
In today's entry, he talks about taking his own cloth napkin to restaurants instead of using the paper products that are invariably offered. What a great idea! He also takes them to shops and wraps his cheese purchases in the handy cloth instead of accepting a plastic bag or container.
In the days before paper napkins, tissues, towels -- everybody recycled their old fabrics. In the 50s, remember my dad had a pile of pocket handkerchiefs that were duly laundered and ironed every week. In centuries past, the English called them "nose rags." I will be cutting up old sheets and clothing and making a pile for myself. Thanks for the tip, No Impact Man!
This summer, I plan to redesign my lifestyle so that I am not purchasing food products in plastic containers. One of my major goals is to convince The Mustard Seed to either stop selling items in #5 plastic containers or else taking responsibility for what they are sending out into the environment by collecting used containers for recycling. Akron's recycle trash collection will only accept #1 and #2 plastics.
BTW, I stopped at the Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant in Montrose for the first time, after reading about the chain in Peter Singer's The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter (to be reviewed here soon). Singer stated that this Mexican food chain has taken steps to provide cruelty-free pork and chicken (not yet beef) in its food. I ordered a vegetarian burrito, but didn't think to ask them to not put in a paper napkin. I did notice that the container of guacamole that came with my meal was made out of plastic #1 and did an excellent job of holding its contents without spills. Why can't The Mustard Seed provide #1 or #2 containers like Chipotle? I will be asking them that question, as I regularly purchase brewer's yeast from them and the only way it can be purchased is in the non-recyclable plastic #5.
So tonight -- we actually get to see No Impact Man on The Colbert Report! I'm looking forward to it and hope you all will check him out as well.
2 comments:
Los Angeles is now talking about outlawing plastic bags at supermarkets the way San Francisco has. Orange County will never do that, republican stronghold, we don't even have recycling. There's a Chipotle restaurant near me but I hate the food because it's too spicy. Maybe I'll try them again, after I make sure it's the same chain.
You'd think an affluent place like Orange County would want it to look nice and eliminate toxic plastics from the landscape.
At the Chipotle I visited, they made the burrito to my specifications. You can choose the level of spiceyness.
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