Firstly, a very late happy birthday! (Sorry, I think I get more absent-minded every year.)
I had a quick look at the Story of Stuff that you linked to recently and even got to feeling that I should be putting vanilla beans in sugar instead of buying little plastic bottles of vanilla essence.
There’s never any food goes to waste in a household with two hungry cyclists, but we still manage to go through what seems an awful lot of packaging. I even got to wondering whether I should be making my own yogurt instead of buying two plastic tubs a week? Where do you stop?
Your story about the school uniform is a bit of a worry too. There’s at least one school here in Bendigo that’s changed its uniform from last year – and with no phase in period. The parent who told me about this was not happy either!