No more war!

A driver who stands for peace
© L Kathryn Grace

I can't take it anymore. Back in April, I began waging a war on garbage in our household. That moniker has bothered me from the get-go. I stand for peace. How in heaven's name are we going to build an Ordinary world if we keep using the language of violence? So no more war! From today forward, like the Greens, we are working toward becoming a zero waste household.

Right now, it's a daunting task. No garbage whatsoever? I'm reminded that back in 1991, when I first read Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet, I realized we would not win the climate change race, or eliminate poverty from the earth unless we Americans, individuals all, changed our ways. That meant me. I set two seemingly impossible goals for myself:

• Give up my car
• Give up meat

Twelve years later, still inching toward a more sustainable lifestyle, we sold my car--our only car by that time--and we have not owned a car since. Yes, we occasionally rent a City CarShare vehicle, and yes, I accept rides with others or take a taxi two or three times a month. So does my sweetie. We have not completely eliminated the need for fossil-fueled vehicles from our lives.

More, nineteen years later, we still eat meat, not as often as back then, when we might indulge our carnivore taste buds two meals every day. On average we eat meat about twice a week now, and usually more as a condiment than a main dish. Local cage-free chicken bits, for example, come on the pollo verde pizza I nosh with unabashed relish two or three times a month. On the other hand, we use so little meat that the pound of grass-fed ground beef sitting in our freezer is in danger of freezer burn. I can't remember the last time we had bacon in the house--our favorite and most difficult-to-give-up meat.

It is possible that I will never give up eating flesh (yuk!) entirely, but I care for it less and less. In fact, neither of us wants to handle raw meat any longer, so when we are standing at the butcher counter, deciding what to buy, we almost always walk away.

If it took me twelve years to give up my car, and after nineteen years I'm still working on meat, it may take ten or twenty years to reduce to a zero waste household. I hope not. I'll be in my eighties by then. I'll continue working on it, one item at a time, but with peace in my heart, not war.

This week, I'm almost out of toothpaste. My zero waste objective the next few days is to come up with a homemade toothpaste because I'm determined not to buy another plastic tube if I can help it.

Got any good toothpaste recipes?

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.