My Rustan's eco bag. I have three and I love, love, love them!
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Friends and family know that plastic bags are not allowed in Casa Valdez. It's part of our efforts in going green. They're welcome to use my eco bags, though. It's my way of getting our guests involved in our green campaign.
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I love how shops here in Bangkok welcome the use of eco bags -- from the big supermarkets and department stores, all the way to the small shops of budding entrepreneurs. Whenever I'm at the cashier and I tell them "no plastic please" and I show them my bag, they always say thank you. Sadly, this is not always the case in the Philippines. I remember last year when I was at Robinson's supermarket in Dasmarinas, Cavite, I bought a small bottle of vitamins for Aly. The bottle can easily fit in my purse so I told the cashier not to use plastic but she said, "hindi po pwede ma'am, kasi baka sitahin kayo ng guard". Isn't that what receipts are for? Plus, the cashier was steps away from the guard so she can just shout out to him that I paid for the item already. I was too tired to argue (lucky for her!) so I told her to use the smallest plastic bag possible. But before leaving, I told her, "hindi kayo earth-friendly ha".
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We have a long way to go back home. The effort is there, like SM supermarket with their no bag days, but that's just once a week and I think it only applies to the supermarket, not the department store. I understand that they are just wary of possible shoplifters but surely there are other ways to prevent this like CCTV's, secret shoppers...here in Bangkok they put a red stamp on price tags of paid purchases. I guess that's their way of knowing (aside from the receipt) that the item has been paid for. I wish they would take the no-plastic policy more seriously back home. I read that the city of Muntinlupa has officially banned the use of plastic and styrofoam on dry goods and food items. They're doing this to prevent major floods in the future. So bravo Muntinlupa! I hope that this will inspire the other cities to follow suit.
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Anyway, back to Casa Valdez... So we're taking bigger steps this year starting with our bath towels. Our housekeeper used to change our towels daily, but now we have it changed two or three times a week. Less laundry for the hotel means less use of water and detergent. I'm also cutting down our own laundry at home from five times a week to four; I'm trying to figure out how to cut it down further. It's our share in keeping our waters clean.
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Another thing is, we don't use the aircon in the afternoons anymore. We're taking advantage of cooler weather so we only use the fan in the living room. I know the fan also uses electricity but its consumption is a lot less than the aircon right? We only turn the A/C on at night before we sleep. I'm not sure though, how things will turn out in the summer. It might be too hot that we will eventually need to turn the A/C on in the afternoons. But summer's not in two months so two months of no aircon is quite something when you think about it. It also helps that we have a new power scheme so no A/C in the afternoons will help lower our power consumption and eventually our utilities bill.
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Of course, there's also the usual turning off appliances that are not in use, turning off lights that are not in use -- got this from my dad and I love how Aly would automatically turn off the light when she exits a room.
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The other day, the news said something about "weird weather" happening all over the world. That's probably an SOS of sorts from Mother Nature and I think it's time for all of us to beef up our efforts in doing our share to save the Earth.
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