Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Green Gripes

Do you have a green gripe? You know, something that seems so obvious to you, but so oblivious to others around you?

Case #1: Today I pulled into a parking lot and was about to start unloading my children, when a woman parked in front of me turned on her car, rolled down her window and THREW OUT AN EMPTY PLASTIC BOTTLE!!!!! I wish there was some hotline to call with her license plate number! Just throwing out a plastic bottle in a trash can will get me griping inwardly, but to just toss it into a parking lot?!?
Case #2: Last week I went to the grocery store and they had their green bags on sale for 99c. I can always use a couple extra at this point, so I picked some up. After I bought them, the cashier asked if I wanted to use them now, or put them in a plastic bag. ARE YOU KIDDING?
Case #3: My husband. My dear wonderful husband. Now, this is not to call him out in front of the whole world about his costs on the environment....who am I kidding! Sure it is! My dh refuses to take a shower. Weird? Yes, I think so. He takes a long, large bath. Every day. Sometimes 2x a day. I've mentioned it nicely, even suggested a 2 day a week shower mandate to get the ball rolling. Nothing has worked. Sigh, I guess there are some habits that die much harder than others.

Do you have any gripes? I'd love to hear 'em!

8 comments:

GreenStyleMom said...

I love the cashier's response! My biggest gripe that I keep meaning to blog about is that they wrap all the organic produce in extra packaging or extra stickers!

PopMom said...

You'd think the grocery store would "train" the baggers and cashiers that if a person wants to use reusable bags, then likely THEY DON'T WANT PLASTIC BAGS! See my rant on this exact topic http://mompopescape.blogspot.com/2008/01/trying-to-green.html.

Particularly, it irks me when they wrap the egg carton in plastic since that flimsy plastic carrier would most certainly protect all of my eggs from breaking. Or, the single greeting card in a whole bag by itself.

Lisa said...

Glad to hear I'm not the only one like this! It makes me sick to see people litter! I will make a point to pick up there trash in front of them to hopefully make sure they know people noticed.

Something that really bugs me is that people who would never litter seem to think throwing there cig on the ground is not littering!!! Okay I need to calm down lol.

jane maynard said...

this is not a joke...the other day I saw a prius, with their little sticker that lets them drive in the HOV lane b/c it's a high-efficiency car, throw trash out their window. I thought maybe it had accidentally flown out, but then they tossed their cigarette butt out the window too!!!!! I was really hoping I'd pull up to next to them at a light...I was totally going to say something! come on, you're driving a hybrid, but you still litter? I guess they just have the car for the HOV sticker or something...thanks for giving me a place to vent :)

ListPlanIt said...

That's funny! My husband would take nothing but baths if he could. We moved to this house about a year and a half ago, and our bathroom only has a shower! Poor guy.

Kathleen W. said...

I sooooo hate that they have switched the organic/free range egg containers at both of my grocery stores from pressed cardboard (which is recyclable in our area) to plastic. It seems to contradict the point of buying organic and environmentally friendly eggs. The good thing is that it made me seek out a local farmer to get my eggs from, but the downside is that I need to use a little extra gasoline to get out to where they sell the eggs.

Anonymous said...

Once my mom saw some young guys toss a pizza box out their car window in a parking lot. As she walked by she picked it up, stuffed it back through the window, and said with a smile, "You dropped something!" Wow, Mom, you are brave and so awesome! :)

Connie said...

I went to the grocery store the other day with my store specific reusable bags and gave them to the cashier to use. She started bagging my groceries in plastic bags and then putting them in my bags while I was unloading my cart. SOOO I had to stop her and give her the plastic bags back, which to put in the trash since they were now used!! I couldn't believe it.