A few weeks back, dear friends, I shared with you a shift in my perspective about how I chose to honor Mother Nature.   By simply choosing to share my love and gratitude with her, the activities that had once seemed a burden, became a regular part of my daily activities with no resentment.  With this change in perspective I also began to make more mindful choices about purchases or how I was doing things.  I was wanting to mitigate my personal impact on our beloved planet as best I could.  As a part of this change I began seeking other sources for items that I knew were detrimental to the environment and testing them to see if the replacements I found would fit into my lifestyle with minimal impact and frustration.  And, as promised, I am revisiting this theme today with information I have found to share with you.  

Plastic is such an integral part of our everyday lives that it can be challenging to figure out how to do without something that is a part of practically everything we touch.  I am the type of person that when beginning on a new trajectory, l like to tackle the easiest challenges first and work from there.  Thus, one of the first changes we made in our lifestyle with regards to plastic, was to stop using plastic straws.  

This was an easy decision for a variety of reasons.  How necessary was a straw most of the time for us?  While straws can make a big difference for some people with disabilities, for myself and my husband, they truly were not important.  The impact these small plastic tubes have on our environment, however, is pretty dramatic.  There are 500 million plastic straws used every day in the US alone and unfortunately only a very small percentage of those are ever recycled.  Most find their way into the environment and cause unintended detrimental consequences for marine life.  Ultimately, due to how the plastic degrades and breaks down, straws are also finding their way into our food chain.  And perhaps the last reason for not using a straw of any kind are the wrinkles and creases that form around your lips.  Something that a younger Robin was not concerned with but now that my total trips around the sun are over 50 it was definitely a consideration.

So the decision was easy, no more plastic straws.  Executing was a bit more challenging.  The biggest challenge initially was to remember to request our drinks without a straw when we were dining out.  As time went on this became easier (as all change does!) and more recently our state passed a bill that requires servers to ask if you want straws before delivering a drink with them. The next challenge was to have a reusable straw with us when we did have have something that really deserved to be sipped with a straw, like a milkshake or smoothie.  We first began with a glass straw, which while very functional, durability was a concern as it bumped around in my work bag.  The next straws we tried were stainless steel, great for home but again, rather cumbersome to travel with.  I also tried a silicone straw but was overwhelmed with the smell and underwhelmed with the structure to it, though I have spoken with others that love their silicone straws. Ultimately I found a collapsible straw made of stainless steel for the outside, a medical food grade silicone for the inner sleeve packaged with a collapsible cleaning brush and carrying case.  This has become our straw of choice when we are not at home.  Making my heart happy I have also witnessed some of our local restaurants trying alternative straws including paper and bamboo.  As in everything, we each do a little but together we accomplish a lot! 

I would love to hear about any changes you have made as well in sharing your love with Mother Nature!  Please leave a comment below or send me a message at aheartfeltjrny@gmail.com.  

Wishing you and your loved ones much love and honor on your heartfelt journey! ~♥~

https://www.strawlessocean.org/alternatives

https://blueocean.net/sea-turtle-vs-straw-how-an-eco-movement-went-viral/

https://thelastplasticstraw.org

https://finalstraw.com/pages/faq