An Effort in Green

Recyclable Items (0) (Well that's a first...)

Non-Recyclable Items (13):

• 1 bread bag
• 1 microwave popcorn wrapper
• 1 cheese slice wrapper
• 2 drink carton seals
• 4 size stickers from clothing
• 1 Styrofoam plate
• 1 Styrofoam bowl
• 1 fudge bar wrapper
• 1 cereal bag

Total Items: 13

Notes:

• The only items on the list that are a result of my vacation are the size stickers (did I mention this is the shopping kind of vacation?).
• The Styrofoam plate and bowl are from Folklorama, which I love, but which I realised this year is really really bad with the plastic! I did manage to avoid the plastic cutlery, at least, by bringing my own from home.

It's time for my yearly trip to Grand Forks, North Dakota! So I'll be gone from Monday (tomorrow) until Thursday. This shouldn't have much of an effect on my posting schedule if I manage to write something fairly soon upon my return.

Of course, this presents me with a new challenge! This will be my first vacation since beginning the Show Us Your Plastic Trash Challenge. In the past, it occurs to me, we've used plastic shopping bags in Grand Forks, despite the fact that we've used almost none of them at home in years. So for the first time, we (me, my mom, my sister Stephanie, and my grandma) will be bringing cloth bags, as well as water bottles and coffee/tea/hot chocolate mugs, since I think the hotel's cups for their free hot beverages are Styrofoam.

As for other environmental impacts of our annual trip, I think we do pretty well. We live in Winnipeg (except my grandma who's from Gimli), so Grand Forks is only a few hours away. We drive in my grandparents' car, which is a hybrid, and gets us there and back on a surprisingly small amount of gas. While we're there, we don't drive much, since our hotel is right next to Columbia Mall, where we spend most of our time. We pretty much only drive across the highway to get to Target and all those other big stores.

I'm excited to see how this trip affects my plastic count! Also, I'm excited for the guilty pleasure that is my yearly involvement in consumerism! I justify it with the fact that I hardly buy any clothes during the rest of the year, since I like to get my clothes at Hot Topic.

I'll let you know how it went when I get back!