I found The Lady in Red and the tale turns bonkers

plus a full cheat cheat on whether your takeaway coffee cup is *really* green

Happy Friday.

I went to see the new James Bond movie at an IRL cinema this week. Three things noted about movies in the wake of almost two years of a global shutdown (beyond how much movie food people buy! Maybe some post-Covid over-compensating…?): The bulk of upcoming movies all seem to be about gross, violent alien entities that humans must slay; every movie has an over-representation of black people (which is great, ultimately; pendulums must swing to balance a ledger); and the female Bond love interest is really rather representative, in that she’s not a vixen, not prepubescent, she keeps her clothes (jeans and tees) on and in the only sex scene in the movie, she’s on top (revelatory!).

Pleasantries over, I’ll get straight to it: I hate takeaway coffee cups.

I think my issue took root when I was editor of Cosmopolitan back in the early oughties when I was responsible for printing pictures in the mag of the Hiltons, Olsens and Ritchies stepping out in oversized sunglasses, oversized Balenciaga baggage in the crook of one arm, the other (arm) holding an oversized mug-a-crock-a-mocha-chino. Or whatever. You remember the look…

Nicole Richie did the look

The takeaway-coffee-cup-as-lifestyle-accessory took the place of the ciggie and I cringe to think I was part of the peddling.

(Indeed, the parallels with the tobacco con abound… a perspective worth pondering. Do you really want to fall toxic victim to the tactics of Big Plastic?)

But I atone for my sins now by campaigning against the ghastly single-use habit. Which is a harder gig than you might imagine. Folk really are attached to what amounts to an endocrine-disrupting, planet-destroying sippy cup (FFS).

But I persist. And next week (December 1-10) a bunch of café owners around Sydney and I are launching F*ck The Cup Week (aka BYO Cup Week). Bondi cafes will not serve caffeine in disposables. Avalon, Manly, Leichhardt and Thirroul (all in NSW) have joined, too. In this ‘letter I’ll take the opportunity to rant on all the reasons why everyone on the planet should f*ck the (single-use) cup.

I’ll also run a broader rant about where plastic is at on the planet now next week. Can’t wait, I hear you all cry!

To get geared up…here’s a graphic the wonderful people at Binyan Studios did for us to show the 75,000 cups that one suburb – Bondi – dumps into landfill every WEEK (and don’t kid yourself…almost none are recycled or composted…more below).

Bondi dumps 75,000 cups into landfill every WEEK. Which looks like this.

And just for novelty, here’s a picture of me I just found during some computer rummaging from the porn movie I was in.

It was filmed in LA’s San Fernando Valley and I played a model who interrupts a R-rated scene on the proverbial casting couch. I believe it was called Latin Adultery. It was for research. Literally, not proberbially (I was commissioned to write a book on a porn star in NYC who was entering politics). In all truth, it was one of my favourite life experiences. The humans on the set were the best and I learned a tonne.

And so…

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Cutest news: I found the Lady in Red

we talk on my podcast…but the story gets better!!! Wowza!

Many of you who have read This One Wild and Precious Life will recall The Lady in Red and some of you became pretty obsessed with her.

For those needing context: Four years ago, while researching the book, I wound up in Ljubljana, the stunningly quaint capital of Slovenia and the world’s only car-less capital city that’s been voted greenest city in the EU several times over. I noticed this Lady In Red, a young woman sitting on her own (dressed in all red) who, for 45 minutes, just sat there with soft eyes in a chosen stillness. She became a social media meme, a story that spread, an inspiration. Here’s the original image I posted…

Anyway, mid-pandemic lockdown I tracked down the Lady in Red (a fun journey in international connecting - I went to Google Maps to find the cafe, then reached out to them on Facebook, then had them put out an email call-out to locals…and bingo, I was sent an email address). We connected on Zoom and we talked life, stillness, what matters now that the world has changed, as well as Slovenian politics.

The Wild podcast with Manca is up now - click here and it will take you direct to the podcast platform you use.

But! It gets better.

Today, as the podcast went live, Manca (that’s her name) messaged me from another lockdown in Slovenia with an update on the political situation and she mentions that things are bad following a big referendum and, well, she mentions a young radical who is shaking everything up and providing hope.

Nika Kovak! She also appears in my book. She’s the young radical who comes pick me up, minutes after I meet Manca in the cafe, when she hears I’m pregnant, (to a 21-year-old Danish poet…long story, you’ll have to read the book), and suggests we go on a gondola ride with the radical thinker and author Janez. You might remember the bit in the book?

I think I should keep following this story. Keen to join me? I’m messaging her now…

F*ck takeaway coffee cups   

here’s 11 reasons why you just should

1. It’s not hard.

2. The optics are awesome. It’s a proactive climate-combatting activity that you do out on the streets, in public view, your cup held front and centre.

3. The kids (the world) need these kind of optics right now. Hope and care beget hope and care. Our power lies in this.

4. That dumb single-use cup will take 400 years - give or take - to decompose. Or forever. We don’t know.

   Every bit of plastic ever created still sits somewhere on the planet, increasingly in the guts of whales, fish and our children.

   And it’s possible that it will never break down). This applies to both the lid and cup. The bulk are lined in plastic (it’s what keeps the liquid in).

5. And, them lids? They contain BPA, a notorious endocrine disruptor (linked to breast and prostate cancer, early puberty, obesity, autism and fertility issues) that has been banned in many other products around the world, including Australia.

   One might say that single-use cups make you fat and sad.

6. It gets more horrible. BPA is most toxic when inhaled in the presence of hot steamy liquid. Oops.

7. Disposable cups are a travesty for anyone with autoimmune disorders, too. The thing about BPAs you probably need to know is that even low exposure can wreak havoc (particularly for anyone with an autoimmune disease).

8. But what about the recyclable ones? Bad news, comrades. Few are recyclable (unless you’re willing to separate the lining from the paper on the outside). Besides…less than 9 percent of plastic is recycled. In 2018 China stopped accepting recycling from the United States, Australia and a bunch of other western nations. The bulk of our recycling is now being sent to landfill or stockpiled until someone can find a solution. (Anyone?)

9. Oh, and the biodegradable cups? A University of Pittsburgh study found that the production processes rendered them more polluting than standard single-use cups.

   Yep, more.

   There’s the fertilizers and pesticides used in growing the sugarcane and cornstarch from which the cups are made; the chemicals used in processing; and the fact that the discarded end product is rarely broken down in proper composting facilities. (Does your council bin go to an industrial composting site? Mine doesn’t.) Most end up in landfill or recycling stockpiles, where, deprived of oxygen, they release methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. More on this in coming weeks.

10. Besides all this: Single-use anything will always come with a horrible price. Resources were used, burned, polluted to make it. And to transport it. And store it. All so that we can use once and chuck.

    But a caveat:

11. It takes twenty uses for a “keep cup” to come up “cleaner” from an emissions point of view than a single-use one (the glass or metal is more resource heavy than paper and plastic). Which becomes problematic when people break or lose them before using them twenty times.

    

    Me, from my book Simplicious Flow, taken by Rob Palmer

    The truly sustainable solution is to use a mug you already own, or to

    make your own portable version, see above. I take an old glass jar (with a lid) and wrap it in a dozen or so of those rubber bands that your broccolini or kale come tied in to provide the insulated “silicon” grip. I use a bottle opener to whack a small ventilation hole in the lid. Bam!

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A podcast I found fun

in which Tim Ferriss does family systems therapy with us all

Internal family Systems (IFS) is a mode of therapy I’m exploring at the moment with my foster parenting and with my own deep ugly stuff. It’s described as a “psychedelic experience without the drugs” and Richard Schwartz is considered The Guy on the matter. This session with Tim is fun and pretty accurate…Richard walks Tim through a “parts therapy”session. You can sort of follow along, using your own deep ugly stuff. Really worth it.

Another sobering thought on our extinction

(i do think we need to keep exposing ourselves to them)

I came across this insight from Kate Marvel, a climate scientist at Columbia University:

“I suspect that human beings will not go extinct from climate change, but I have higher standards than that. I don’t want to just not go extinct.”

Yes, I have higher standards, too.

She goes on: “For me, there’s almost an abdicating of responsibility by saying, ‘Well, we’re not going to do anything about climate change unless it’s going to kill every last one of us.’ Because the things that, for me, are really frightening about climate change are the consequences for human social systems.”

Indeed, the in-between and more likely (at least in the short term) state - where we survive, but the existence is horrible - is what terrifies me more. My standard is that we maintain what truly matters, which, TMM, is our humanity. For, we will crumble if that goes.

To this end, I think the saddest indication of this in-between state becoming a reality is the increase in climate refugees. This news haunted me to the core this week:

A “liquid graveyard” of humans. Estimates say 1 billion people will be on the move around the world, escaping unlivable countries. Many will not be let in, fed or rescued for we will all be fighting for what some are predicting will be half as much food on the planet.

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Thanks for hearing me out. I’ve got a bunch of things going on at the moment and I invite you to join me in progressing them. Drowning a touch!

• Head to @byocupweek to get details on going single-use cup free. Please do the switch! For the kids.

• Give my podcast 5 stars and a gushing review? Please? Click here. Don’t bother if you feel it only rates a 4 (cry laughter emoji).

• My Live Nation tour will be running ahead of the Australian election and will be all about mobilising in a bodaciously dynamic way. Tickets are here.

I’m so bloody demanding!

Much gratitude (it’s Thanksgiving!)

Sarah xx