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Our oceans are filling up with plastic: plastic that harms wildlife and never biodegrades; plastic that enters the food chain and leaches toxic chemicals. This blog is a record of my journey to live with as little unnecessary plastic as possible. Won't you join me? Fake plastic fish may be cute, but if we keep filling up our oceans with plastic, they could be the only kind we have left.... |
Thank you, Santa Sabina!
Back in May, I sent a letter to the Santa Sabina retreat center, where I have spent many beautiful silent weekends resting in stillness. My letter asked them to please find alternatives to the antibacterial soaps and synthetic air fresheners they had recently begun providing for the use of their guests.
A few weeks later, I received a beautiful card and note assuring me that the center had switched to more environmentally-friendly products. This past weekend, during another retreat, I was able to confirm first-hand that not only had they indeed made those specific changes, but were also working on ways to encourage their guests to be more aware of their environmental impact.
Entering the main doors, I encountered this cute little setup next to the water fountain. It’s actually not so hard to fill the bottle right from the fountain, but I guess they felt they’d make it as easy and obvious as possible.
Upstairs in the large linen closet, I found this:
And in the Dining Room was this composting system:
I don’t know why there is a plastic bag in the compost bin. I plan to send a follow-up thank you letter with a few more suggestions, for example that they might use compostable bags in the compost bin rather than plastic.
There were also signs about recycling cans and bottles as well as clearly labeled bins for the purpose. I’m pleased that Santa Sabina is taking its responsibility towards the earth seriously. How rarely do we get such immediate feedback to the letters that we send out?
Here are a few more photos I took this weekend, just because…
The hummingbirds were awesome in the rain. Check out my friend David’s amazing close-up photos. He has a real camera. Click on “Slideshow” and prepare to be dazzled.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dvdgray/sets/72157608657096412/
Comments
Comments
6 Comments on Thank you, Santa Sabina!
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ruchi aka arduous on
Thu, 6th Nov 2008 6:50 am
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Green Bean on
Thu, 6th Nov 2008 8:24 am
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Robj98168 on
Thu, 6th Nov 2008 1:16 pm
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Cheap Like Me on
Fri, 7th Nov 2008 11:05 am
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Sarah / WaterNotes on
Sun, 9th Nov 2008 3:42 pm
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Darvish on
Mon, 1st Jun 2009 11:15 am
Congrats, Beth. That’s awesome! :)
How wonderful that they listened and responded right away. It looks beautiful and peaceful there.
I suspect they put a plastic garbage bag in the compost bin to keep the bin clean. How about No Bag rather than a sompostable paper one- the down side they may have to rinseout the bin!
I love how clear they made the whole process — both making it a no-brainer and potentially guilting everyone into participating. Right on!
Its always heartening to see that our thoughts and comments are being heard by businesses and other groups. :) I think its fantastic that they took so many steps all at once! Its a much slower process to get big corporations to change.. but oh so worth it when change does happen.
Having just spent a 10 day silent retreat at Santa Sabina (The “Non Dual” Wisdom teachings as presented by Richard Miller) the premises (and bird) shots you took were warm reminders of the value gained in that contemplative setting.
As is true for many things, it is not the basic nature of “plastics” as a category that should be eliminated:
it is the fact that there are too many people on Earth to be supported. Yes, there are wiser usage patterns for our consumption of the plenty that the Earth is providing, but there is no life style that you could project that would sustain for long the 9 billion folks that will be on the planet shortly.
Nevertheless, I applaud your activism and concern on this issue.
Namaste’,
David
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