Wednesday Waste-o-Meter -- Week 1

I was a plastic water bottle junkie. More on that later.


Apparently, I am also a plastic-bag junkie. Witness a picture of my office desk drawer:




Although I bring my lunch to work quite a bit (today -- Katie's outstanding Pancit), there are many days when I head out for lunch and receive a bag exclusively for carrying said lunch back to my desk. Over the last year, I have probably thrown away more than 100 of these bags just so I have the convenience of carrying my falafel salad back to my desk.


Back to plastic water bottles... my office provides free water in the form of filtered or bottles and I used to be the guy that would take a case of water back to my desk and proceed to destroy it in a couple of days. I was a serious junkie.

Since then I decided to buy a Klean Kanteen for a number of reasons -- I'm a little freaked out about plastic leaching from bottles, filtered water is probably better than bottled water from a health standpoint, and I was getting a serious case of the guilties through all my bottled water drinking. I haven't sworn it off entirely... I went through about three litres of bottled water last time I was on a plane, and I drink some carbonated stuff, etc. etc. So instead of a junkie I'm more like a functioning plastic user.


Ok... onto the weekly tallies.


A. How many bags of non-recycling garbage did I throw away last week? 1 -- although it is full right now so far all intents and purposes it should be 2.


B. How many plastic water bottles this week? 0!!!!


C. How many styrofoam containers? 2 -- This one is tough... I love the meze trio at Mediterranean Kitchen at Westlake Center, which comes in styrofoam. (Yes, I'm a foodie of the highest order.)


D. How many plastic bags.? 0!!! I brought a plastic bag with me to Mediterranean Kitchen and took it out of my pocket when they were about to put my styrofoam container in it. I felt like a hobo -- so the next time I just asked for it without a bag. And carrying it without a bag seemed to work just fine.


E. How many paper cups? 8 -- Yikes! I get coffee everyday and I need to get a mug or container. Monorail Espresso and Cupcake Royale single-cup but the "Best" double-cups, hence the 8th, you can read about the "Best" here.


F. How much does my garbage weigh? Didn't get to this one.


New fun fact... I go through a LOT of plastic silverware I realized... need to think this one through. Until next week...