The Notorious Plastic

It seems like plastic receive a lot of bad rep nowadays. All over the social media, people have been telling me to use glass containers instead of plastics, or even woods, because “Hey, do you know that plastic needs 1000 years to decompost?”

Well, that’s what the expert say. But, do you know that it takes 80 years for one tree to grow in Kalimantan in exchange to the one they chopped down to make wood toys and containers? If they ever replace the trees at all. So, let’s end the debate and getting on action no matter how small, shall we?

Now, let’s talk about bottled water. I drink lots, and I do mean, lots of water everyday. I’m a camel. I drink six, yeah, six liters of water everyday. I can drink eight, when I don’t work and just sit around and eat more. When I eat more, I tend to drink more. So, you can imagine my agony when I go to the restaurants for lunches, and they charge me at least 50 cents for a small 330 ml bottled water. And I have to buy two, because one is not enough. Or I can buy the bigger, 550 ml one for 80 cents. Everyday. 

I don’t bring lunch to work, though I bring my own breakfast and my own snacks in – guess what – plastic containers to save money and avoid pricey, unhealthy vending machines when the hunger hour strikes around 3 pm.

So I decided to get frugal and green and cool. Some time ago, I purchased this cute Snoopy plastic water bottle from a Japanese store called Daiso for about three dollars. Everyday before going out to lunch with my coworkers, I fill it up with water from the water dispenser and bring it in my purse to whatever restaurant we were going to eat at that day. I don’t order drink, I just order food. I normally spend about 1.5-3 dollars a day on lunch. Sometimes 5 dollars if we go somewhere a bit fancy. Restaurants around the office are not that expensive. Still. I hate spending 50 cents daily on drinking water that the office provides the employees for free. So, after let’s say about a week, the Snoopy water bottle basically paid itself. It got washed after every use, and kept in the office so I won’t forget to bring it. It’s friendly to my wallet, it’s friendly to the environment. They say the plastic bottles of the store-bought mineral water can be recycled, but you know what I mean. ^__^

I use plastic to reduce my plastic consumption. What a simple yet splendid idea.

PS: If you wonder why I don’t just drink tap water, I live in Indonesia. The tap water is not drinkable. So restaurants and cafes won’t give you drinking water for free, unlike there in the US.

Here's my Pinky Snoopy. It's rather large for a mobile drinking bottle, it can contain 525 ml, but as I said, I drink a lot. I picked this model because the lid is very secure, so no danger of spilling liquid all over my purse. Also, I like that it doesn't have a straw attached to it. I love drinking with straw, but it's a pain in the arch to really clean the inside of the straw thoroughly. I want my drinking bottle to be squeaky clean!

This is an emsemble I wore ing for work sometime last year, I think about two months after giving birth to Baby Michael. I remember wearing this to make a short visit to the office for a project meeting while I was still in maternity leave. I was too lazy to put on contacts, it was a short visit anyway, so I wore glasses.