it's a bug-eat-bug world out there

and I am a hoarder

There’s a lot I’ve been wanting to write about lately, like:

• The gross food waste at the Tokyo Olympics

• A lesser-understood reason why plastic is bad (hint: it requires fossil fuels)

• How not labeling your diet, but just eating less meat, can help save the planet

• The relentless messaging from Big Food that it’s up to us individuals to clean up the planet

Greta Thunberg @GretaThunberg

”Even if we stop all emissions from non-food sectors (energy and industry) today, food emissions alone would take us well beyond 1.5°C by 2100.” But sure, let's just leave this to the consumers to take care of by "voting with their wallets"...

Project Drawdown @ProjectDrawdown

Did you know that food-based emissions alone can use up our carbon budget for a year? Explore opportunities to change the trends, now. https://t.co/R6Ff4LKntQ https://t.co/1PBcwtK68s

• The fact that since there’s a global pandemic, a tumultuous end to a decades-long war, weather events with dire consequences, inequality everywhere, etc., etc., etc., it’s very difficult to focus on going green (even though you could conceivably draw a line between the health of the environment and every one of these issues)

• The pressure we’re putting on Gen Z (myself included) to be the generation that saves us from ourselves

• This bug eating a bug:

  Chris S. Cornell @BiggestComeback

  The mantis was just sitting on the hood of a car in a strip mall… I figured I’d get a photo & a few seconds of video—had no idea what would happen next. Nature is fascinating.

• How much I’ve been enjoying this recipe for roasted cherry tomato sauce (note: it’s a too little thick and could probably benefit from some watering down)

But I have not.

Something(s) else:

I hoard garbage.

I wear daily contacts, which means I create garbage from the individual plastic packs the lenses are stored in every single day. I’ve been collecting the little plastic packs in a bag under my sink for over a year, and it’s beginning to overflow. TerraCycle has a Bausch + Lomb partnership, which accepts this type of packaging from all contact brands, and I intend to send mine in or find a local optometrist who’ll take them in for me, but this is so easy to put off, so I just let the trash amass.

I also have a bag of shit (like textiles, old undies, single socks, etc.) that I’ve stored in my closet with the intention of sending to a recycling facility that accepts textiles. Once long ago I read about a service (not TerraCycle) that will recycle all of your unwanted and non-donatable textiles for like $13. But I can’t remember where I read about this and even with my professional Googling abilities, I’ve yet to surface the source (I wonder, did COVID kill the service, some how?). And so, the rags continue to accumulate in this bag in my closet.

I do this same thing with batteries, old iPhone wires, a single earbud, plastic packaging, bubble wrap….

I want to be doing the right things with my waste, but due to procrastination, lack of access, general malaise and beyond, instead I just have garbage all around me.

This is all to say…

Sometimes it feels very overwhelming (and cluttered) to be a Good Little Garbage Girl. It makes you (me) want to not keep up a blog about being better with garbage if I’m not being the best myself.

But onward we truck.

I leave you with this smart tip about tomato paste (if you’re ok with accumulating plastic bags in your freezer, which is undoubtedly a pastime of mine):