The Why

For a while now, I've been trying to simplify my life and become more of a minimalist.  I don't need so much stuff.  I wish I had less of it, really.  And I figure if I haven't used it in a while, I can live without it.  And I've been taking transit and walking and trying to get as far away from my dependence on my car as possible.  I wouldn't consider myself a tree-hugging hippy; I like modern conveniences and fancy things and meat.  But I consider myself a good steward of the world.  I mean, if we screw it up, what do we leave our kids?

So for a while now, I've been trying.  I take my own bags to the store and I ride transit an hour and forty-five minutes to work.  I still buy books, because I love them.  But I buy organic soaps and free-range meat and I eat less meat.  I bought myself those reusable cloth bags to bring my lunch and snacks to work in.  I try to eat fruit and veggies in season rather than those shipped half way across the world, but sometimes cave for blueberries.  And as much as I love them, I stay away from convenient prepackaged individual serving foods.

This leads me up to attending an environmental film festival this weekend.  There were some cute cartoons, some great films, but one documentary really disturbed me.  I mean, life-altering disturb so here we are.  The film was Bag It by Reel Thing.


Bag It Intro from Suzan Beraza on Vimeo.

It starts out as the usual thing, getting rid of the plastic bag.  But then the hilarious dude who leads us through the plastic conundrum takes a look at what plastic does to our bodies.  I knew the crap doesn't go away.  I knew little fishes and things eat it thinking it looks like food and it's made out of fossil fuels.  I didn't know it's in everything, even soda cans and canned food.  And I didn't know that the chemicals seep into our bodies.

See, the dude's girlfriend gets pregnant during the course of filming, so he decides to take a look at things for babies.  There's BPAs in baby bottles, toys, sippy cups, even the bottles for baby shampoo.  After spending two days eating and playing and behaving like a child, said dude's levels of chemicals increased by 115%.  These chemicals can lead to our children being effeminate, increases the chance of them developing cancer as adults, and who knows what else.

I know I can't get away from it.  I know it has it's good points along with the bad.  But I'm trying to minimize it's effect in my life.  And I'll delve into why more as this blog goes along.  So for now I'm starting a mission against plastics in my own life.  Not only to be a good steward, but to be good to myself.  I mean, who knows what all that crap is doing to us?