Wall*E

Took Jaxon to his first movie at a theater this weekend to see Wall*E. He really enjoyed it and did great.

So even Pixar is sending the message that we need to do something about all the waste we are producing. John and I were talking later that night that we need to be more committed to recycling. We are pretty good about 80% of the time but we could do better. Especially with composting. Now that we have our vegetable garden going, we really need to build an actual set of compost bins and work harder to get stuff composting.

I still hope that this becomes more of a front and center issue. Everyone these days is so concerned about carbon footprints. How about trash generation? I would like to see more accountability for corporations to reduce their trash or at least some sort of mandate that all packaging be 100% recyclable. How hard would that be?

And McDonalds and the like...we go to McDonald's ocassionally. We went on Saturday evening. After seeing Wall*E I was accutely aware of the enormouse pile of trash sitting on our table from just the three of us. Most of it was recyclable. But guess what? There are no recycle bins at McDonalds. Why not? If they are going to produce such a disproportionate share of waste, the least they can do is recycle it! They have made a pretty decent effort to improve their image in the last few years, this seems like a simple way to go a step further.

Sick

Sorry - no posts lately. I've been sick for the past week and am still battling the dry unproductive cough that will not let me sleep at night.

I have long been irritated by excessive packaging of goods, especially with the current heightened focus on recycling and reducing waste. Why is it taking so long for companies to embrace a philosophy of aggressively reducing packaging? I am glad to see Walmart stepping up to the plate to make a concerted effort to become a greener corporation. We'll see how well they continue to follow through. Costco often falls short on packaging, despite selling bulk items, things are often double or even triple packaged.

For instance, yesterday I bought a package of maximum strength Mucinex expectorant. The bottle that contained 14 tablets was at least 4 times the size it needed to be, and that bottle was inside a box that was 2-3 times bigger than the bottle. Not only is this excess package waste, but excess shipping space which equals more gas to ship the item. And for what purpose? I just really don't get it.