Conscious Choice > Convenience

It is no secret that we live in an era of convenience. Instacarts and Doordashes can provide us lunch with the touch of a button. Walk into any Starbucks and count the deluge of customers willing to pay $3.45 for a coffee rather than make one at home for less than 30 cents. If you're in this category, and we all are from time to time, allow yourself a moment to people watch while you sip in that comfy chair. Count those in line who had even slightly anticipated a daily caffeine craving and brought a refillable container with them. Then imagine everyone else, the overwhelming majority who depend on this take-&-toss lifestyle without second thought. The trash cans pile up. I decide to walk outside. 

I look on the ground and see an assortment of non-compostable, non-biodegradable waste. Much from the Starbucks and McDonald’s of the world. I see eclectic piles scattered under the overpass, tossed beside Walmart’s parking lot. Smirnoff cap. Doritos bag. Smoothie King cup. Soda lid there. Green straw. Mardi gras beads here. Mardi gras beads everywhere, really...

In the past year, I have tried to learn all I can about the profiteering industry that is Big Plastic, a subsidiary of Big Oil. Plastic is a petrochemical byproduct of the unusable oil forms that we extract out of the Gulf of Mexico. The same byproducts that are related to the BP oil spill and refinery plants that cause cancers in nearby low-income communities. 

Fleece, emergency water bottles, engines covers, wheel inflation caps, and computer casings are all examples of the wonderful uses of the synthetic creation. But every year, global manufacturers produce more than the human biomass of plastic combined, and the vast majority of it is unnecessary. Big Plastic’s swath of culpability over health, environmental, and social justice issues is why I combat its production with deliberate non-consumption in all forms. Consider me an anti-plasticist. My partner Kevin is a willing participant. 

The picture above hopefully explains why. Strolling through the produce section of Rouses left me exceptionally baffled. Almost all things natural, from cabbage to carrots, were covered with the familiar, clear gloss. Who makes all this stuff? I remember reading that every ounce of plastic that has ever been created still exists somewhere in the world today. In landfills, in streets, in parks, in oceans, in fish, in us. Did you know when exposed to heat, plastic becomes hormonally activated and can disrupt our endocrine systems?

Imagine our post-consumption version of these neatly organized shelves replicated across the 37 Rouses stores between Alabama and Louisiana. Then expand this across every grocery chain in the world. When you combine the typical household’s improper waste management with this plastic unanimity, we have a literal clutter$%*@. 

Escaping plastic purchase as a consumer requires strategy and commitment. To engage is to swim upstream through a toxic gauntlet of processed preservatives, soon-to-be-diabetic drinks, and tauntingly cheap alternatives. (When in doubt, choose glass.) I have failed many a time.

Bringing my own backpack or reusable bags to the store would not suffice. What continually irked me throughout this discovery process was the tyranny plastic held even over my staple diet of rice and beans. Things like Mahatma, Goya, La Canderita (corn tortillas), and Roman Meal (wheat bread). I could not leave the store without directly supporting landfill growth. Every week I carried plastic proof to show for it.  

Goya black bean packaging, post-consumption. 

My mind fixated on mason jars and our lack of them. Buying in bulk seemed like a distant reality. When I visited the Whole Foods' or Rouses' bulk sections, I noticed all the plastic bags provided to buy goods. Did this not defeat the entire purpose of buying in bulk? Fortunately, the Whole Foods' homie Trayshon told me if I bring in my own container, we can weigh it and write that on the label to tare it. “That's wassup!” I remember thinking. Except Whole Foods is notoriously expensive...

Tracking down bulk-buying containers was a challenge in and of itself. Our collection of Tupperwares and jars had dwindled between our 4 prior locations of residence across the city. A quick google search revealed the local Walmart sold 12-packs of brand new (glass!) mason jars for $8.99. These, too, were wrapped in plastic, so by principal I turned the temptation down. A bit more grit and perseverance brought new enlightening findings, which I share below:

• To score some storage containers in a pinch, I highly recommend Freecycle.org (create a posting for mason jars wanted), Craigslist (free section), or Goodwill. Goodwill typically sells its reusable containers between 30 and 60 cents. I began collecting whatever I could...an old Couscous tub, a ziploc bag, a Bloody Mary jar from work, two Tupperwares, and a cereal storage bin that reminded me of the one in grandma’s kitchen. 

With my new acquisitions, my first thoughts were to bypass Whole Foods altogether. (Our budget simply did not allow for $20 quinoa purchases.) I walked into Rouses with a backpack full of containers, a bit nervous. As expected, the bulk section was filled with plastic bag dispensers. When I asked the customer service representative how I could use my own containers, he said, ‘You can’t. Just buy with our bags and then transfer it over when you leave.’ He walked off shaking his head, murmuring frustratedly under his breath. I wanted to smack him like, "Wake up!" Moments like these are what I refer to when I talk about swimming upstream. Our systems of consumerism are designed for folks to be inconvenienced when we voice to act sustainably. Someone is profiting off our unconscious use of plastic bags everyday. Meanwhile, our ocean life perishes. I left Rouses discouraged and empty-handed, feeling like me trying to do the 'right thing' was an annoyance to this young man trying to do his job. That was enough for the day.

Salvaged containers (and their weights) after visiting the Whole Foods cashier!

After two days of sulking, I collected more jars, rebuilt a resolve to cut ties from plastic, and biked to Whole Foods. When I asked if I could weigh my containers as Trayshon promised, the staff were extremely affirming and helpful. I felt naughtily counter-cultural rolling up to the cashier with a stash of mis-matched, empty receptacles. After every scale reading, I penned in the decimals with a growing optimism. I am one-step closer to aligning my beliefs and consumer practices. It was time to stroll over to the bulk section and stock up. The satisfaction of scooping from those once-elusive barrels of beans and grains was divine! I dropped a few chickpeas on the ground by mistake, felt their distinct texture between my thumb and forefinger, and recalled the slippery sensation of grabbing chickpea-filled plastic bags off the shelf. Never again.

So here they are: a salvaged couscous jar filled with brown rice, cereal bin of black beans, Bloody Mary glass of red lentils, Tupperware of chickpeas, and ziploc bag full of quinoa. My motley crew of containers held out! All of this I squeezed carefully into my backpack, after receiving a $2 discount for bringing in my own containers. Walking out of Whole Foods this day, the windiest cold-front would blow me off my bike before it could wipe the smile off my face. The total cost me less than 20 bucks, and even if I could get the same quantity from Winn Dixie for $15, it wouldn't be the same. After this experience, I know I can only buy bulk from hereon out. Rouses, your store manager better be ready next time. I'm calling you out. Stay up for more of my trials navigating the system sustainably. We can never let convenience substitute for our consciousness.

best,

C

'Bottled water companies are taking what's ours to begin with, packaging it in a lethal way, overcharging us for it, and asking us to pay for the recycling. All they're really doing is selling us this convenience, which is actually highly inconvenient.' 

-Jackson Browne, musician, from 'Plastic Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too', pg 87 by Beth Terry

Meatree Dish: Failed Experiment

Together, misdirected. 
There is a wound. so deep and infected. Can we correct it?
Less than a thousand yrs ago we lived off the land with respect and
Were taught how plants like camomile protect us from indigestion.
So I’m going to ask you some questions:

When was the last time you strolled through the woods, 
and touch tree bark and the smelled the moist of the mud?

Did you know we spend over 7 hours looking at a screen?
That’s in a day, and it’s increasing, that can’t be good.
When for one third we’re already supposed to be sleepin.

Meanwhile, she’s weeping. 
Earth, who raised us knowing right and wrong,
now sick but her children shipped her to a nursing home
too caught up in the system,
we forgot to visit, and listen, 
then forgot to support the clinic.

Planned obsolescence got us marching behind carrots,
disconnected from our essence, respect for the sweat of parents' parents.
When the sage sits still, breathes and waits, 
watching branches sway in breeze as She rotates

And while I speak my truth, 
Earth is slipping away, 
Football fields of forest uprooted each day.
lands once cherished, now its parrots flee their cindered homes in disarray.
They say, If a tree falls down and no one hears it, did it fall?
But if our greed trawls all the fish out the sea, can they respawn?

So I imagine Earth as a human being, 
beaten and mistreated. not quite defeated
but sees her cancer isn’t retreating. 
It's us. Can’t you see it?

Metastatic scars of suburban sprawls, 
endless traffic. cars, cities with pall
An influx of industry, grown in excess. 
and abscesses diffuse 
down rivers into lakes til all beautiful bounties are abused

So Let me restate:
Football fields of forest toppled each day. 
Brazil seeks higher peaks. The US needs its meat, 
so exchange the Amazon’s natural feats
to complete a cycle that's bound to keep Her weak.

Football fields of forest plundered each day
feeding cows and pigs to gorge our son and daughters, 
so they can reach the protein quotas westered doctors ordered.

My next question:
What’s vested in our selection for slaughter? 
merciless we are, says the rest of biota.

Football fields of forest mangled each day. 
While we praise touchdowns with burgers and hot dogs, the American way,
The issue isn’t sports, I’m all for it
but the culture that supports it, we gotta abort it.
Athletic bodies sculpted to media notions of perfection
Not even Darwin could foresee this neo-natural selection.

In this American dream, 
I wake to see the land of debris, and home of the slaves. 
Produce wrapped in plastic, 
package our harvest with war-causing byproducts.

Oil.

Not that salad dressing with beets and balsamic 
I’m talking black soot in beaches on par with atomic bomb havoc. 
The pelicans can’t even vomit cuz it clogs their beaks and stomach

And yes. $400 billion in plastic profits in a single year. 
Can we make one thing clear?
All plastic is chemically engineered!

Dirty money CEOs, gilded are their pockets, 
You best bet when Earth breaks to shake us, 
they’ll be the first to jump ship on rockets. 

And where will you be?
Throwing the towel? Or campaigning 
to end global warming while eating bodies? I call hypocrisy.
You and I, we gotta see interconnections of our system. 
Because downstream from our purchase flows septic murder of the victims.

And we do the worst like they’re worthless.
A windowless warehouse serves its purpose:
to distance A from E so we just see 
slabs of cow muscle cut seductively.

I’m telling you. This addiction, it’s sadistic.
Propagandad feeding like turkeys plead for their own crucifixion.
Conceived for the sheer purpose of Thanksgiving, 
while companies vie for revenue off massacring the living. 
And we’re all guilty, but we can all make a difference. 
If our hearts open up, our world’s crying, 
if we could only listen.

So when I think how we get out of this position, 
I try to answer the question:

In what ways have I been conditioned?