No one wants to hear how you’re being sooo environmentally friendly and your hot tips for cutting waste, and ‘geez Karen, really a plastic cup? what, do you hate the planet?”. No one is interested in your hippy self-righteous bullshit.. so without further ado here’s mine and how I basically saved the planet last week. You’re welcome.
First, I’m no hippy. I require all the modern conveniences that remove my life as far as possible from nature, and my arm pits have seen so much laser they are never sprouting a tuft ever again.
Also, I hate taking the rubbish out, and the recycling is even worse because for some reason it’s always 5 times the size of the rubbish (possibly because of all the booze but who’s to say) and you gotta do multiple trips and stuff falls out while you’re carrying it and you gotta ride the elevator up and down a few times to collect it all back up in your slippers and no bra, and then some popular looking people see you and get in, and you’re just red with embarrassment while crouching on the floor with milk containers and beer cans under your arms….which um, happened to someone I know. Not me. Obviously.
And now that the media has decided for us that now is the time to change some shit, I have actually been thinking about it. And feeling guilty about it. Hey, marketing works. So I decided, much to Ize’s dismay, to change couple of things in an attempt to reduce the amount of annoyingly messy and embarrassing trips I make to the bins.
Really this is all in an effort to help me remain as lazy as possible. I have a dream.. One day, I won’t leave the couch.
1) Reusable coffee cup - I’ve always been against these because no matter what, they always end up fucking stinking. Hot milk just fucks shit up like nobody’s business. “Mmm this aroma of off-milk is really melting my butter”. And sometimes it’s just the cup itself that stinks because it’s made of weird rubbery shit. I’ve googled (is there even another way to research?), and I couldn’t find anything that I really liked. So I just went with something that had a nifty colour range cause that’s the most important part anyway - Joco Cups. They are glass which helps with the smell. The silicone stuff smells weird, but I take the lid off to drink so that solves that. It’s not double walled, so a hot tea in it burns your hand even through the silicone sleeve, but coffee is fine. It’s just a replacement for a paper cup; I don’t need my coffee to stay hot for hours. Who’s taking that long to drink a medium coffee? Considering I’m one of the many depressed grey-suited zombies that crowd coffee shops mon-fri for survival, this purchase makes a big difference to my bin trips. And the best part - your coffee is cheaper. My regular coffee shop gives me 20c off for having my own cup, so I’m just 150 coffees away from having it pay for itself. Ize’s regular coffee shop gives him 50c off. The smug ass.
2) Mesh produce baggie - This one was a bit of a stretch for me, it borders on hairy-pit territory. But after getting used to the idea, it didn’t seem as weird as it initially did. So you know how you grab a little plastic bag in the fruit and veg section of any supermarket for produce? You can’t even reuse them as bin liners or anything cause they are so small. When I was at BIOME picking up my Joco Cup (cause they were the closest stockist and I was in too much of a hurry to save the planet to order it online), I grabbed these too. They probably aren’t the cheapest or the best, but hey I’m an absolute pig for convenience and I was already there. I ain’t shopping around for the best mesh baggie, who’s got time for that? The checkout dude at Aldi barely even giggled when he swiped it through.
3) Biodegradable bin liners - I’ve always wondered what we’re supposed to do here - you have to bag your rubbish. But plastic bad. I grabbed these too while I was at BIOME. I haven’t actually researched to see if they really are as they say, and don’t just break down into small animal mouth-sized bites like other apparently biodegradable bags. They are about 32cents per bag, which considering we’ve always used the stupid 15cent bags at the check out at Woolies as our bin liners, they are just over twice the price. But, there’s more to life than money right? The jury is still out on these. We currently have our first one in the bin. It feels weird, and I suspect the ass will fall out of it when I take it out of the bin. And because it was so expensive I am determined not to take the rubbish out until it’s absolutely exploding so I can get my moneys worth. Which is probably what will cause the ass to fall out of it while I’m in the elevator. I’ll let you know.
4) Reusable shopping bags - well fucking duh.
5) PLANTS!!! - Plants aren’t for grandparents anymore, hipsters love them. Crazy plant lady is an actual thing. My green babies don’t give off wi-fi or anything but you know, they squirt out a little breathable air which I quite enjoy of a Sunday evening with a snifter of something smooth.
I’m sure the list will grow as the popularity for environmentally things does. Hipster culture is a force to be reckoned with, and I find myself already overly judgemental of anyone using a disposable coffee cup because I’ve righteously been using my glass one for 4 whole days. I feel like I single-handedly saved the whole planet last week. You are welcome future generations. reclines on my mountain of trash sipping organic wine from my Joco Cup, while snarfing individually wrapped candies and slopping noodles down my front from a disposable Deliveroo container. You guys should be more like me.
