I'm jumping on the One Small Change bandwagon from Hip Mountain Mama a bit late but I'm happy to say that my chosen item to change is retroactive to January 1. What on Earth am I talking about? Exactly. Let's start from the beginning with Hip Mountain Mama's words:"We want to challenge each of you to make one change each month leading up to Earth Day (April 22, 2010). It can be small or it can be huge, but all we ask is that you decide on something you will do to make a positive green impact and follow through with it. If everyone makes four changes between January and April, this can have a huge effect."
I had to think a bit about what changes to make because we're already doing a lot of things around our home to lessen our carbon footprint--cloth diapers, cloth sandwich bags, recycle, compost, organic gardening... But one thing stood out as an obvious sore thumb that needs to be remedied personally anyway and it's a nice bonus that it happens to be good for the environment too.
For the month of January (and hopefully beyond) I will not purchase coffee in disposable cups.
It's already January 17 and I am proud to say that I haven't! The drive-thru coffee shop that I have to pass four times on preschool days is getting easier and easier to ignore. This desired change stems from three things:1.) I really don't need a mocha everyday. Skim milk or not.
2.) Spending $4 for a coffee drink is ridiculous, embarrassing and adds up. There are so many other good things that I could put that $4 towards daily, not the least of which is simply saving it. (When did it become commonplace for people to spend $4 on coffee daily? Were we all just sleeping when this happened?)
3.) The environment. Sure, we have reusable coffee mugs, but do we really use them when we're going through a drive-thru? Nope. Sure we have reusable coffee sleeves, but do we ever remember to decline the sleeve? Nope. What a disgusting waste. Every time I visualize the towers of white paper coffee cups that are crowding our landfills I cringe at my participation.
So, there. It's done. My One Small Change for January is well underway and I'm sure hoping that I don't go back. I'm toying with the idea of going an entire year with no disposables AT ALL, but let's just see how the rest of January goes. Maybe that will be February's One Small Change.
What's yours?
4 comments:
That's a great challenge.
And you save some money you can spend on yarn istead ;)
...and if you're really craving a mocha, hop on up to our house, and I'll make you one that will beat Caribou's anytime. In a real coffee mug! - Jen :)
Great! And one less trip we have to shlep the kids in and out of the car for. I will see if I can cut back.
I love this! Can I make it my change too? I want to hop on this incredibly green band wagon and though I might still participate in the $4.00 habit(every once in awhile) the money will go to my coffee and not a cup. I will carry my re-usable with me everywhere! And no more sleeves, those adorable little hand protectors have sucked me in more than once, even on the in house glass cups they serve at CRC!
Post a Comment