Happy Earth Day

2 Ways to celebrate in Toronto:

1. Free coffee at Starbucks if you bring in a travel mug.

2. Beginning at 1pm they are giving away FREE Brita pitchers at Yonge-Dundas Square. Quantities are limited to the first 3600 people.

Woohoo!
They were also handing out pine tree seedlings to pedestrians from Honda.

Canvas shopping bags

We must have a ton of plastic bags. I kept them all in one big bag and it is always stocked. We try to use them when we can but we are never short on supply.

I always feel bad about these plastic bags. I know they are bad for the environment.. but what for?

(Here is some research that I got from The Real Cost of "Free", http://www.reusablebags.com/)

• "Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food. Turtles think the bags are jellyfish, their primary food source. Once swallowed, plastic bags choke animals or block their intestines, leading to an agonizing death.


• On land, many cows, goats and other animals suffer a similar fate to marine life when they accidentally ingest plastic bags while foraging for food.


• In a landfill, plastic bags take up to 1,000 years to degrade. As litter, they breakdown into tiny bits, contaminating our soil and water.


• When plastic bags breakdown, small plastic particles can pose threats to marine life and contaminate the food web. A 2001 paper by Japanese researchers reported that plastic debris acts like a sponge for toxic chemicals, soaking up a million fold greater concentration of such deadly compounds as PCBs and DDE (a breakdown product of the notorious insecticide DDT), than the surrounding seawater. These turn into toxic gut bombs for marine animals which frequently mistake these bits for food.


• Collection, hauling and disposal of plastic bag waste create an additional environmental impact. An estimated 8 billion pounds of plastic bags, wraps and sacks enter the waste stream every year in the US alone, putting an unnecessary burden on our diminishing landfill space and causing air pollution if incinerated."

"The Real Cost of "Free"".<http://www.reusablebags.com/facts.php?id=2> April 2009.

Awwww. :(

These plastic bags can truly be wasteful and be highly toxic. So ignorant am I to frivolously use these bags without any consideration. Its frightening to think that these toxins contaminate our soil and water, the very essence of our life and resources. What truly is in our water and vegetables? I wonder if they tasted different centuries ago? I'll have to flog about this later.

So, we bought a bunch of canvas grocery bags. I really hope we saved some animals.

Going green: lifestyle change: #1

Thermal coffee mug.

You can take me out of Canada, but you can't take Canada out of me.

I miss the coffee culture.

I never really realized how much a part of my life it was until I moved. I never appreciated that it was a social activity, "something to do" and I just miss it. I loved going to Tims for coffee, cookies, ice caps, bagels and sandwiches.

It was fun no matter where. Drive- through, road-trips, sitting in the car, school. It was always that “go to” place.

So, I have become an active Dunkin Donuts customer. Starbucks is a little too $$ for moi and no Tims in Chi..

I stop at a Dunkins religiously on my way to work now. They even have my coffee ready when I walk in.

I used to get coffee every morning with a Styrofoam cup and just felt plain guilty about it. Plus I spilled it a couple times.

So my new accessory is a stainless steel thermal mug. She is with me at all times and is used for coffee, tea and water. She also doesn't spill and no more coffee cups for me.

Saving the environment one change at a time.