My husband is known as the “green” one in our family. He rides his bike to work and petitions the city council for cleaner energy. He wants to compost our dog’s poop… but that’s another story. To be honest, he’s had to drag me into greener living. Despite the fact that I believe that global warming is a real threat, it took me a long time to stop sighing and rolling my eyes and begin to cooperate with his eco-friendly schemes.

Slowly, I have gotten on board. Now, when my husband turns down the heat, I put on a sweater. I bring cloth bags to the grocery store, water the plants with what’s left in my water glass, and never order takeout because it produces too much trash. Plastic trash makes my husband particularly crazy because it is virtually indestructible and can take up to 1,000 years to decompose.

You will not find disposable plastic forks or straws in our garbage or even plastic garbage bags themselves in our garbage cans. I found it extremely painful to adjust to life without garbage bags. Then, my husband insisted that we stop buying sandwich bags. I thought he was trying to kill me! You can take away my paper plates and plastic forks, but this is a form of plastic that I NEED. How do we make lunches without sandwich bags or keep leftovers without storage bags? As it turns out, reusable Tupperware works perfectly well for this. Who knew? So, yes, I stopped buying plastic baggies.

While taking out the trash cans one day, my husband proudly noted that our family of five had produced only enough garbage to fill a quarter of the trashcan. The rest had been diverted to recycling, compost, or reused. I also realized recently just how far I’ve come personally. My oldest daughter and I met another mother and daughter for a hike in a nearby park and the other mother emerged from her car clutching trash in her hand and headed for a garbage container. I meant to say “Hello” but what came out was: “Wait! Where are you going with that?” Amid the trash in her hand was a plastic sandwich plate ─ a beige-green color found only in institutional cafeterias. It was not a color you would want in your kitchen on purpose but it was otherwise a fine, sturdy plate.

“I am going to throw this in the trash,” she said, marching purposefully toward a garbage can. I sensed she was feuding with her college-age daughter who had been treating the car like a rolling landfill. “It’s just a plate from the college cafeteria,” her daughter assured me, as if I was concerned she was trashing heirloom china by mistake. “It’s been in the car for three weeks,” she added. The plate was old, reliable cafeteria melamine; perfectly shaped without a scratch or chip.

“You are going to throw that out? There’s nothing wrong with it? You should give it to Goodwill. You should recycle it,” I said as I tried to stop her before she hit the trashcan. It worked! My friend turned on her heel, back to her car with the crusty service ware.  “No, you’re right, you’re right; I should recycle it,” she muttered. Her jaw was set. I knew that look because I had given it to my husband dozens of times. She didn’t roll her eyes but she might as well have.

Actually, I hope she didn’t try to recycle that plate. Turns out, melamine is such an offending toxic plastic you can’t even recycle it in your recycling bin. It contaminates other plastics ─ I looked it up. Later, my daughter and I talked about the plate “incident.” “Mom, you’ve joined the crazies,” she said. “Yes,” I agreed. “We should all be so crazy!”