April 23, Big hurdles / Baby Steps

I certainly got derailed from my quest, but I am not giving up. I'll have to revise the mission. Instead of a post per day for every day of Cesarean Awareness Month, I will strive to post a month's worth of useful information. However, it might take me twice or three times that time to do it. This week I have been caught up in the Earth Day furor. It's really catching on and becoming part of the culture.

At the moment I am trying to fight off guilt about the 40 years of plastic I've used and discarded. As a child, I clearly remember eating fast food and my Dad manually rolling down the windows for us to throw it right out onto the road. Classy, huh? Thank goodness for progress, if only inch by inch. I recoil at even a flying cigarette butt flying out a car window these days. At the moment I am googling ways to reduce use of plastic packaging and wishing the grocery stores would enable this. The most striking statement I heard in an Earth Day TV program yesterday was the following. In the ocean between CONUS and Hawaii, in an area of strong swirling currents where boats rarely go, there is a mass of plastic garbage rotating. The size of this mass is twice the size of Texas! Sea birds are dying, and their bellies are found stuffed with it. The scientist called it a "plastic soup" and there is more plastic than plankton per cup of water. It affect every species from the tiniest to the largest, including us. Our behaviors have to change.

When faced with overwhelming wrong and enormous mistakes, we can only change it one step at a time.

I will continue my blog one step at a time, as I can with a young child in my arms, and not beat myself up for not getting it perfect the first time.

I will make incremental changes in my behaviors to reduce waste my family's life. I will be open to new products and supportive of manufacturers and stores who are trying to move toward a better model.

I will improve how I take care of my house and organize my life, learning good skills and positive attitudes one step at a time (yes, I'm a FlyLady subscriber www.flylady.net).

We will question the warped priorities of our healthcare system and clearly but respectfully demand changes that result in healthier babies and mothers at childbirth, though we might feel so small next to the enormity of that system.

To link the two issues together - how much plastic waste do you think comes out of a single hospital birth compared to a single home birth? Think of every needle in a plastic case, in a plastic sleeve, in a box. All the disposable bedding. The pharma bottles, masks, disposable but non-degradable surgical gowns. All the chemicals. It's interesting how everything comes together. In your own home, with your own familiar germs, the need for plastic disposables or sterilized products is very small or reserved for unusual circumstances.

Recycling: Plants Recovery: Just What the Doctor Ordered (From "WasteAge")


Shari