My Kind of Politics

Happy 2017 blogosphere! I’m back, I have a lot of thoughts about a lot of things, but in the interest of staying more committed to regularly updating this blog, I’ll keep this post sweet and simple.

I am not going to talk about the politics currently engulfing everyone’s news feeds and social media channels right now. We don’t need more of that and in fact I’d argue that we probably need less. Which is why, immediately following the posting of this little shpeal, I am putting on my hiking boots and going outside. It may be winter here in BC (oh right, small update readers: I moved to Canada and funnily enough, it had nothing to do with politics!) but the sun is shining and the bad news takes a backseat to Vitamin D absorption. 🙂

The politics I will discuss here are the kind I can’t get enough of: plastic pollution legislation. It makes me so happy to witness communities transform to protect their surroundings, to become more innovative, and to make positive changes even if the logistical challenges are very real and seemingly insurmountable. A few years ago while still living in Maine, I was involved with a local effort to place a fee on plastic bags and ban expanded polystyrene foam food packaging (read: dreaded styrofoam) and after a lot of hard work and testimonial, we won. Portland, Maine now charges 5-cents for each plastic bag used at retail locations and the first time I saw a sign alerting customers to that change, I almost started cheering in the supermarket.

So to read this morning that there is legislation being brought forward to BAN OUTRIGHT all polystyrene food packaging for the entire state of Maine gave me hope. It was a nice realization that while there is a lot of crazy sh*t going on in the world right now, there’s also a lot of really awesome sh*t and now more than ever, we need to be talking about all that awesomeness. Kudos to Maine for taking this on, I am so excited to see it progress!!

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