It was February 4, 2017, four days into our zero waste challenge and well. . .I was challenged. I was woken up at 1:30am to my daughter’s cries. “Mommy, Mommy!” I ran downstairs to find vomit all over her loft bed slide, the floor, her bedding, her hair and her drawing table. I was 1:30am and I looked at the disaster that was her room and said to myself, “There is no way I am going to soak up towels with this much vomit just so I can stay on my zero waste challenge. Vomit is where I draw the line.” So I threw my daughter into a warm bath and began the clean up process with a roll of paper towels and my lysol wipes. Ok so it wasn’t eco-friendly. But I went to bed without mounds of disgusting sopping wet towels filled with throw up and mounds of bacteria everywhere. That is until 30 minutes later when her next round of vomit showed up. :/
Ok so if it was the 1700’s or in a dystopian future, I would have used the real towels. But in 2017 at 1:30am, paper towels.
I am realizing when we are crunched for time or inconvenienced a bit, my family folds easily into old habits. We had little time to go food shopping on this Superbowl weekend. My husband and I dashed through the aisles and split the store 50/50 to get as many items as we could before his superbowl party. When we met at the checkout line, there were a ton of items that didn’t exactly fit the zero waste challenge. Things like: a rotisserie chicken in a giant plastic container, carrots in a plastic bag and of course the kids packaged snacks. I felt guilty. This was only week one. I tried to put my foot down but due to the time constraints I was nudged into the checkout line. Going zero waste REALLY means eating whole foods only. Zero Waste Challenge = Whole Food Challenge. If you are not ready to do that then you aren’t going to succeed. Eating whole foods requires more prep and less convenience. You need to carve out time. We live in a very rushed society. And personally I REALLY wish we could slow down. My whole life is this constant clock watching to get what I need to get done in the limited time we have. I am grateful for this challenge. It’s eye opening. Sadly, I feel our lives here in America do not allow us to slow down. But that is the challenge isn’t it.
I look forward to hearing your comments about where you draw the line when it comes to being eco-friendly. Does it come down to cost? Time? Please share!