like every week we drive MORE instead of less. Here's the breakdown:
190 miles -- camping trip
3 trips to elementary school - 12 (one of these trips was my fault because I overslept and my son missed the bus. Bad me!)
1 trip to work -- 8 miles (it was raining)
1 family trip to hang out with another family -- 8 miles
C drives to school -- 15 miles (or so)
"business" -- 40 miles (at least)
That leaves 14 miles. My estimates may be off.

I wish that we could drive less. The trips to the school are always in a carpool -- there is no bus service for PreK in the morning. The camping trip was a lot of driving, but there is a limited camping season before it gets too hot. I think camping is important for children, but I think driving is bad -- it's a quandry. I do feel good that we have basically eliminated a lot of the short trips we used to take in the car. I don't drive the car 1/2 mile to the grocery store to pick up something for dinner. I ride my bike or pick it up on the way home from school.

The main reasons that we drove this week were:
1. Camping -- impossible to reach any other way: 190 miles
2. Much faster to drive/need to carry kids or other stuff in car: 48 miles
3. Bad weather: 23 miles
4. Car pool: 8 miles
5. Oversleeping: 4 miles

We did keep to the goal of driving less than 100 miles if you leave out the camping trip, but I'm puzzled as to how to get the mileage down.

Depressing Plastic
I LOVE Beth's Fake Plastic Fish blog. She is so inspiring. She is trying to eliminate plastic from her life and is educating others about the evils of plastic. Her blog and others have had me really thinking about plastic lately.

Here are some fun facts that I have learned:

• All plastic that has been made is still around.

• Plastic doesn't biodegrade -- it just breaks into smaller and smaller pieces.

• There is a huge amount of plastic swirling around in the middle of the ocean (The Great Pacific Garbage Patch).

• Plastic is really hard to avoid.

I ran into this picture of a sea turtle on shipwreckcentral.com. Guess what's around its middle. Yep. Plastic. This picture horrifies me, and I can't help but think about it when I'm at the store.


The more that I read about the issue, the more I can't believe that people aren't more upset about it. I think it's a natural tendency to look away from hard problems. I am mad that when I go to the grocery store I am forced to buy plastic that I don't want -- and then I have to figure out some way to responsibly reuse it or recycle it. And it doesn't even really recycle! Plastic bottles don't become new plastic bottles! They need virgin plastic for that. Plastic bottles become stuff like fleece or park benches... (actually, I am still kind of surprised that fleece is made out of plastic). It's sickening.

BUT! I did have a small moment of plastic happiness today. I saw someone throwing boxes full of plastic bottles into the dumpster, so I ran outside:
(let the freak show begin)
GG: Hi! Are there bottles in those boxes?
Dude: Yeah... mostly plastic ones.
GG: Oh! You don't have to throw them away. We recycle. I'll recycle them for you. (I am such a geek. I cannot believe I am offering to recycle a stranger's trash)
Dude: Yeah, but they're not #1 or #2.
GG: Ecology Action accepts all the numbers.
Dude: They only accept #1 and #2.
GG: Yeah, they used to, but now they take them all. It's new.
Dude: Oh, great, I recycle there anyways.

(And he put the boxes back in his car to take them to the recycling center)

...or maybe he drove around to the other dumpster to throw his trash away in peace.