Thanks for your feedback and posts yesterday regarding the bin and the bags. I always appreciate hearing your opinions.
 
Living on the “left coast” as some call it, we tend to raise ideas that get the rest of the country’s eyes rolling (that is, until they adopt or adapt them too, which they usually do – eventually). There are some on the far right and of older generations, for example, who think trying to dispose of plastic straws is something to ridicule, instead of seeing the movement as just a teeny, tiny step towards helping to heal the planet and cut its addiction to disposables in general and plastics in particular. It’s about making you think.
 
When you put your lips around a paper straw at A & W, for example, you remember that one less piece of plastic is quite possibly going to end up in landfill – or worse still, in the oceans. It simply makes one more conscientious, hopefully. Of course, there will always be those who ridicule, too. But I don’t understand their thinking. (I do get how plastic straws aid the disabled; we’ve had that discussion here before and I think there’s room for everyone’s need to be accommodated.)
 
Then, of course, there’s the movement towards cleaner air, an embracing of the undeniable science of climate change and a switch in our energy use. I just mute people who claim that alternate fuel sources equate to a belief in unicorn p*ss and fairy dust (as seen on the stickers on huge pickup trucks). I can’t and won’t waste my energy debating them. Many have been marinating in oil and tar sands their entire careers and I get that. I did answer a post using that photo yesterday saying that the pickup’s driver must be just astounded at the magic of electricity in his house every day.
 

 
Some of those folks with their heels dug in – even my own Dad – love to laugh about “tree huggers” as the enemy. How very 1960s of them! I don’t. I want this beautiful planet to survive so that my grandson doesn’t have to keep witnessing the marking of “hottest June (or insert month here) on record,” as we did again this past month. But as I say, I’m done arguing. If someone wants to cherry-pick scientific facts, perhaps they could try jumping out of a second storey window to prove their disbelief in, say, gravity. I don’t recommend it.
 
But I digress. Getting some ranting off my chest this week, I guess. Here’s what made me smile when we were in our hotel room two weeks ago in Vancouver.
 

 
I love this idea. You’re actually rewarded for not getting your towels washed daily. Being there just one night, we didn’t get a chance to acquire any rewards for doing what we would have done anyway. Who are these people who need their towels changed every single day? Do they do that at home, or is that what makes a hotel stay special – wiping off with a pristine towel every single day?
 

 
Rob and I have stayed some places where we’ve put the card or note on the bed that we are going along with their green initiatives, only to find that fresh towels replaced our damp hanging ones anyway. I’m guessing for some housekeeping staff, it took a while to break the habit of just switching them out daily. But honestly, it’s such a small gesture – and one that’s made even sweeter by the rewards this hotel offers.
 
Let’s hope more and more establishments start to take up this initiative. I just love the idea of giving to the David Suzuki Foundation and, even if you don’t believe in its work, you’d still get a reward for doing the right thing.
 
Is it going to change the world? No. Will it save a town in India that has run out of fresh water? No. But not doing anything most surely will not, either. It’s like the straws: not a big thing, but a tiny thing. Some might call this “virtue signalling” (cynics love to stomp all over well-intentioned initiatives). I call it doing the right thing – one tiny step at a time. Back with you here tomorrow and I won’t be so ranty – promise!