A Tiny Baby’s Big Impact: Part 2

A lot has changed since having a baby (see Part 1 here), but our lifestyles have also taken a double whammy by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Here’s how both a baby and a highly contagious virus have changed our lives.

Spending a lot of time inside…

Ordering

We are still doing some online orders when we need stuff, but I have been using curbside pickup more. It is also a reason to get me out of the house! Target Drive Up is also really great.

Our grocery shopping is still 100% online. We get our produce and meats from a local grocer here, called Local Foods. They are still completely closed to customers and do everything by delivery and pickup. Other basics and staples get delivered as well.

K used to love grocery shopping in person, so I am not sure if he would have stuck with delivery for so long if there wasn’t a pandemic, but it was definitely helpful in those first few weeks at home with a newborn.

The super annoying part of all these deliveries is the packaging. The basics and staples get delivered in plastic bags every time, despite a note on our account asking for paper bags. Thankfully Local Foods always uses them!

This means my bag of plastic bags gets full very fast. Just last week I finally took the last 4 months of plastic packaging I have collected and brought it to Target to recycle. I had to make two trips into the store because 1.) I could not carry them all and 2.) I did not want to look like a crazy person.

We have similar issues with ordering takeout. A gracious family member gifted us a Grubhub gift card to help keep us fed in the first few weeks of newborn life. We have been using it to support local restaurants in the area, but pretty much every order we get includes plastic silverware and napkins and things we specifically requested not to include.

Self Care

Pre-baby and pre-pregnancy, I would shave with a safety razor, but since I barely have time to shower lately, I have gone back to using disposable razors for efficiency reasons. I hope one day, when I can devote a bit more time to myself, to go back to it.

While gyms and exercise studios were closed for a while, they have opened back up, but we don’t plan to partake in any inside exercising. Unfortunately, the yoga studio I frequented for prenatal yoga was unable to sustain itself after going virtual and has closed. So for now, I mainly focus on getting in a good stroller walk during the day and the occasional yoga video. I may venture and try an outdoor yoga class if I can find the time.

Taking a walk on our shared street, which gives neighborhoods more space to walk, bike, and run during COVID. 

Back before we got married, I started getting monthly massages to deal with headaches and it was wonderful. I kept it up through pregnancy, switching to a massage therapist who was certified in prenatal massage. They closed sometime in March and opened back up in July. I did go back once because my neck and back were so sore from breastfeeding and picking up and holding the baby. It was nice and they had what seemed like good COVID precautions in place, but I was pretty uneasy the entire time being in an enclosed room with someone, even if we both were wearing masks. So I have put a hold on my membership for the time being and will have to survive without my monthly treat for now.

Working from Home

For at least the rest of the year, both my husband and I will be working from home because of COVID, not because of the baby. I only had 12 weeks of leave (unpaid mind you), while my husband had 6 weeks (paid). Not going into the office removes our commuting impact, saving us on not having to purchase gas as often, equals less time on the road, and no money spent on parking.

Once I start working again and after my husband has done a few weeks of paternity leave, we made the decision to go with a nanny for a few days a week instead of sending our child to daycare.

Having a nanny, a baby, and two adults in our two-bedroom apartment is a lot of people in a small space. K and I are going to end up co-working in our bedroom to give the nanny space to place and care for our baby in the living room and nursery. He already has an office set up in our bedroom, so we now need to buy another desk for me.

The plan is to get the same desk as his so we have a matching set. I am already thinking about resale value! We have not purchased any office chairs and are currently using our kitchen chairs, which are cushy and do the trick for now.

While we certainly expected life to change once the baby arrived, I don’t think we thought it would look like this! 

 

A Tiny Baby’s Big Impact: Part 1

Our little bundle of joy is almost 3 months old now and we have been deep in the trenches of survival mode.

When in survival mode, sleep-deprived, still self-isolating, and all you want is your kiddo to fall asleep, caring about the waste created from this new human unfortunately gets kinda pushed to the side.

I hate it, but I have to accept it because I currently don’t have the energy not to.

Birth and Recovery

I gave birth in a hospital setting, meaning my kiddo’s arrival was wasteful from the get-go and I have no regrets about that.

As for recovery, I had to use a lot of single-use items such as pads for post-partum bleeding and adult diapers. Speaking of diapers…

Diapers

Obviously, our biggest landfill contributor here is diapers. We are not cloth diapering and using regular old disposables, SHOCKER! I did some research on this before the baby came and there were a lot of factors involved that lead me to go with disposables for the time being:

1. We don’t have a laundry room. While we do have in-unit laundry, we don’t have a good space to keep a bunch of diapers until I do a load of laundry.
2. While there are diaper pick up services in the city, they are quite expensive.
3. Cloth diapers use a large amount of water and electricity in the cleaning process, almost negating the benefit of staying out of the landfill. Learn more.

For about two months, we actually didn’t use any wipes because of a diaper rash issue and instead used little washcloths. It did end up with me having to do a load of laundry a day though, which was not ideal.

Clothing and Toys

As our babe is getting bigger, she is growing out of her clothes quickly! She mostly has been dressed in generously gifted clothes and some hand-me-downs, but soon she will need more as she moves out of the smaller sizes.

I have wanted to focus her wardrobe on secondhand options, but with COVID going on, I haven’t felt safe to go browse secondhand stores like Once Upon a Child. Facebook Marketplace is an option and most people are doing contact-less pickup. I have been browsing for a few items and keeping my eye out for them. There are so many bouncers and swings available. People want them out of their house!

There are some secondhand stores here in Chicago that I cannot wait to frequent when it is OK again like Velveteen Rabbit and the Second Child. And there is also a rental option that I am intrigued by.

Breastfeeding

While breastfeeding may seem like the perfect zero-waste way to feed, it is not so cut and dry zero waste. Yes, in a perfect world, you don’t need bottles, but there are a lot of things you still need even if you are feeding straight from the tap.

For instance, breastfeeding kinda hurts in the beginning, so I bought some soothing gel pads that can go in the freezer or the microwave. You’ll also need nipple cream, nursing pads (I have washable ones, but there are disposable ones), nursing bras, nursing tank tops, nursing shirts.

Sure you can go around this and use some natural methods, or cut up a bra or wear your old shirts and just have your stomach exposed, but right now, for me, the easiest method is best.

Now if you’re a mom who is eventually going back to work, or would like someone else to feed the baby for once, you are going to have to get a breast pump and its not hygienic to share these, so secondhand is not recommended. Pumps have a bunch of parts that need to be replaced and then this is where bottles and bottle parts come in. So we do have bottles, just not as many as if we were exclusively bottle feeding.

Any milk that doesn’t go straight to the baby gets frozen for later and in a single-use plastic bag, which breaks my heart. You can freeze in sterilized glass containers, but we do not have the freezer space for that.

That’s it for now!

 

 

I’ve Never Shopped Online So Much In My Life

Pre-pandemic I would occasionally shop online.

I most likely had an Amazon Prime order or two every couple of months and preferred to buy online and pick up in-store or leave things in my cart until I had multiple items to ship.

Fast forward the 50 days we have been in quarantine and that habit has changed drastically.

Living in a densely populated urban area like Chicago and being high risk since I am pregnant, my husband and I have made every effort to reduce our risk of contracting the virus by staying home (and luckily we are both able to work from home).

We have not set foot inside a physical grocery store in over 7 weeks. The last time I have been in an enclosed space with a number of people (that wasn’t the doctor’s office) was the pharmacy some 5 weeks ago before I realized I could just send my prescription to my house.

Every single thing we need gets delivered.

Normally I would find it annoying to get our groceries delivered in plastic bags even when we asked for paper and for the insulated bags Amazon delivers frozen items in to be non-recyclable or personal care products shipped in like 5 different shipments.

BUT, since we have a baby’s arrival rapidly approaching, the number of boxes and packaging we receive is exponentially more than just the standard young couple due to baby shower gifts and trying to stock up for the baby.

You see, I have this fear that it is going to be 3 AM with our newborn and we need some specific item and we try to buy it, but it is sold out or on backorder and won’t ship for an obscene amount of time.

To combat this scenario, I have been trying to be proactive and stock up on newborn needs before they arise. This means my cart at Target.com has approximately 20+ items in it, which is just insane. And with talk of diaper and wipe shortages, I am just trying to make sure we have enough to get us through an unknown amount of time.

So on top of the groceries and baby shower gifts, we are also getting those shipments.

This means we have A LOT OF BOXES coming through our house. Like A LOT.

Our vestibule on a normal day.

A lot of boxes, a lot of plastic packaging, and a lot of waste and it seems to be never-ending.

I have to write notes for when deliveries are occurring each day throughout the week just to make sure I don’t forget to get something on the doorstep (you know since I don’t leave the house).

After opening items, we flatten the boxes and keep them outside on our deck until recycling day, which means from the alley down below, we look like crazy box hoarders. The reason we don’t take them down to the recycling carts immediately is two-fold:

1.  More boxes will most likely be delivered the next day
2.  Everyone else is ordering stuff too so the recycling carts are always packed full. We legit have to wait until Monday afternoons after the recycling gets picked up and then we run downstairs and stuff the boxes in the carts.

Not shown: the boxes behind me, the boxes still in the nursery, and the unopened boxes still in the vestibule.

I have also been collecting the plastic bags, wraps, and bubble mailers that can be recycled in this gigantic plastic bag to one day recycle. Unfortunately, I don’t know when that would be. Anyone want to take my giant bag to the grocery store?!

Anyone want to take this to the grocery store to be recycled for me?!

All the other non-recyclable packaging gets tossed in the trash.

It’s rough and I hate it, but there is not much I can do about it. Staying home and staying healthy is our number one priority right now. And there is no way I can do that without online orders.

Hopefully, the boxes should be slowing down with shower gifts petering out and most of my last-minute we-might-need-this-for-the-baby-because-this-list-says-so shopping completed. We still obviously need to get groceries though…

 

 

Does Chicago Require Grocery Stores to Provide Plastic Bag Recycling?

It all started the other week.

I had two bags full of all types of plastic bags and plastic film, which I take to recycle when one of the bags underneath the sink starts to overflow. I was stopping at Whole Foods for a different reason and brought my bags of bags along with me inside.

Now, I don’t usually shop at Whole Foods and was not sure where their plastic bag recycling was. At most grocery stores, it is by the door. I looked around and did not see anything, so I walked over to the customer service desk and waited until an employee could help me. When it was my turn I asked where the plastic bag recycling was and in the most joyous tone, the employee responded that they did NOT have plastic bag recycling, and then he turned to help someone else.

Stunned, I turned around and walked out of Whole Foods, completely forgetting what I had actually gone in there for.

In the car, I sat and tweeted at Whole Foods. I got no response. I was pretty peeved and wondered a whole bunch of things like:

How could a store that touts its amazing environmental stewardship not provide recycling? It sells items wrapped in plastic, should they not provide a proper way to dispose of it? 

Don’t all grocery stores offer plastic bag recycling? Jewel-Osco does, so does Target.

I was so confused, so I started looking more into it.

Plastic grocery bags and most any kind of plastic film, like bread bags or the plastic shrink wrap around toilet paper, cannot be recycled in Chicago’s blue bins. They get wrapped up in the machinery and cause a whole big mess. Learn more about that here and here.

According to the Department of Streets and Sanitation’s Chicago Recycling Guide: A-Z, “plastic shopping bags can be recycled at grocery stores, pharmacy’s and many big-box retailers.”

And then further down it says “All Chicago grocery stores are required to accept plastic shopping bags for recycling. Bags from other stores are also accepted.”

There seems to be some disconnect. Obviously, not all grocery stores, pharmacy’s and big-box retailers offer plastic bag recycling given my own personal experience.

So I started sleuthing…

To figure out where you can bring plastic bags/film, you could use Earth911‘s Where to Recycle tool. When I search “plastic bags” based on my zip code I get Jewel, Kohls, Target, Walmart, Sam’s Club, Lowes, and JCPenny (and that was only from 5  of the 11 pages of results). Mariano’s, where I usually bring my plastic bags is, amazingly, not listed.

You could also use Plastic Film Recycling. This search brought up Jewel, Target, Mariano’s, Walmart, Kohls, and 17 pages of results for my zip code.

But Whole Foods is not listed in either repository. Why?

I did some more digging into the Municipal Code of Chicago and found under Title 7 Health and Safety, the Chapter 7-30 Plastic Bag and Film Plastic Recycling Ordinance. The Code states that if a store does not provide plastic bags to customers, it does not have to provide recycling for them (based on my basic understanding of the code).

According to the Code:

   (j)   “Store” shall mean a retail or wholesale establishment, other than a food service establishment, where twenty-five percent (25%) or more of gross sales include prescription or non-prescription medicines and/or any cooked or uncooked article of food, drink, confection or condiment used for or intended to be used for human consumption off the premises, is stored, sold, prepared, cooked or offered for sale at retail such as candy manufacturers, confectioneries, fish markets, fruit and vegetable markets, grocery stores, convenience stores, meat markets, nut stores, dressed poultry markets or retail bakeries, bakery outlets or any similar place and provides plastic carryout bags to consumers in which to place these products.

It turns out Whole Foods does not actually provide plastic bags to their customers, thus exempting them. I would not know that Whole Foods does not give out plastic bags because I do not shop there and even if I did, I bring my own reusable bags. Go figure!

So to answer the question stated in the title of this blog post, yes, Chicago does require grocery stores to provide plastic bag recycling as long as it fits within the definition of a “store.”

 

 

 

 

Going Back to The Way We Used to Shave

After nearly 15 years of using disposable razors and a couple years of waxing, I finally bought a menacing looking, old man, old-school safety razor.

I was a tad overwhelmed with the information available on the internet and wanted to speak to a real person in a physical store about all of my questions and concerns. So I turned to the resources at Zero Waste Chicago on where to shop for personal care products in the city.

I visited the downtown Merz Apothecary location and asked for help with the safety razors. Right away, I was given the employee’s undivided attention and he answered all my questions! What type of safety razor is good for a woman? What kind of blades do I get? If my husband also got a safety razor could we use the same type of blade? How often do I change the blade? How do I care for it? And on and on.

I ended up with a Merkur long handled razor. The longer handles are better for women and shaving legs, but even when the employee handed it to me, it didn’t seem that long at all. Being able to physically hold the razor and feel how it felt in my hand before purchasing it was invaluable.

As for the blades, the employee provided me with 2 different types that are good for first-time safety razor users. I have only tried one so far, but he suggested switching the blades out after 4-5 uses. While you can’t just toss the used razors in the recycling bin (safety hazard!), you can collect them in a “blade bank” such as a little jar, tin, or pill bottle. After enough blades have been collected, it can be thrown away or specially recycled depending on where you live.

I was pretty scared the first time I used it, but I watched a few YouTube videos and got in the tub. I didn’t immediately start bleeding and thought that was a good start. Now that I have been using the razor for a couple weeks I am happy to report that I have not cut myself once.

Pros:

• Ideally, if I take care of my razor, which is made of steel, it should last forever
• The blades are SO CHEAP
• Since only one blade is running over your skin, there is less irritation, bumps, and ingrown hairs

Cons:

• It takes a bit longer and requires a bit more attention
• You need to disassemble your razor and let it dry after every use otherwise it will rust
• Can be difficult to fly with (I have heard different things about not packing the blades in your carryon or being upfront with security about it, or just buying new razors wherever you land, or people using their old disposable razors when they travel instead to avoid that)

So far it has been going well, but there are a couple things to keep in mind when switching from a 5 blade lotion covered pink plastic disposable razor.

Things to Remember:

• Hold the razor at a 20-30 degree angle
• Do not apply pressure
• Use short strokes
• Be careful around knees, ankles, and shins
• Rinse your blade after each stroke

Have you used a safety razor? Any thoughts or suggestions? Let me know!

**I was not in anyway compensated by Merz Apothecary or Merkur for my review

Moving Box Madness

Almost immediately after our wedding, and then our honeymoon, K and I packed up our tiny apartment and said goodbye to our first place together.

I was pretty sad about it because I get emotionally attached to things and places. There were so many good memories in that apartment!

What was even sadder though was the amount of waste that could have been if I had not been conscious of it the entire moving process.

The Boxes

We had some boxes saved in the basement from the previous move and purchased many, many more to pack up our belongings. On top of those boxes, we had tons of boxes from all of the registry items that we could finally fit into our apartment.

Just so many boxes.  Everywhere!

Just a small sample of the amount of boxes

Luckily, I was able to give away pretty much all of the moving boxes for them to be reused again. I gave some to my mom to pack up all those lanterns for our wedding, I posted some on Craigslist and gave some to a friend who was moving shortly after us.

The Plastic Bags

What was worse than the boxes, was the plastic packaging! As we opened new small appliances from our registry the amount of plastic bags just piled up to the point where I filled an entire gigantic bag with them.

Recyclable plastic bags can be brought to your local grocery store and usually are not accepted in curbside recycling because the bags get caught in recycling machinery. So I just saved all the little bags until I filled up a big one and kept it in my car until I went to the grocery store next.

The Bubble Wrap

On top of the boxes and the plastic bags was the bubble wrap. So much if it. I have given some away, but still have plenty that I have posted on Buy Nothing Facebook groups. There have been a few leads, but no follow-ups so far. Any readers need some bubble wrap?!

While we usually purchase furniture pieces secondhand (we already bought a desk from Craigslist), we did get some new pieces that reminded me of why I hate ordering stuff.

For instance, our new bed frame was delivered 2 days early when K was out of town and was for some reason put down this unfinished set of stairs in the front of our apartment. It was so heavy that I couldn’t get it out alone and had to call in reinforcements. Thanks, Amazon.

At least the bed frame came early because our new mattress didn’t show up at all. Through countless calls and legitimate hours on the phone with UPS, we ended up having to pick up our mattress from the customer pickup center. Not ideal.

As destroyed as the box was, fortunately, the mattress itself was okay. Ugh, eye roll.

I am so glad that we are basically done with finding pieces we were missing for our new apartment. The boxes, the plastic, the styrofoam, it was just so overwhelming.

If you aren’t convinced yet, read Buzzfeed’s recent piece, “The Hidden Environmental Cost of Amazon Prime’s Free, Fast Shipping.” I for one am not a Prime member and happily accept the standard shipping.

The Oops Tag

I have been “recycling” in Chicago for over two years now and the other day finally saw something I had only heard of on the internet…

The Oops Tag.

First of all, I say recycling in quotes because I do not fully believe that even half of what I have diligently cleaned and separated makes it to a recycling facility.

But anyway, these oops tags were rolled out by the Department of Streets and Sanitation last summer in an effort to educate Chicagoans about what can and cannot go in the blue bin.

The tag is supposed to be marked with what contaminant was found in the blue bin but looks like that did not happen in the above case.

These blue bins were obviously not mine, but of a neighbor’s down the street. I noticed the tags as I walked through the alley, but I did not snoop in the bins to see what the issue was to warrant the tags.

While Chicago’s recycling rate is the pits, I am not sure these tags will do much to combat that. Now that I live in a building with an alley, people’s blue bins are much more accessible and people toss stuff in other people’s bins all the time. So controlling what happens in your bin is kind of difficult.

 

Who is Bea Johnson?

While most people involved in reducing their waste have heard of her, most of my friends and family who read this blog have no idea who Bea Johnson is.

Well, Bea Johnson, of Zero Waste Home, started the whole Fit-My-Entire-Family’s-Annual-Waste-in-A-Mason-Jar trend.

That’s right.

Her family of four can fit all the waste that they produce annually in one jar.

 

This is her family’s waste for 2017. Source: https://zerowastehome.com/about/bea/

The reason I am bringing her up is because I had the opportunity to hear her speak on Monday at the Shedd Aquarium thanks to an event put on by my buds over at Zero Waste Chicago.

I have not been to the Shedd in ages, mostly because I am terrified of fish and only like free museums, but they are super involved in conservation through their Great Lakes Action Days and plastic waste reduction through their Shedd the Straw campaign.

The evening started out with an action expo of numerous local organizations and businesses striving to reduce their waste. I knew most of the organizations in some way or another and got to see a lot of familiar faces.

I did get to pick up some low-waste powder laundry detergent from Meliora Cleaning Products, which I am super excited to test out. That’s a post for another day.

After the expo, we filed into the auditorium to hear Bea speak about living without waste.

Bea’s journey to a zero waste lifestyle started in 2006 when her family first moved to be closer to town and it’s walkability. She outlined her failures with making her own cosmetics, shampoo, and even toilet paper.

She and her family follow the 5 R’s: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, & Rot, which I have posted about before.

Her family refuses what they do not need and say no to single-use plastics, promotional freebies, junk mail, business cards, and more.

Then they reduce what they actually need. One thing that she said really struck me, “Once we pass our comfort level, anything beyond that becomes excess.” That is absolutely true. She has 4 kitchen cooking utensils, uses only white vinegar and Castille soap to clean, and her entire wardrobe can fit in a carry-on suitcase.

The family approaches reuse by swapping out disposables for reusable alternatives, which means glass jars for food, an old pillowcase for bread, and buying secondhand.  Everything they buy is from a thrift store or from E-Bay for super specific purchase you can’t easily find.

After that, they recycle what they cannot refuse, reduce, or reuse. Contrary to what people believe, living a zero-waste lifestyle encourages you to recycle less. Whatever is left is composted, or rot.

Overall,  Bea Johnson finds the best benefit of her lifestyle is the simplicity, which is something I can get behind. Although I understand and support her lifestyle, I know that for some people, it is just not attainable, which is totally fine.

You may never be able to fit a year’s worth of trash in a jar and that’s okay (I know I won’t). Every small step or implementation of one of the R’s is a step in the right direction.

 

 

I advise you to learn more about Bea and Zero Waste Home. It is really interesting. And with that, I leave you with these two pieces from Monday:

“When you live with less you have more time to do what is important to you.”

“It’s a life based on being instead of having.”

 

Short-Term Challenge Leads to Long-Term Changes

There is one more week left in my Lenten challenge of not eating packaged snacks.

It has been going pretty well so far and I am pretty surprised at my ability to cut out my daily crunchy pretzel/goldfish/pita chip/Wheat Thin snack.

I’ve replaced that snack with a handful of almonds and dried cranberries and it has been satisfying enough.

To be honest, I am definitely going to continue with this new habit. That also does not mean I won’t indulge in a box of Cheez-Its every now and again. Just now there won’t be a need to be purchasing packaged snacks every week or so at the grocery store.

Saving money, saving packaging, and saving calories.

Talking Trash: Garbology

You know you are nerdy when the current book you are reading is a book from the library on garbage.

But hey, whatever.

I am reading Garbology by Edward Humes as part of Zero Waste Chicago‘s BYO Books March Book Club, and so far it has been a bit challenging to get through.

“Americans make more trash than anyone else on the planet, throwing away about 7.1 pounds per person per day, 365 days a year. Across a lifetime that rate means, on average, we are each on track to generate 102 tons of trash.”

-Edward Humes, Garbology

It is an informative book for sure and definitely eye-opening, but I often have trouble reading (and watching) about things that are just so darn negative. It is why I haven’t watched Cowspiracy.

The best part of the book was finding another, more meaningful book.

Let me back up and explain.

I hang out with my grandma a lot and when I go over there, she tries to give me stuff. I love old things and usually take what she offers me (we have started a collection of old cookbooks from her now). A while ago, I was helping her clean out a room and we went through books that had been on a bookshelf for probably 40 or more years. I took a couple that sounded interesting and a few that just looked cool.

Fast forward.

As I was reading Garbology, Humes referenced a book from the 60’s called The Waste Makers.

“Vance Packard…wrote a prophetic follow-up in 1960 called The Waste Makers. In it, he accused his industry and marketing critics of sparking a crisis of excess and waste that would exhaust both nation and nature, until future Americans were forced by scarcity to ‘mine old forgotten garbage dumps’ to recover squandered resources.”

-Edward Humes, Garbology

I sat on the couch pondering this book he referenced. It sounded so familiar. So I got up, and I peered into our bookstand TV case.

Sure enough, The Waste Makers was stacked between Catching Fire and The Martian. It was one of the books I had taken from my grandmother’s.

I immediately called her and asked about the book, curious about who was the original owner. Unfortunately, she couldn’t entirely remember, but we deduced that it was most likely my great grandfather’s, a German immigrant who was adamant about planting trees.

I can’t wait to read this book that my great grandfather read. Even though it is 58 years old it is absolutely ahead of its time and scarily accurate.

“Wastefulness has become a part of the American way of life. [The people of the United States]…must be induced to step up their individual consumption higher and higher, whether they have any pressing needs for the goods or not. Their ever-expanding economy demands it.”

-Vance Packard, The Waste Makers