Where Have I Been?!

Excellent question.  I have had a busy last month and a half.  I spent a few weeks in Florida trying not to be struck by lightning or washed away by the outskirts of Hurricane Irene while enduring abysmal internet access.  Family tragedies and personal pains accompanied with an evidently weak immune system have also hampered my updates.  School is getting ready to start up again and with it, the stresses of literature and administration.  Graduation is applied for; now all I need to do is apply for graduate school.

You don't care about any of this, I'm sure.  Let's get to the crux of the matter, shall we?  Let's talk about sustainability.

As I said, school has returned with vengeance and with it, long days spent on campus trying to avoid the snack machines and the questionable nutrition provided by the Student Union.  On my campus, there is a deli, chinese food, pizza, sushi, burgers, and sandwiches of varying sorts.  Notice a pattern?  All meaty.  This offers me few options outside of the vending machine.  What do I do?  I bring food from home.

I like to bring sugar snap peas, carrots, pretzels, chips, clementines, granola bars, and whatever else I can think of that I know will travel well.  With all of this, I put trust in my fearless reusable water bottle.  This one was courtesy of New Wave Enviro.  

It is my Pandabulous water bottle that I wrote about previously.  Along with water bottles, New Wave Enviro also has water filters to ensure that your drinking water is as pure as it could possibly be and they also carry storage containers for lunch travel.  My personal favorite is the stainless steel container.  Like with the stainless steel water bottle, it is the safest in storage because there is no leeching.  

By using reusable things like water bottles and tupperware, you use less plastic bags and packing thereby creating less waste and saving money.  Win win.

Justin Has Stolen My Heart

Image from here.

So, do you remember that pesky nutella problem I have?  Of course you do.  Good news.  Nutella has met its match with Justin's Nut Butter.  I stumbled upon it during a gluten-free adventure two weeks ago.  When I saw it, everything went into slow motion as I approached the jar '80's teen movie style; with the bass in my ear and the beat reverberating through the aisles.  Please, I thought.  Please let this be dairy free.

Then I picked up the jar and nervously turned it over to examine the ingredient list.  Dairy-free.  The heavens opened up and angels sang and Republicans and Democrats embraced in the streets and nothing hurt.  I had found it. 

Justin's has chocolate almond, peanut, and hazelnut butter.  Honey almond, and peanut butter.  Regular peanut and almond butter.  And maple almond butter.  Plus dark chocolate and milk chocolate peanut butter cups.  The milk chocolate peanut butter cups are not vegan, as well as the honey products.  Everything else is vegan!  Exciting, yeah?  I know.  Personally, I've never liked honey so there is no loss there, for me, and I've always preferred dark chocolate.

It is all sustainably harvested and green and something you can feel good about.  Is it expensive?  I suppose it could be classified as such.  Let's remember, though, that we're looking at quality, here.  It's not like this is an apple or something that you would have all in one sitting; it's something that is meant to last for a while.

Also, it comes in little individual squeeze packages.  For a student who spends all day in a classroom listening to the smooth stylings of Chaucer, translating middle-English, this is paramount.  You can find Justin's at specialty stores, Safeway, and Raley's -- that I know of.  The website also has a store-locater as these websites to tend to have.  And as always, you can buy it online if you really needed to.

Review: No Impact Man

Today, while I was recovering from "food poisoning" -- jalapenos I ate were cooked on the same pan as peppers wrapped in bacon which, as a vegetarian, my body did not approve of so I have spent the last 15 or so hours in pain -- I watched a documentary called No Impact Man.

This film followed the efforts of a New York family, the Beavans, attempting to live, for one year, without creating any kind of environmental impact.  No cars or motorized transportation, no buying anything new, no electricity, no coffee, no toilet paper.  Everything they consumed was local.  They didn't buy anything new at all; they only bought, borrowed, or were given used items.  They lived by candlelight and daylight, attempted a pot within a pot experiment for a refrigerator, and battled the backlash from non-environmentalists as well as environmentalists.  People hated them.

After their year long experiment, the Beavans evaluated their journey and decided what changes they had undergone that they wanted to maintain and which ones just weren't practical for them.  They kept the local foods and bicycling but decided to get rid of the worm bins they used for composting.

In the documentary, Colin Beavan teamed up with a man who owned a community gardening plot.  He taught Colin how to plant and harvest vegetables.  The one thing that really sort of bothered me about the whole film was something this man said to Colin.  They were sitting in a kitchen and Mayor, the man, said to Colin that it's basically naive (or something along those lines) for him to think he's making a difference because he uses the stairs instead of the elevator when his wife works for a news publication that is responsible for the demolition of millions of trees.  It's true; print news outlets are responsible for a hefty amount of deforestation.  Deforestation is bad.  Deforestation should stop.  I do not believe, however, that his wife's employment as a writer for a news magazine negates all of the good that this family is trying to accomplish through this project nor do I believe that the little things don't add up to make a difference.

I always encourage people to make those small changes because it is those small changes that add up and eventually may even add to bigger changes.  Using a reusable stainless steel water bottle instead of plastic/recycling/consuming less animal products/going to the farmers market/turning off the water when you brush your teeth/turning off the lights and other electronics when you leave a room/utilizing as much daylight as possible/using reusable cloth grocery bags instead of paper or plastic/planting a tree/etc., is the gateway drug to bigger acts of conservationism/environmentalism/sustainability/kindness.

Aside from that comment, though, I really enjoyed the message this documentary shared and I'm going to give it 3.75 out of 4 green eyes.  I recommend to you that you watch No Impact Man.  It is streaming instantly on Netflix.  Check out Colin Beavan's blog and see what else you can do to make a difference.

We all need to start somewhere.