Why would we name this blog Baby Steps? Thank you for asking.
The more I try to be earth friendly, the more I come to realize that I can’t do it! I have a dozen reusable grocery bags that I rarely remember to take with me to the store. I buy individually wrapped snacks instead of making my own. When I clean out my refrigerator I always find half eaten burgers and stale fries that have gone to waste. And, truth be told, I should never be allowed to buy bananas because they will inevitably go bad and wind up in the trash.
I do love the planet. I do want to be “green”. I do want to be a good steward. But I also want to drive a car to work and eat fast food. So how do I reconcile my tree-hugging, earth loving self with my material girl upbringing? By taking baby steps.
If something sits untouched in our house long enough to gather dust, I can have it. That’s the rule. I think it’s fair. If I have to clean it, I get to do whatever I want with it. So two years ago I confiscated the nice stainless steel insulated cup the husband had received for Father’s Day after it sat untouched on the kitchen table for several weeks. What an awesome invention! My coffee stayed hot for hours and my water stayed cold all day.
With my newfound cup in hand, I decided to stop using disposable cups. I don’t drink many sodas but I do drink coffee every morning. Saturday is the only day I make coffee at home to sip from one of my happy cups, which means there are 313 days per year that I am out and about in desperate need of caffeine. I would like to say I have been 100% successful but that would not be true. There have been days when I have forgotten my cup. And of course there have been times when it wasn’t allowed entrance to the movies or the fair. But I’m pretty confident that I have eliminated 95% of the disposable cups from my life. That’s approximately 298 disposable cups per year that are not added to the landfill.
Are my 298 cups per year going to save the planet? Probably not. But it is what I can do. It’s a baby step. Now that I have mastered this step, I can move on to another. And if each you reading this begin taking your own baby step today, then we will begin to see progress. So what baby step can you take?