I just spent the Fourth of July weekend with my extended family at a summer cottage. We converged from four different directions for our annual gathering. There's a long wooden table on the screened porch for meals and games. We covered it with a fabric tablecloth. We used ceramic dishes and stainless steel tableware and took turns washing and drying them.(No dish washer). I'll give my family a score of 10 for toting everything there in reusable bags and coolers. I found my niece drinking with a bamboo straw(!). The rest of us drank directly from a glass or mug.

Entertainment during all that rain came from books, DVDs, board games , conversation; walks and bike rides and baseball tossing in the intervals between downpours, and, yes, cell phone games for the teens.

I describe all this personal experience just to say that everyday small, individual easy acts and decisions can add up to meaningful improvement toward a healthy environment, especially when added together with similar or additional acts by our fellow earthlings. Nope, I'm not saying my family has it all figured out, but we're working on it.

Looking back on the previous five articles in this series, I will reuse the other easy examples of choosing not to buy plastic bottled water or drinks, using paper decorations for parties and celebrations instead of balloons, remembering to grab the reusable grocery bags from the back car seat at any grocery or hardware or clothing store etc. Deciding not to bag every item of fruit or vegetable (truly not necessary), choosing the glass jarred food over the plastic one, the wooden handled brush over the plastic one, items made to last rather than the ones made of flimsy materials, natural fibers over ever-lasting plastic-derived materials, and of course, choosing to resist constantly adding to what we have. If enough of us stop buying things that harm the earth, in this consumer-driven economy, manufacturers of those things will notice. They might at first up the number and intensity of advertising of their harmful products, but we will stand firm and refuse to buy their refuse.

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