Monday on earth – bottled water

I confess: I love bottled water. Actually one kind in particular. I drink it since I was a kid and I never learned to appreciate tap water. But now, with a family of three, realizing how much it is costing me, and seeing the enormous amount of plastic bottles in our recycling bin… it didn’t feel comfortable anymore. And when last week I used it to make grenadine, well… I couldn’t justify using that good tasting, expensive water to make something in which I couldn’t even taste the water anymore.

 

So in came the water filter. It’s a simple system: you put tap water in a recipient, it runs through the filter, and you’re done. Let me be honest: it isn’t necessary at all to filter tap water here. It’s just fine and perfectly healthy to drink. I just don’t like the taste. I hoped filtering it would make things better. Actually, it doesn’t. It still tastes horrible to me. Even worse than before. Buh.

 

But I’ll stick to it. Maybe I have to cool it. Maybe it’s a learning process. Maybe I’ll like it in the end. And if not, I’ll watch documentaries like Tapped. Sometimes, I need some reminders to jolt my conscience.

 

Monday on Earth – lunch skins

Today I finally ordered something I had laid my eyes on for quite some time now: lunch skins. I first saw them with a colleague and I remember thinking: nice, but I don’t really need them. I’m not often taking bread to school, I prefer leftovers.
But then this morning when I was preparing the breakfast-on-the-go of my husband, I realized that the tin foil habit had sneaked in again. First we used plastic lunch boxes, but he often forgot them or he didn’t take them back because he couldn’t put them in his laptop bag. So I cut the cord, let him chose a nice design, and added one for me too. And a bigger one for when I do take lunch that’s not leftovers. And water bottles. And a lot more that I eventually cancelled because I was overdoing it. There are snack skins too! And lunch bags!

 

I ordered them from a local company: Kudzu, situated in the town where I was born. I think they are very sympathetic, as when you live in Bruges, they deliver your order by cargo tricycle! I don’t live in Bruges anymore, but still… And one percent of their profits go to a charity that supports our environment, you get to choose which one!

 

It felt really good to do this. I do care about our environment, but a lot of my behavior doesn’t reflect that and I know I should change it. My husband won’t be on the wagon, but he will take his lunch skin instead of tin foil, because it doesn’t make a difference and a lunch skin is easy to fold and put away. Baby steps.

I might order again in September though… those snack skins seem worth it after all.

This post was inspired by a post I saw on mundane ecstasy: Do Good Monday for the planet. It’s actually a weekly series in which she tries to focus on doing something good. So far it included your body, animals and earth. I’m curious what’s next!