This past week I messaged one of my all-time favorite Instagrammers, Jamie of AnnStreetStudio, with a zero-waste suggestion to use these aluminum bento boxes for her cheese take-out. And I was a little too excited when she responded haha. I know big grammers are regular people but it kind of felt like I was chatting with a famous person. Anyway those aluminum bento boxes have been great for packing snacks on the plane, they’re leak proof and really quite light. I also plan to use them when I take out poke here in Hawaii to reduce my own use of single use plastic.

As for me the cleaning of my dad’s apartment goes on. My dad has been living in this apartment since childhood and though he had a couple decades where he didn’t live there, he’s been there for the last 30 years with my grandma who passed away 3 years ago. And they were two peas in a pod when it comes to not being able to throw anything away. I now know what a lifetime of plastic bag hoarding looks like (along with paper bags, gift boxes and bags, plastic nut containers, and cookie tins). Believe me, all that fills a 800 sq ft apartment from floor to ceiling with only narrow pathways of walking space in the bedrooms. And I see those hoarding tendencies in myself because I feel bad to have to throw some of that away. But at least my mom is taking all those plastic bags and plans to use them to last her lifetime (since Hawaii finally banned free flimsy plastic bags at grocery stores). Currently we’re using them to throw out all of Emi’s poopy diapers since we don’t have a diaper genie here.

And speaking of poop, I read this article this week about Waste Water Sanitation companies repackaging human feces as fertilizer and now it’s making people sick. This seems to be a common practice (about 60% of this sewage sludge is going to be spread over farmlands this year). So if you live near farms (especially in Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, Alabama, and Florida) please be informed since many farmlands there are now contaminated with the chemicals from human feces. And one of those chemicals is PFASs (poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances). That’s the stuff used for non-stick pans, stain resistant fabrics, and fire-fighting foams. PFASs are not biodegradable and persist in humans and the environment (a “forever chemical”). They are associated with health issues like cancer, hormone disruption, and immune suppression in children. And we in California might be drinking this stuff through our water system. Most household filters can’t filter out PFASs. As you can see I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on this subject (it’s the public health nerd in me) and now I’m looking into an activated charcoal filter like this one or reverse osmosis filtration system for my house.