Plastic grocery bags have been on the radar for many years as a completely avoidable form of consumer waste. But the first layer of packaging that goes around products do not get quite as much attention, despite it being just as wasteful in many cases. A London grocery store is setting a new precedent by eliminating
packaging from all of the products in their store, saving the environment and saving customers money at the same time.

So my re-newed hope in our world is found on webecoist.com. There I read an article about this London store who's making you bring your own bags and containers. That way there is no waste from the plastic used to package things too. I wish we could start something like that in our own towns. If just one store out of every town in America would start this trend imagine the plastic we would save from ending up in a landfill. I have recently started taking my own re-usable bags with me. Sometimes I forget and when I see all the bags they waste it makes me wanna kick myself. Or bag my own groceries!!!

Then in Concord Mass., they have banned the sale of plastic bottles. They are the first town in the US to do such a thing. It just takes one person making a change, to do great good. If we could all just get on the same page with this, it could make a huge impact. Now I just have to think of my thing. I need to find a way to make a difference all by myself. One person can help!

Shall I just keep going with the Oil Spill topic?
It seems to be the most important at this time......

So also in the PBS show I watched they talked about the health concerns from cleaning up the oil. How is it effecting the workers? The workers from the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989 have had lots of medical conditions arise. But no one has bothered to research them or the effects of having to clean up the oil. It amazes me the more and more I learn about this spill and all the things that have gone so wrong. Why has a better system not been put in place. Why hasn't someone already thought about how to stop a pipe if it busts? Why are there not more rules and regulations for the oil drilling in the first place? I have so many unanswered questions! Like "will I have to explain to my grand-children that at one time you could actually swim in the ocean!" Will we make it until I see my grand-children? I wish there was something I could do. Something to make people in power see what they are setting themselves up for. Disaster, we are all headed blindly into it. Is it too late? Or can we still make a change? Will we make a change?

So in continuation with my total disgust with the oil spill situation, I have to comment on a show I watched over the weekend. Need to know, which is a news program on PBS, did a very moving story on a little town in Louisiana. They are a beach community like Fernandina, where I live, and they have literally shut down. They make there money off tourism which is plentiful when you live near the ocean. Unless you have oil in your water! Peoples' lively hoods are at stake! BP is not going to pay out enough to keep any of these people from losing their homes and business'. So it seems to me the odds of our beach community feeling the effects of the oil spill will be just as severe. The story just really hit home with me and made me very emotional. I just really felt for these people whose lives are being destroyed by things that are out of their control. Not only are they having to pick up the pieces STILL after hurricane Katrina, but now for the "love of oil" they will have to do it again. I think this may be more catastrophic than Katrina, because I think we will feel the after effects for a long time to come. Enjoy local seafood while you can, you may not have that option soon. I hate to be a pessimist but I feel we won't recover from this any time soon. I heard it is 1.2 million gallons of oil a day that are pouring into our oceans! Didn't anyone plan ahead for something like this? Didn't anyone care enough to? Do we think this won't have long time effects? We can't even imagine yet the destruction of ocean life and the messed up generations of ocean life to come. The effects are bound to devastate us unimaginably! So now the fishing industry is shut down, the beach communities business is shut down, and they are all losing money by the day! By the gallon! Will BP rise to the occasion and help the people that will be in need? My hopes are not that high unfortunately! But file the claim and they will pay all legitimate claims! What they need to do is quit spending all that money on new commercials and new programs! Shouldn't you be paying the light bills and mortgage payments of those that because of you are out of work now!

Latest news:

BP to Donate Net Revenue from MC252 Well Leak to Protect and Rehabilitate Wildlife in Gulf States. As part of its commitment to restore the environment and habitats in the Gulf Coast region, BP today announced that it will donate the net revenue from oil recovered from the MC252 spill to create a new wildlife fund to create, restore, improve and protect wildlife habitat along the coastline of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. The creation of this fund is over and above BP's obligations under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.

So this is a headline on BP's website. It really just saddens me that it is still about the money. They say the will donate over and beyond what they are obligated to do! What? There is no way any amount of money will replace all that has been lost. The human lives, as well as sea life and after effects on our waters. This is not about money! But when is money NOT an issue? It should have been about taking care of our oceans before anything else. There should have been a better plan for something like this, and I think there are ways of fixing WEEKS ago, but no one wants to mess up their precious oil supply! The things BP keeps saying is astonishing, who the hell do they think they are? I hope these dear BP executives get their lives back soon! So they can go back to making more money than needed and screwing up anything in their path to getting the cash!!!! I want to take them all out there and let them swim around in it for a while! Make them TRY to clean it up, after all it's their mess!