Think you’re an eco-blogger? Think again after comparing yourself to eco-blogger Beth Terry at Fake Plastic Fish. This Oakland resident’s so green — and so motivated to make other’s go green — that she’s throwing down not just one but two week-long green challenges!
The first challenge is Show Us Your (Plastic) Trash!. Just collect all your plastic trash for a week — then make a list of all the items in the collection, take a photo of it, mull over your consumption habits then either blog about it or email the deets to Terry.
Beth’s been doing weekly tallies of her plastic consumption herself for like years now — to the right’s her collection from the last week in April — so this is your big chance to do likewise and feel guilty in comparison — though Beth notes repeatedly in her challenge that “Guilt is unnecessary” — which is easy for her to say :P
The second challenge is The Car-Free Blog Challenge. That challenge, which goes out to the BlogHer community, is simple: Give up driving your car for one week and survive to blog about it. Challenge takers would get included in a Car-Free Carnival here on BlogHer in two weeks.
Will you be taking either of those challenges? I can’t — I’m focusing on my gardening right now, with the 100 Garden Challenge happening this week and all.
And for those of you who didn’t know yet — My car-free lifestyle, which began Jan. 2007, ended as of mid-March when I got Mut back. Why? Our health care system — which forced me to switch to Kaiser, whose offices are not in easy places to get to via transit if you live in Santa Monica. Since I have to go to Kaiser’s offices about once a week — and can’t afford to lose an entire work day navigating the bus system everyweek — I’ve had to get my car back.
The un-de-car-ing’s actually been a real pain in the ass, because mostly, Mut just sits there and gets moved from one side of the street to the other for street cleaning. Last week when I was in Israel I had to make special arrangements to have a friend move the car from one side of the street to the other (thanks Summer!). It’s seriously like having a needy pet you don’t really want –
Image: Courtesy Fake Plastic Fish
Really? That sucks.
I never had problems navigating to Kaiser – but then again, I was riding the MTA lines – and I found them much more understanding of bus delays than my current plan doctors (primarily private practice) have been.
I do recall there weren’t really any offices in the Santa Monica area. For your reader’s reference, there’s a facility just off of the Red line at Vermont/Sunset, one on Venice Blvd (BBB 12 or 6, MTA 333 or 534, and others), and a few others in the valley, if you happen to be on that side of the hill. Much like other parts of the city, from some locations it is great. From other starting points your commute can get lousy fast.
Comment by Cassandra — May 15, 2009 @ 10:19 pm
The closest Kaiser facilities are in West L.A. — and require at least 1 transfer — and are in areas that aren’t v. inviting to pedestrians. The lines that go across are ok (704, 720) but the ones that run north-south tend to be notoriously unreliable….
Comment by Siel — May 18, 2009 @ 2:24 pm