This article is a continuation of one an ongoing series. The links to the earlier parts are below:
Recently, Jinxz and I were discussing the concept of there being spheres of control. The spheres start small and slowly get larger and wider. The smallest sphere is “things you have immediate control over” and the largest sphere is “things you have no control over.”
I feel like mainstream media hyper fixates on the events happening in the sphere of “things we can’t control" or one sphere below it, “the sphere of things we have next to no control over.” While I don’t think it’s unimportant to be aware of the going ons of these spheres, I do feel like they act as convenient distractions from the happenings of spheres we have more influence on.
I’ve spoken to a lot of people that excuse trying to make a difference on the individual level as not being enough because there’s a bigger player whose presence trumps all of ours. I think, on the contrary, that it’s more important to focus on this sphere of control because it is ultimately where you have the most control and therefore exercise the most influence. One good choice has the potential to lead someone else to make a similar choice.
That brings us back to my June challenge of not eating out or ordering, which is the whole reason I’m writing this article in the first place.
I often think about how uncomprehendingly wasteful ordering in is. Let’s say you order a cheeseburger combo with medium fries and a drink.
- The cheeseburger itself has 3+ ingredients (bun, burger, cheese, toppings, condiments)
- The french fries is another 3+ ingredients (fries, salt, oil)
- I don’t even know how many ingredients are in the drink, but let’s assume a lot because we’ve all seen those nutritional labels.
So, I think about how every one of these ingredients had to have come from somewhere and there’s definitely no way they all came from the same location. The buns would have been manufactured somewhere out of other ingredients that came from somewhere else. The cheese would have been made in another location. The cattle were raised for the burger at another location.
On the one hand it’s kind of amazing. A feat of human organization.
On the other hand, think about all of the energy (gas, electricity, human labor) that must have been used to create the ingredients and transport them to the restaurants. This is before someone would get in their car and use more gas and energy to deliver the food to you.
On top of all that there’s all this physical waste. We talked about the components of the burger, but what about the packaging? For the hypothetical meal I described I would anticipate the following pieces of trash at my house:
- Large paper delivery bag
- Cup holder
- Cup
- Fries container
- Hamburger container
- Smaller bag (to separate fries and hamburger from drink)
- 2 - 10 napkins
- Paper straw
These items, like the meal ingredients, came from somewhere that wasn’t the restaurant. Depending on their condition some of the items you can recycle, but there’s a portion of it that always ends up in the trash.
One simple meal can have so much waste connected to it. That’s why I think this challenge was an important one to embark on. Ever since 2020, when the pandemic happened, I’ve been slowly getting more and more hooked on this convenient style of ordering. I noticed that this was the same for a lot of people my age.
While I can’t control how much waste is generated by the government or a billion dollar corporation I can control how many small cubes of trash and countless units of energy are wasted bringing food I could make for less money in my kitchen. And that’s pretty cool.
P.S. I’ve saved $675.56 so far. I’m amazed I haven’t needed to go grocery shopping since June 5, but I feel like this week will definitely be the one where I have to go.
Written by CSP and originally published in the June 23, 2024 edition of the Heavy Herb Weekly Newsletter
