Week Eight – Pegs ‘n Pens

We spent Easter with friends at a bach with everybody bringing food to contribute and share over the weekend. We decided to continue with our rubbish free theme even though we were out of our house and therefore our food didn’t change much from what we eat at home. What was interesting though was seeing, and eating, food that we had kinda forgotten about since our challenge began. Potato chips, biscuits and dairy food were present in abundance and we enjoyed eating them…damnit! We had hoped that after two months processed foods may have lost their appeal…they haven’t.

We also used the Easter break to contemplate potential time bombs that may sabotage our rubbish free challenge. There are quite a few, but the two main ones that get a mention today are pegs and pens. When we first moved into our own house years ago, we stocked up on a number of things, one of which was plastic pegs. I don’t know why we purchased plastic pegs, maybe they were ten cents cheaper than the wooden ones or maybe the bright colours were appealing, either way the plastic pegs are now breaking. If we had invested in wooden ones, not only would they be more in fitting with the aesthetic of a rubbish free home, we could burn or compost the wood and recycle the metal spring when they break. Perhaps rather obviously, this issue has come into focus as a broken plastic peg joins our rubbish bag this week.

As for pens, I don’t remember the last time I actually went out and purchased a pen – they just seem to turn up, and disappear, of their own accord. It feels a bit like Russian roulette or hot potato, sooner or later our number will be up and one of them is going to give up the ghost whilst in our house. We’ve contemplated buying metal pens with replaceable ink cartridges however our fiscal state is not supportive of this currently. We figured that we probably need at least five pens in the house at any one time which at $20 each adds up to $100, plus another $100 for a ten pack of ink refills. So we will continue to play the game for another month and see whether our luck holds and the pens that are in the house keep working.