lazy weekend & environmentalism

It's very early on a semi-dreary Sunday morning.  Mike is still laying in bed (after numerous attempts to keep me there with him) and the cats are being bad-asses; running around the apartment and outside on the patio.  Our home is a bit of a mess at the moment with the deep freezer sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, ready to be taken out of here.  Get rid of the freezer, get rid of an energy sink that wasn't being used, lower our energy bills.

Yesterday we hired a Zipcar to head to Ikea.  I'm usually not a fan of that place but there were a few items we had to pick up to organize our new-found space in one of our storage closets.  It was a get-in-and-get-out mission and we did a pretty good job.  One of the first things I noticed when we entered the store was Ikea's signage regarding sust

ainability, renewable resources and the 3 R's.  I scoffed it off because it appeared to be another big company green-washing it's customers.  Mike & I carefully chose our new shelving, which was made of wood (no plastics!) and marched to the check-out.  More signage and another advertisement regarding Ikea charging 5 cents for plastic bags now.  A start in the right direction but it isn't pricey enough.  A quick solution to this: charge 5 cents for the first one or two bags, after that, charge 50 cents to a dollar (then they can just purchase the re-useable ones at front!).

We took our purchases home and started un-packing.  This is where I usually feel guilty: so much plastic packing, sooo not needed.  This time, however, I noticed that the packing was either number 1, 2, 4, or 5 which are ALL accepted by Metro Vancouver's recycling station.  Although recycling isn't solving the problem (especially since most homes/apartments/stores don't recycle properly) I definitely felt much less guilty about our purchases.

I suppose it is time to wake up the sleeping giant to head off to the gym, then buy ingredients for tonight's dinner club.  Location: Ethiopia!