How To Eat An Elephant

giving a fuck, one day at a time

Hey Broiler Heads! I recently started rewatching The Good Place and it got me thinking about you. All of us here are trying to be decent people but modern life makes even the most mundane choices like buying groceries an ethical and environmental nightmare.

There are so many unintended consequences for living in the world that it’s fucking exhausting. We want to care about the environment but there are so many demands on our time, attention, and empathy. How can we give a shit about anything when there are thousands of ongoing catastrophes that we unwittingly contribute to every single day? The rechargeable batteries in devices like smartphones that run our world are powered by slave labor and create environmental disasters in places that mine the precious metals found inside them. But how can you possibly live in the modern world without them? It can feel too helpless to care.

The background hum of pending climate collapse gets louder every day as scientists try to convince the world to change course everytime new evidence shows exactly how quickly our window of action is closing. The American Psychological Association found that two-thirds of Americans experience climate anxiety with 84% of kids 16-25 worried about the future of the world. And they should be. Instead of waiting on the world to change, some scientists are floating the idea of dimming the sun to reduce global temperatures. We are simultaneously  that desperate and that stuck. It’s fucking crazy. 

Obviously drastic action is needed from the oligarchs that control our planet but that doesn’t mean the rest of us are powerless. Over the next couple weeks we’re gonna look at the achievable changes we can make in our lives to relieve some anxiety and help slow climate collapse. The problem may seem overwhelming but small actions sustained over time should never be underestimated. To paraphrase Bishop Desmond Tutu, there’s only one way to eat an elephant: one bite at a time.

This week: Reducing Single-Use Plastics

This is an easy action to do and it can have a massive impact. Just because plastics are recyclable doesn’t mean they actually get recycled, like we all assumed, so our best option is getting them the fuck out of our lives. Our plastic waste is showing up in our water, air, soil, plants, and animals while having unknown side effects on our health. You know, like maybe fucking with our ability to have kids.  We don’t need this shit and doing better isn’t that hard. When I first met my wife, she was buying three 24-packs of bottled water a week. Since we got together, she’s been using a refillable water bottle which means over 7,500 bottles have been kept out of landfills and the ocean. That’s fucking incredible and that’s just one person making a small change in their habits. 

when everyone keeps adding to the trash pile but nobody takes it out

Once we start paying attention to how much unnecessary plastic we use in our daily lives, the easier it is to start eliminating it. Imagine you had to keep all your plastic waste over one year in your backyard or living room. How different would your choices be if you had to look at that shit all the time? I’ve switched over to detergent sheets for my laundry and refillable cleaners for the house and the more climate friendly products are just as good without plastic. It's just one less thing for me to feel shitty about. 

Recently I found these compostable, zipping kitchen bags which are easy to rinse and reuse over and over and then throw in the compost bin when they start to run ragged. Fuck that stupid cling wrap that we all hate, use containers with lids or parchment paper with a rubber band. Stop buying produce in unnecessary plastic packaging (lookin’ at you Trader Joe’s) when that same product, like lettuce, is sitting on the wet rack at the store with nothing but a twist tie around it. Small changes like these become habits and then take up far less of your already limited mental bandwidth. 

We have over 200,000 subscribers here in The Broiler Room. If all of us reduce our single-use plastic consumption by 3  items a week- five less straws, cups, bags, or bottles, that would mean over 31 million fewer plastic items made their way into our environment in one year.

31 MILLION!! That’s a big impact from just our small lil’ community. None of us can be perfect, the world is too complicated for that, but it shouldn’t stop us from doing better. Reducing our plastic use is a change all of us can make regardless of income or location that will have measurable benefits to our world. Join us in making the world less shitty, one plastic bottle at a time.

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Thanks for joining us here in The Broiler Room. Tomorrow, Sunday subscribers are getting a spring pasta that’s perfect for our slowly warming weather. Not on the list? Fix that shit.

Have any suggestions on how to reduce single-use plastics that we didn’t mention? Leave them in the comments!

Michelle (and Matt)