Me, My Kid and Life
An American Single Mom Living in France and Working from Home
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Being Green in France:
The Styrofoam Dilemma

Nov 19, 2007

If there is one thing I love to do it's recycle. It makes me feel like I'm helping to decrease one of the causes of global warming. When I recycle I feel like an active contributor toward making our world a sustainable environment for me, my family and the world as a whole. I like that feeling. I like being a part of the solution and actively working against the harmful agents which are destroying the health of our earth and slowly (or not so slowly these days) bring the world we live on to an early death.

In France, it's easy to recycle of your glass, paper goods (including milk and juice cartons) and many of plastics. Unfortunately, Styrofoam is not recyclable. We are meat eaters. My body craves a certain amount of protein and that craving simply isn't filled by other foods. When we lived in Antibes, each there were three local markets, two of which had a butcher. The butcher would cut the meat for us at the time of purchase and wrap it in a paper wrapping - an excellent choice for the environment.

Here in Strasbourg, the two local markets we frequent lack a meat department leaving us with the option to buy meat in styrofoam containers. It's painful to throw these containers away. Yes, I've saved several of them which can be used to store and separate things like pens from pencils or lipsticks from eye colors - all of which would be handy for Sophie. The rest I look at after taking the meat out of them knowing that I'm going to add additional and very unnecessary waste to already ever-expanding landfills that certainly don't need more non-biodegradable products sitting in them for millions of years to come.


Problem. Solution. Action.

The problem is two fold. 1. Styrofoam is not biodegradable. 2. I haven't found a market where I can buy directly from the butcher so the meat will come in a paper wrapping rather than a styrofoam thereby ultimately allowing me to decrease the waste I contribute to the landfills and the destruction of the earth's overall health.

The solution would be to find a local market or butcher from who sells meat in a paper wrapping rather than styrofoam.

The action would be to buy meat only from places markets or vendors who offer their meat in paper wrapping.

No problem. I can do that. Come to think of it, there are a couple butchers in the march� (a march� is an open air market where vendors such as farmers, butchers. etc sell their goods). I know the march� is open on Wednesdays. Thank goodness for solutions. I have felt so uncomfortable with this styrofoam dilemma.

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