Welcome to week 6 of The Sunday Spark, a series with weekly thoughts and highlights, nuggets of learning, and a sustainable living tip for the week. This week: dreaming of summer vacation, glimmers of hope for sustainability, nihilism, and the problem with single use coffee cups.

The Sunday Spark – Week 6

On my mind this week: Dreaming of summer vacation

It’s February, and the dreary weather made its return at the end of this week after a few nice sunny days. What better way to chase away the winter blahs than to start planning a summer vacation!

Other than a couple of short work-related trips to Colorado Springs and Las Vegas, I haven’t done much travelling since the end of 2019. In fact, I haven’t planned a real summer vacation since 2018 when we went in our Disney Cruise to Alaska.

This July, I’ll be travelling to Victoria, British Columbia for some board meetings. My husband will be joining me and we’re planning to extend the trip to spend a week exploring Vancouver Island.

Over the past week, I mapped out our itinerary for the trip: Victoria, Salt Spring Island, Tofino, Campbell River, Nanaimo, Port Hardy, and other scenic towns and villages await. We’re looking forward to lots of picturesque hikes and drives on the westernmost part of this beautiful country.

For now, though, it’s back to winter for a few more weeks.

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Three highlights of the week

It’s important to celebrate big milestones and simple pleasures in life. Keeping the trend going, here are three highlights and simple pleasures of the week gone by:

• We had some exciting news in our family this week. Our niece announced she is expecting…and it’s twins. Although I don’t envy her having three children under two, we’ve never had twins in our family so it’s definitely another reason to look forward to summer 2023.
• I took advantage of milder, sunny days earlier this week to get out for lunchtime walks.
• Earlier this week, I got an email from my blogging pals Markus and Micah announcing that the eggs in the sea turtle nest I adopted in the Philippines had hatched and those baby turtles were on their way to the ocean. To learn more about the conservation efforts of the Pag-Asa Pawikan Protection and Conservation Center, and how you can help, visit Markus and Micah’s blog. I guarantee you’ll be inspired!

Three things I learned this week

It was a busy week at work, so I had less time for reading and learning. Even so, here are three things I learned this week:

A glimmer of hope on the sustainability front

A new study released this week showed that products making ESG (Environmental Social Governance) related claims averaged 28% cumulative growth over the last five years, compared to 20% for products that made no such claim. This gives me a glimmer of home that we might win the sustainability war despite our capitalist culture. (Source: McKinsey)

The big impact of many small changes

As I dreamed and planned for my summer vacation, I got an email from the folks at Plastic Free July. When the opening line said “Welcome to Plastic Free July 2023”, I have to admit I thought I’d lost a few months.

In their email wrap up of last year’s Plastic Free July, they reported a record 140 million participants worldwide participated in 2022. Through small changes, those individuals collectively reduced their waste by 2.6 million tons—the equivalent of around 13,000 blue whales. Proof that small changes add up! (Source: Plastic Free July Impact Report 2022)

What the heck is nihilism?

I was intrigued by the word nihilism in a blog post from AP2 at Clear Air Turbulence. Upon further investigation, I learned that nihilism means the rejection of all moral and religious principles, and the belief that life is meaningless. Although it isn’t a new philosophy, it sadly sums up the thinking of many people in our world.

It’s definitely something that warrants further study and thought on my part.

Sustainable living tip: reusable travel mugs

Last summer, I went for a hike on a trail in a local conservation area with my husband and daughter. As we walked through a scenic wooded trail, there it was! A lovely bench for hikers to pause, rest and enjoy the landscape. On the bench? The dreaded Tim Horton’s cup.

Now, Tim Hortons is an iconic Canadian brand. I just wish I didn’t have to see their iconic red cups strewn everywhere. It’s not just Timmies, though. The same could be said for Starbucks, McDonald’s or any other brand that serves takeout coffee.

It makes me angry that people thoughtlessly toss their cups wherever they happen to be when they take that last sip. But the bigger problem with takeout beverage containers is many recycling programs don’t accept them. So after the 10-15 minutes it takes to drink the coffee, the cups find their way to the landfill. Multiply that by the billions of cups of takeout coffee consumed every day, and it’s a huge problem. Add the emissions from cars idling in the drive-thru waiting for that coffee, and it’s easy to see that our caffeine cravings are have a big impact.

The best solution is to make your tea and coffee at home but I know better than to suggest to anyone that they give up their Timmies fix. So, why not get a reusable travel mug and use it for your takeout coffee? Tims will give you a ten cent discount on your coffee if you bring your own mug!

Even though the forecast shows unseasonably mild temperatures on the way this week, I know winter isn’t done with us yet. Until then, I’ll dream of Pacific Ocean views and start my summer vacation countdown.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of this week’s topics. Drop me a comment below and let me know your thoughts and ideas.