Even my kids love recycling

I took my sons to the Renaissance Festival yesterday.  What a great time we had, especially at the joust reenactment. (That half hour was the equivalent for my five-year old son of me, oh, I don’t know, spending the day at the spa. In Maui.)  By the ride home, we had run out of water and food, so the crankies were starting to flare.  I decided to run through the drive-thru at McDonald’s to get everyone a drink.

Unfortunately, the kids’ chocolate milks came in these little mini jugs that were clearly going to spill all over my car.  So, I asked for cups with lids, and straws, and poured their milk into those.  (Of course, they still managed to spill all over themselves!) I was already feeling bad about all of this waste when my five-year old said to me, “Mom, will we recycle these cups or put them into the garbage bin?”

“I think the bin, because they have that waxy coating. But I’ll look it up.”

“Well, what about the lids?” he asked me.

“Probably the bin, too.”

He sighed heavily, a sigh laden with disappointment (in me? at the wastefulness of it all?).

Then my three-year old chimed in, “But we can recycle the straws, right Mommy?”

Actually probably not, but I love your thinking, kiddo!

Pushing the whole landfill guilt aside (and the HFCS guilt aside, too… why is it in EVERYTHING?), I realized just how green we’re being by practically never eating out.  We’re significantly reducing our garbage footprint by skipping out on the fast food world. I never really appreciated how much this budget-cutting decision was green not only for our wallets, but for our planet!

Are you inadvertantly green in any areas of your life?