Improving, Perhaps. Or, How to Feel Really Pretty Good About Failing, Part I

I had an idea. It was a good idea, I thought. At any rate I was excited about it: What if I went 30 days without buying anything packaged in plastic, or anything made with it? The Boyfriend, who naturally would be pressured into participating in this experiment, was just as naturally reluctant, seeing way before I did the hassle involved. I resisted "hassle" - "challenge" was my preference (a much more virtuous word). We discussed the rules - we could only buy the product based on a strict calculus which weighed our need of the product against the absence of an alternative, balanced by how recyclable or reusable the plastic in question might be. As far as things already in the house, we could use them - they'd already been purchased after all - but we'd make every effort to reuse and recycle.

I started noticing plastic everywhere - everything from canned vegetables (often the inside is coated with plastic) to bottles of beer has some kind of plastic in the packaging. (Have you ever noticed the plastic seal on the inside of bottle caps?) But there were solutions. For instance, you could buy produce and eschew the individual plastic produce bags. (I started doing this anyway after a friend pointed out that I wash the produce when I get home anyway.) Most staples would be ok - canned goods, jars, glass bottles (again, watching out for plastic in the cap). Herbs and spices would be tricky: they either come in plastic jars or glass jars with plastic tops. Even the health food store sells them in little miniature plastic ziplock bags. And what about cat litter? Or bread? Even in bakeries bread comes in paper bags with a little plastic window. (Just in case you forgot what was in the bread-shaped bag.) I began to anticipate which of our favorite take out spots we could continue to patronize during the month: Hawthorne Pizza was ok, since the pizza comes in the traditional cardboard, and the pasta comes in aluminum dishes crimped over paper lids, but Taipei Express was not, which made me nostalgic for the geometrical white paper cartons Chinese food used to come in.

And that's just foodstuffs.

My thought experiment continued. I began to plan the research - I would not be content with aping the current orthodoxy about recycling and plastic as an environmental villain, oh no. How bad are plastics for the environment, really? From production to disposal, what's the 'energy footprint' of plastic and is it really worse than paper, or metal, or glass? I'm all for a healthy ecosystem, but I admit to being something of a skeptic about environmentalism, which seems to me exactly like nutrition: a subject hugely important, but also hugely complex and poorly understood, and therefore prone to narrowly focusing on small knowable elements instead of the big picture. (Eggs, for example used to contain a dangerous amount of cholesterol; now the are touted as perfect food.)

I was thrilled by this new idea, but also a little cautious at first - I have been known to have grand ambitious plans, which lead to starting grand and ambitious projects, only to see them abandoned. My closets house the evidence of such projects - a very nice sewing machine, several bolts of fabric and an envelope full of patterns and books from when I decided it would be cheaper to make my own clothes, drapes and cushion covers; a shelf full of text books from when I was determined to buckle down and finally get my head around advanced (for me) math, textbooks I found by googling "best calculus textbook," "best probability text book," and "best statistics textbook". I made a pillowcase and a few decorative tea towels before I decided there were more enjoyable uses for my time; I got just a few chapters into each of the textbooks before satisfying myself that yes, some of my issues with math were due to poor teaching and even poorer textbooks, but some of was, well, honestly I just didn't find math all that interesting. The best thing about calculus is that it makes a great metaphor for "complicated equation" (see paragraph 1, above); I don't like card games enough to really get good at probability; and statistics, famously, are so easy to spin as to be almost useless to anyone but the statistician and the politician. For me, my home ec training could have ended when I learned to sew a button; my math education could just as easily have ended after learning how to use an Excel spreadsheet.

I digress. (This is a procrastination blog after all.) The point is, I was wary of myself. So when faculty would ask how my writing was going, or what I was working on, I gently floated my great idea. And there it was: the flicker of interest, some discussion on where such an article might best be placed. Validation! I started imagining the outcome, always a dangerous game with ideas. Visions of my own Super-Size Me fame dancing in my head. My prose would be so witty and sharp, I'd be compared to Mary Roach, who makes being geeky seem totally cool.

Emboldened by delusion, I decided I would begin the second week of the term, after a weekend doing absolutely fuck-all after two full weeks without a day off. The timing would be such that the last week of the experiment would be spent traveling - imagine the challenge! Navigating airports and unfamiliar places without plastic. It would be the ultimate test. (Don't think of the hassle.) Even The Boyfriend was on board: he'd cheerfully, helpfully go along, if I promised to actually write something.

Next time: I'm sure you can see where this is heading.