Adventures in the Summer Yoga Challenge

Today is the first day of the summer yoga challenge. I've committed to not purchasing any single-use plastic for the next two months. My focus is what I can do rather than how impossible it seems. It appears there is plastic on almost everything. Even paper boxes are often sealed with plastic. Almost everything seems to be wrapped in plastic. 

Still, it's worth the effort.

There are times it's easy to forget because we take so much for granted. Like water on a hot day. 

I took my son to Princeton for lunch today and we did well without single-use plastic. We ate at a full service restaurant so it was pretty easy. I drank water from a glass and said, "No, thank you," to the offer of a straw. Later, though, we went for a walk through town. It was the middle of the day and in the 90s, and we walked about two miles. He wanted to stop at his favorite hoagie place to get something for later and I went to the car since we were close to the limit on our meter. I pulled out my phone to text him. I was thirsty and wanted to ask him to get me a bottle of water. It took about two seconds to remember that's a single-use plastic and off limits to me. 

I laughed when he got in the car and I told him about it. "That's why I got a large bottle, Mom," he said, offering me the bottle. "Drink the water. You didn't buy it. I did."

He told me he'd looked around for something in glass and the only thing there in glass was some kind of energy drink. The choices are spare. Later, when I drove to Washington and stopped for gas, I looked around in the rest area's snack shop and noticed that the only thing I could have had if I'd wanted something was a banana and a Mexican Coke. Everything thing else had single-use plastic. 

Still, it's worth the effort. 

I realize that's the second time I've said that here. I think I'll be saying it over and over for the next couple of months. A new mantra. 

With all the difficulty in this challenge, there are some wins. Take, for example, my morning protein drink. I usually have it with almond milk, ice, a banana, and a tablespoon of some kind of nut butter. I use a particular brand of almond milk because it has very few additives and no carrageenan. The problem is it comes in a large plastic bottle with only five servings. As I thought about it, I was appalled at the amount of plastic I'm putting out there because I purchase this product. The 64-day challenge makes it very real for me - 13 bottles. I decided instead to make a hemp kernel milk, using a tablespoon of hemp kernels and a cup of water in my Vitamix before adding the other ingredients. 

Truth be told, I don't like the taste and texture as much, but I figure it's a good trade off. The small bag of hemp kernels has 21 servings to the large bottle's five and I'll be putting a lot less plastic into the environment this way. I'll use up what I already have and then simply make it with water instead of almond milk. There's no plastic at all with that choice. I'll work on the recipe and come up with something I like just as much. It simply will be different.

The Great Summer Writing Retreat of 2019 continues. One hundred days of writing unedited ideas and following a prompt to its sometimes illogical conclusion.


Note - Four bottles of the Califia Farms Almond milk or one small bag of the Bob's Red Mill Hemp Seed Hearts? If we can't completely avoid plastics, then maybe we can reduce our consumption considerably. This is my choice for now, and I'll use what I have and then switch to something else that won't have single-use plastic packaging, like plain water.