No Impact Living is going to mean being conscious all the time. This is not at all like the 1960s, which trumpeted altered consciousness. And the absolute opposite of my 20s & 30s, when I made a personal choice to be as un-conscious as possible, as often as possible.
Monday’s instructions : Stop making TRASH. Reduce it. Reuse it. Recycle it. Keep a special bag at home or the office to collect trash you make by mistake or necessity throughout the week.
No Impact travel kit assembled: cloth napkin rolled around knife, fork, spoon, travel mug for hot & cold liquids, small Tupperware container in case anyone offers me food to go this week. It feels slightly batty and just a touch like I should be pushing around a shopping cart with the rest of my possessions and have plastic bags wrapped around my feet, secured with rubber bands around my ankles.
Somehow I managed to miss the last sentence in the instructions. The one that says I should still be collecting my trash in a special bag. I didn’t do that. Granted there would be very little in there. Two tea bags. A few Splenda packets. Some gum wrappers. The paper napkin I grabbed without thinking when I spilled hot tea on my nephew’s fiancee’s foot. In my defense, the tea was in my reusable travel mug.
Back at the cousins house after the burial for the usual spread. I piled deliciousness onto the plastic bowl I’d brought (double points for reusing a Chinese take out container) and grabbed the fork I’d brought from home as well.
The bowl started conversations with people I’d never met. One woman assumed it was for portion control. I assumed she meant I was fat and promptly moved to another part of the room. My seven year old niece came up to me, head cocked, quizzical look on her face and said, “Are you taking leftovers home with you?” A reasonable question since my family is particularly fond of their “good Tupperware™”, so I bring my own containers to major holidays.
By the time coffee and cake came out I’d answered most of the questions, explained what I could about the experiment and most of the family just ascribed it to my general wackiness. In a family that includes goth boys and girls skulking around the periphery, a Pastor leading a parish of Bikers for Christ, where Ashton has two Daddies, where lies pass for love and teeth are frequently optional, I am the wacky one because I don’t want to make trash.
Okey dokey.
Today’s resistance? Handkerchiefs. Sorry, but they totally gross me out. I have no problem with a nice reduction of toilet flushing in the tradition of if it’s yellow, let it mellow. 27% of all household water consumption is from flushing the toilet. Cutting that down to only flushing at bedtime or after a poop, well, that saves a lot of water. And I’ve switched to 100% recycled paper products including tissues and toilet paper. I’ve practically eliminated the need for paper towels and paper napkins by swapping in reusable sponges and cloth napkins. 
But, please, don’t make me carry around a swatch of cotton caked with dried boogers. Nopes. Not even a pretty swatch of cotton.
The day ended with more driving and while I’d eliminated the trip to Manhattan, it was still Queens, Nassau, Suffolk, Nassau, Queens. Still, too much. Luckily, the TRANSPORTATION part of the change is scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday, when I have a little more control over my schedule.
I already have my bag packed for the day : cloth napkin & utensils, travel mug, reusable container for my snacks of carrots and apples (only compostable waste), a book to read on the subway and….my Metrocard!
