I'm Turning Crunchy!!

Crunchy! That's what my sister calls people that are really into "saving the earth." She says they are crunchy because they eat granola. So what does that have to do with me you ask? Well, I have definitely been more concerned with the way we humans are trashing our earth. Every year at school I definitely made an effort to try to teach my students to reduce and recycle. We always did a big deal for a week before and after Earth Day. Last year at school we were all into recycling. So it has been coming a little at a time. My nephew, Colton, has started a curb-side pick up recycling business. As of now, we can only recycle plastics numbers 1 and 2, paper, cardboard, magazines, and of course aluminium. I've even manged to get Kevin into the act a little. I do still catch him some putting things in the trash that could go in the recycle bin. It has really been amazing how much recycling has effected the amount of trash we throw out. Then next thing I started is using the canvas bags at the grocery store. If you haven't I would encourage you to get at least a few and give it a try. You can get about 3 to 1 ratio of plastic to canvas. They are heavier, but you make fewer trips from the car to the house. So today I sprung a new twist in the mix. My sister Darla had gotten me these mesh bags to use for produce instead of getting those plastic bags. I didn't tell Kevin as he's not quite into it yet, so when we were in the produce section I started pulling out the mesh bags. Kevin said, "What are you doing?" I said, "We're going to use these instead of the plastic ones." You should of seen the look on Kevin's face and then he said, "Al Gore would be so proud of you. I think he gets a comission for every cloth bag we use." If you want to see why I decided to start using canvas bags check it out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJvifVrGi8o or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxslY4dITog&feature=related

These are both from Youtube and there are as many as you care to watch. Here is a great article about the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jul/10-the-worlds-largest-dump To make matters worse, what is the base product for making plastic . . . . . petroleum! Another good reason to reduce our use! Okay I'll get off my soapbox now. My next green move is to try to stop using so many paper towels. We go through a roll every three days. I'm trying to find out how many trees go into making a roll of paper towels. Last but not least we have a huge snail problem in our yard. We just paid thousands of dollars a couple of years ago to put in a complete new yard and this year I myself added a bunch of new plants. I noticed they were not doing so well and then one morning I went out early and I found out why. They were really enjoying my sweet potato plants. See all the holes in the leaves. So what does that have to do with being Earth Friendly? Well, I asked one of my friends that came over the other day what to do about the snails and she suggested putting out a pan of beer each night. I told her I had heard of that but didn't know why it would work. She then said, "They explode when the drink it." Oh yeah, that sounds like something I would do, Miss I can't even kill a spider. So I went to the greenhouse and got some snail poison, but it still sits in the garage with the seal still in tact. I just can't bring myself to do it. I hate them, but I just can't kill them. To make matters worse today Kevin called me out and said, "Look at the baby snail. I've never seen one that small." So the snails eat on and I keep complaining and throwing them over the fence when I find them on my plants. So call me crunchy, I guess I can live with that.