3:45 AM PHOENIX - Baby awakens with full diaper. Place new disposable diaper on baby. Place dirty disposable diaper in plastic zip bag to contain stench.
4:00 AM - Long hot shower to awaken body and mind, since it's only 4:00 AM. Early rising necessary due to keep 9 month old on EST time(three hours ahead). Brush teeth with water running because mind still not completely awakened, as it's 4:00 AM.
6:30 AM - Continental breakfast on styrofoam plates with plastic utensils, coffee in a styrofoam cup, single serving: cream, jam, sugar, salt, pepper, syrup. Baby eats from a single serve package of Cheerios and a jar of bananas. All waste goes into the garbage, including all regularly recyclable goods, as facilities are unavailable.
7:00 AM - Another disposable diaper change.
7:15 AM - Drive to airport in a non-hybrid vehicle (car almost full to passenger capacity).
7:45 AM - Check luggage including car seat which is wrapped in a giant plastic bag.
8:05 AM - Proceed to security and confidently pull out your plastic baggie full of itty bitty landfill ready containers of bodywash, shampoo, toothpaste, and Butt Paste (a necessity when diapering with disposables).
8:35 AM - Begin preparations to board airplane. First, change and dispose another diaper. Second, purchase personal pan pizza complete with cardboard box for lunch as well as three bottles of water.
9:00 AM - Board airplane for 4 hour journey thus increasing carbon footprint exponentially.
4:30 PM EST - Deboard (love that term)airplane, claim luggage, and travel in another non-hybrid almost full vehicle. (Counterpoint: CRV's get pretty good gas mileage.)
5:00 PM - Arrive at home. Decide that returning to cloth diapering, although preferable, would be silly since family is again catching another plane in less than 48 hours. Change baby into another disposable.
6:00 PM - Feed baby and change yet another disposable diaper.
6:30 PM - Purchase take out for supper as there are no groceries in the house and no need to purchase them for a day and a half at home.
7:00 PM - Enjoy supper packaged in no less than 3 paper bags, two pieces of paper wrapping, one cardboard and aluminum bowl, and one clear plastic box. (Hey, Chipotle does do some pretty good things).
7:30 PM - Throw all packaging in trash and begin laundry.
I'd like to say that we'll do better tomorrow, but truth is since we are heading out again Thursday morning, we probably won't.
In our defense, we usually cloth diaper! (This is what we proclaim every time we are not so green.)
Take that Al Gore!!
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5 comments:
CRVs get pretty good mileage, eh? Compared to hummers? ;) And you mention hybrids a bit - thinking of joining the Bartel Prius Club?
I've been driving 60 this week due to increased gas prices paired with ridiculous daily commutes. I've been getting about 46-47 mpg... and I tell myself that's good. But really no one should drive 60+ miles every day.
We can't wait to see you guys! How is Linus on long car drives these days?
you could always take the bus instead of driving yourself/having someone drive you to the airport. you would have to allot at least an hour for that trip, though.
other ideas to "green-up" your trip... take along your own water bottles to fill and refill as many times as you need. pack your own snacks/breakfasts (cereal, homemade granola bars or cookies, whole fruit, etc.) in containers that can be washed/reused. ask when you check-in what you would need to do to make it unnecessary to use a plastic bag on the car seat for future trips or even if you can opt to not have your car seat bagged at all. buy carbon offsets from an organization like terrapass (www.terrapass.com).
Yeah, we definitely could have done it greener but we felt it was a victory to just make it to the airport on time. Actually, I did try to pack some of our own snacks (i.e. homemade granola) but I burned it. Yuck!
Well, you know a lot of people live that way everyday (without having a pretty good excuse like traveling with a baby), and they don't think twice about it. So you're MILES greener than those folks, just for having a conscience about it! I say sometimes when you're traveling with a child, you have to do whatever works. Be green the other 359 days a year.
amen.
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