I am excited to report that my hometown is going green! The Huntington Beach city government is implementing changes to reduce the amount of electricity it uses and developing a green building program among other efforts. “Energy consumption, transportation needs, urban development, and health and safety are just a few municipal issues that are connected to our ability to create a sustainable future.” states Mayor Keith Bohr.

Sustainable living is a work in progress for me.  Whether it’s recycling, reusing or conserving, I have found that I have so much more to learn about our environment and the impact humanity and all our things have on it.  I hope members of Learn Share Act will share with me their knowledge so that I can more positively impact our planet. 

The best example of my good intentions gone wrong is in the area of recycling.  In my heartful intention to relieve our landfills, I started putting everything plastic in my recycle bin including plastic wrap and any and all types of plastic containers.  Thankfully, in my online research, I came across a few articles that informed me how toxic some plastics are.  In fact, some are so toxic that if they are mixed in with a batch of recyclable plastics, they contaminate the whole batch and it all must be discarded.  But discarded where?  We have all seen the little triangle that encompasses a number on plastic containers.  These numbers are important.  The number three means it is PVC and the number six polystyrene, both of which are toxic.  Number 7 is the big unknown.  It could contain any kind of plastic, therefore it should not be recylced as it may contain toxins.   I now pay attention to what I throw in my recycle bins and am looking for a way to avoid non-recyclable containers altogether. 

I have noticed that restaurants tend to use polystyrene for their take-out containers.  Most of us are aware of styrofoam, but recently many restaurants have started using black polystyrene plastic.   Polystyrene is toxic and contaminates our food, especially if the food is hot.  It also contaminates our earth as it cannot be recycled and does not biodegrade.  I plan on contacting the restaurants I frequent to help get them on the road to a healthier way to package their customers’ meals (especially mine).

We are making great strides in becoming nurturers of our planet, but most of us, like me, have much to learn.  I commit to sharing with you what I am learning and I hope you will share with me what you learn.  Together we can do anything!