My spork theory came about a while ago, but it was not until I could see its impact on someone else that I realized its potential. My friend Jenna and I started our exploration of the city before I moved to Anchorage, while I was still living in the small village of Koyuk in the Bering Strait region of Alaska. Jenna lived there for nineteen years previous to moving to the city, and I was renting her yurt located at the edge of town, what felt like the edge of the world. I would travel to Anchorage about three or four times in a year for doctor visits and shopping and vacation. We read the newspaper together and would find all the restaurant reviews, pick one, and try out a place we had never been.
I remember one quick visit in particular. I was in town for about two days at the end of the summer, and I had some last-minute errands to run. Jenna was happy to oblige, and in the middle of the day we went to a place I had never been to before. As we sat down to eat, she noticed that I did not get a lid or a straw for my cup of water. Curious, she inquired on my decision and if it was that I just don’t like straws.
“No,” I said. “I’m kind of indifferent. But straws and lids are made of plastic.” I explained my practice of not using plastic unless it was unavoidable.
She considered what I said, knowing that I did not judge her for drinking her soda out of a straw poked through a little hole in a lid. “That’s a good point,” she said.
“It’s the same reason I carry a spork with me everywhere,” I said back. People I work with know my policy at meals, particularly at dessert socials. The school where I worked at the time would doll out scoops of ice cream and cake on paper and Styrofoam plates and bowls with plastic forks and spoons, and all of that trash, though light and easy to carry on a plane into the village, stays in the soil of Koyuk literally forever. I grumble and pull out my own bowl and spoon, feeling no guilt in holding up the line as I ask the people in the kitchen to please put my food on a washable dish. People roll their eyes, and it makes me wonder if they look forward to having children in a world where swimming in the ocean is dangerous, not because of sharks or stingrays or jellyfish or undertow, but because it is so grimed with oil and waste.
I never say it, though. I just smile and use my spork and glass bowl and take the two minutes to wash it. In the wrong crowd I understand that my habits seem excessive and loud, even though I say nothing about why I would rather eat with my fingers than with a plastic fork unless I am asked about it. If I am asked, people are often receptive.
After that meal, Jenna admitted to me that she has been more and more conscious of her use of plastic. Somehow, though I give her full credit for her efforts, I think that my spork theory may actually be making a small bit of difference.
It gets bigger, though, my spork theory. My roommate will go to clean up a spill with a wad of paper towel, and my hands fly up in a panic. “I have towels!” I say. “I have real towels that can clean that.” They struggle with my Leave No Trace and sometimes barbaric habits, but I feel it is a training process. My great hope is that soon everyone will learn to live without tissue and limit even toilet paper to one roll a month or less.
On the surface, it seems as though I carry a spork because I want to always be prepared to eat at any given time. “Oh, you have food? Handy, I have a spork!” But this is not the case. I carry a spork for several reasons. The first is, of course, I refuse to use plastic ware. Let us take a moment to consider the giant heap of trash that takes up a mass that has been measured as twice the size of the state of Texas, or the way that plastic on plates can actually break down and get into your food for a little added touch of nutrition, or how plastic was brilliantly designed to last forever. It has no breakdown time period. It gets smaller, more minute, less visible, but it does not actually go away. I carry a spork so that I can avoid adding just one more fork and/or spoon to the pile. Soup or salad, I am totally prepared.
For the most part, no one cares that I have my own titanium dishware. If they do notice, folks will laugh and reminisce on their elementary public school lunch days. “Oh my god, is that spork? I love sporks!” I reply, “You should get one!” And I mean it. Those who do ask, however, get to hear my short spiel on the little things that we can do for the earth in vain hopes that they, too, will begin paying attention to their small habits or notice how the world is being made of non-biodegradable materials. My spork is a statement to the world. It is something that I can do. I cannot remove the acid from the ocean or build an electric car. I can, however, eat with something that can be washed and saved rather than with something that has a one-time use limit.
But the spork is not just about everyone else. The spork is mostly, narcissistically speaking, about me. It is a constant reminder every time I open my bag. If I say I care about the earth, I need to behave like I care about the earth. If I can carry a spork, I can also walk or ride my bike to work and carry a water bottle and use a handkerchief instead of tissue. I can even pick up trash that I see on the ground or visit the recycling center or shop at Value Village because there are way too many clothes in the world. There are about a thousand little things that I can do for the planet. And if I mean it, if I am serious about the spork, then I will do it.
At first it surprised me that Jenna, a long-time camper and yurt dweller, was not more aware of things like the use of plastic. I realize, however, that the root of the problem that sparked the necessity of my spork theory is, like many things, the lack of education. In time, with a little persistence and perhaps a little publication, my spork theory will reach beyond the minds of my friends and acquaintances and show even the most environmentally unfriendly folks that the little things we do actually matter.
thank you karis - i greatly enjoyed the reading and your thought!
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