I wouldn’t consider myself much of an earthy or ”green” person. I mean I do recycle, turn off the water when I brush my teeth, walk to school every day, I bought Kent tupperware sized perfectly for all of the food he brings home from the restaurant for us (which he NEVER uses if I’m not home to wash it for him and physically put it in his bag…grrr), only shower every couple of days (okay, this has nothing to do with trying to be green but still), and give my old clothes to thrift stores (though I still can’t see how giving my ugly old out of style clothes that honestly, no one should be wearing, away is doing the world any favours).
But I also drive 2.5 hours home almost every weekend, almost always forget to bring recyclable bags or my own plastic bags to the grocery store (and we do bring them, it’s always my roommate Jen who remembers), buy a lot of clothes that 99.99% of the time are not from thrift stores, always have to have the lights on in the house in the room that I’m in even if I’m just on the computer or watching tv, and live in an un-insulated house when I’m away at school. Which is against every single thing I stand for because I hate being cold. However, it’s getting insulated on Monday which will be amazing.
So, I’m not perfect. But I do try in ways that I can. I could try harder, definitely. When Jen got me a reusable travel coffee mug for my birthday last weekend, I was very happy because I had been meaning to get one for a while. I’m a student. We drink a lot of coffee. I was even happier because it was one of those ones you could personalize and she filled it all up with black and white pictures of my friends and family.
So today after class at about noon, I happily walked to Tim Hortons on campus to get my coffee mug filled up for the first time and get my 10 cent discount for using a reusable cup. The lady behind the counter smiled at me when I gave it to her, and I was sure the smile was about how all earth-friendly I was, and also because she loved my totally adorable cup. She filled it up and – THEN – she took a big long straw out of the wrapper, stirred my coffee, and threw out the straw and the wrapper. I was shocked – isn’t the point of a reusable cup to not create waste? Shouldn’t they have some sort of extra-long spoon for that purpose? I mean I know I am in NO position to judge considering the non-green-friendly lifestyle I have just admitted to, but it’s the principle of it. There are probably a lot of VERY green people that visit the coffee shop, recyclable mug in hand, that would freak out if they saw this being done and I don’t want Timmies employees everywhere to have to go through that. I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t have time to think about how to say it without offending her, I mean she was trying to be nice and make sure my milk and sugar were all mixed in. And she did sort of apologize. Still… I feel the need to address this.
What do you think about my coffee cup conundrum?


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