Earth Day wishes

Perhaps it's fitting that I renew my commitment to my blog on Earth Day. Yes, I've been delinquent, but not because I haven't been doing my best to live a greener life. In fact, I've got a number of products stockpiled to review.

I just attended a small environmental trade fair here in New Town, where local businesses and organizations had tables and exhibits explaining their products, services, and suggestions for recycling. My favorite, I believe, was from York County, which had a ton of drawings from local schoolkids (the runner up was the animal-wrangler from Busch Gardens). The most ironic thing was a multi-page survey on reducing your carbon footprint printed on bright yellow paper. Still, I appreciate the effort that went into the event. I was happy to pick up a brochure from a local company offering recycling services to businesses. Can't wait to forward it on to my property manager! It would be lovely if recycling services were offered in the building (right now we take care of it ourselves).

New Town is a great spot to have a business in Williamsburg. It's a mixed-use development, so there are lots of lunch and shopping options within walking distance. But the one thing that's been bothering me is all the waste I'm generating as I take advantage of picking up my lunch. I love the salads at Panera, but they come in a big plastic clamshell with a handy paper bag to carry everything. I wish that someone would invent a reusable clamshell (and that the board of health would let the folks at Panera toss my salad into it), and that Panera would sell me a canvas bag that I could reuse for my takeout.

The other thing that comes with lunch is a paper receipt. A couple of months ago we picked up a Mac Mini for my mother-in-law, and I was excited when the cashier at the Apple Store offered to email me the receipt. It would be incredibly lovely if somehow my email address could be stored on my credit card (or even on a special "Panera card") and my receipt would be emailed to me rather than being printed out. Now, I realize the receipt comes in handy when you need to make sure they got your order right, but that just means I'd have to look it up on my PDA - after all, they have free wifi in Panera...