Ocean lover Goffinet McLaren has just released a new book for kids–as well as adults–about a seagull named Sullie who organizes all his marine animal friends to combat plastic pollution.  I asked Goffinet to tell her story of how she came to love the sea and to write Sullie Saves the Seas.

Read her story and see details below for how to enter the drawing to win a copy of the book.

Goffinet McLaren’s story

I was born and grew up in the small historic town of Carrickfergus, on the water`s edge of Northern Ireland.  Surrounded by the sea, I became aware at a very early age of the importance of caring for the ocean and it`s inhabitants.  As I grew into adulthood, my sense of right and wrong ripened into a positive passion to make a difference to our planet.

In 1979, I moved to the United Stateswhere I married my husband Ian. We have one son, Moutray.

In 2006, Ian and I retired to Litchfield on the beautiful coast of South Carolina where I could renew my association with the sea and it`s precious marine life. From the first day, however, I realized that something dreadful was happening!  Litter of all sorts, and particularly plastic products, was being washed into the sea – carelessly left upon the shore by thoughtless tourists. A cold chill went down my spine as I instinctively knew that plastic in any shape or form, would not be good for marine life.

Concern for the welfare of marine life was the impetus for a letter writing campaign to any celebrity that I thought might listen. I thought that I had discovered another “Inconvenient Truth.” I wrote to Al Gore, Oprah, Michael Moore, Anderson Cooper, and Fabian Cousteau to mention but a few.

Unfortunately, my letter writing campaign had little response! But I felt that if the pristine beaches at Litchfield had a problem, then beaches all around the world had to have a problem. One day, I googled “Trash in the ocean” and up popped Capt. Charles Moore, the sea captain, who accidently discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. I called over toLong Beachimmediately and Capt. Charlie not only responded to me but empathized with my concerns. I read everything that I could about Capt. Moore’s research and became an instant disciple. I then started writing letters to papers and giving power- point presentations to anyone who would pay attention.

One day, Algalita called to tell me that Bonnie Monteleone was hosting Capt. Charlie at a presentation inUniversityofNorth Carolina,Wilmington. My husband, myself and a news paper photographer set off forWilmingtonwith great enthusiasm. My worst fears about plastic in the ocean were confirmed—as a result of plastic ingestion, millions of birds, seals, dolphins, turtles, and even whales, suffer heart breaking deaths, a phenomenon that I now refer to as “a holocaust of ocean life.” I was haunted by all that I knew and resolved to bring more awareness to the plight of marine life. I also noticed that when I spoke with families on the beach, the children paid attention but adults just wished that I would go away— and often said so!

One day, as I was picking up plastic, I noticed gulls pecking at some abandoned plastic bags. I remembered the gulls back in Ireland living on fish.  It occurred to me that the gulls could really explain all the changes that have taken place on the beaches since I was a little girl and Sullie was instantly hatched!

I resolved to write a book in a positive attempt to educate children and young adults about the consequences of plastic pollution. My story is targeted at a children`s audience, but in the hope that adults will read it too and fall in love with Sullie’s  heroic adventures as he leads his bird friends in a mission to reverse the conduct and turn the bad behavior on humans themselves.

So far, both kids and adults have responded most positively to Sullie’s mission. You can read the reviews on Sullie’s face book page.

Give-Away

To enter the give-away, please leave a comment below with ideas you have for teaching children about plastic pollution. I’ll choose a winner next week.

A few nights ago, while in the throes of editing my book, I received an email from Jen Williams of Dress Me Up Organic asking if I would review her natural, organic baby products that she packages and ships without any plastic.

I took a quick look at the site and was blown away by how cute the toys are–I love the designs–but at the time, I was scrambling to get my book edits done, didn’t have time to do a review, and don’t have kids to test the products on anyway.  So I asked Jen if she would write up her story, how she became interested in environmental issues, especially plastic, and why she decided to start her own company.

Here’s Jen’s story in her own words.  Read through to the end to find out about the give-away.

Jen Williams of Dress Me Up Organic

I have been interested in the environment and sustainable living since early in my high-school days. That was the time when the Clayoquot Sound controversy was rampant in my backyard. I was so inspired by nature during those days that, in University I completed a Bachelor Degree with a double major in Geography and Environmental Studies. I worked at several different jobs in the government that I quickly realized would not help me to feel good about preserving nature, but instead made me feel disconnected from it.

When I decided to have children, I was quite disheartened that I could not find products that I felt confident giving to my kids. So many of these products were made out of plastic and they seemed to be randomly getting recalled all the time. Even most stuffed toys were made with plastic and stuffed with plastic! International manufacturing seemed to be poorly monitored, and we heard that lots of paints from China contained unsafe levels of lead. I also hated loud toys, which took lots of them off my list.

I have a great friend named Tressa who has huge talents in the fiber arts realm. When she started having small children, she felt frustrated with the products available as well. Tressa had a whole bunch of creative ideas on bringing back some of the classic toys that would naturally inspire kids to use their imagination – and my kids and I loved what she was doing! She started to make things for her girls and crafted enough to sell on Etsy and at markets. The toys she was making started getting a lot of attention since there was nothing like it on the market.

Tressa and I had a great chat one night about how she wanted to focus on her little kids, and on crafting really unique products. My little ones were now all in school, I loved her creations, and I was passionate about sourcing the highest quality materials. We both decided that I should be the person to take her creations to the next level.

I have a dream to bring all of these high quality, handmade toys, teethers and linens to more families.  In our business, I am very careful to thoroughly research all the sources of our fabric to make sure it is ethically produced to very high standards. In April 2011, we submitted our Organic Teething Bonbon to be reviewed by the Mother Approved Child Tested group. We won the excellence and green awards, which I am especially happy about because they look at the different components that go into making the toys.

We work hard to ensure that there are extremely limited plastics involved in the production of our products from start to finish. We do not individually wrap our toys in plastic for shipping, we stuff our toys with natural wool and occasionally organic cotton, and we use paper tape when shipping.  I am always interested in finding out more ways to cut plastic out of my life, and I really appreciate what Beth is doing with “My Plastic Free Life” and I can’t wait to read her book!

Win a Dress Me Up Organic Teething Bonbon®

Dress Me Up Organic’s Organic Teething Bonbons® are made from certified organic cotton and naturally antibacterial wool, and are a safe, plastic-free solution for teething pain.  Here’s how you use them:

1. Dip the ends in water.
2. Leave the center stuffing dry.
3. Toss in the freezer ‘till needed.

The cool, firm teether knots soothe tender gums, while the wool stuffing keeps little hands warm.  Each Bonbon® is handmade one at a time in the company’s Canadian, west coast studio from organic and sustainable materials. The cotton shell is 100% certified organic USA cotton embroidered with one of a kind free form stitching. The center of the Teething Bonbon® is stuffed with Canadian wool.

To enter the contest: Leave a comment below with your favorite plastic-free kid solution.  Could be a brand of toy.  Could be a DIY idea.  Could be anything that exposes kids to less plastic.  I’ll choose a winner at random the week of February 13.  Of course, while I usually use the random number generator to choose winners for my give-aways, I reserve the right to choose someone who leaves a tip that absolutely blows me away.

Disclosure:  I did not receive any compensation for writing this post except for the Teething Bonbon that has been donated by Jen for the give-away.

It should go without saying that I choose wines bottled in glass rather than the new plastic-coated aseptic cartons that are growing in popularity. But glass has its drawbacks too. And wine-related plastic is about more than just the container. Not only do I have to look for wines with natural cork stoppers–as opposed to plastic “corks” or screw caps that are lined inside with plastic–I also have to consider the capsule–that antiquated wrapper around the neck and over the top of the cork. Historically, capsules were made from lead. Nowadays, they are made from tin, heat-shrinked plastic, or a polylaminate material that contains both metal and plastic. So I look for wines without any capsule at all. But although more and more vintners are selling wines capsule-free, they are still hard to come by. So I was happy to discover Sutton Cellars wine at the Paul Marcus Wine Shop right down the street from me.

Sutton Cellars is a small, San Francisco winery that bottles in glass with no capsule and with just a plain kraft paper label. No plastic.

The cork itself is natural–not plastic–but that’s not all. It’s a solid piece of cork, as opposed to agglomerated corks, which are made from tiny cork pieces compressed and glued together. Carl Sutton, the owner of Sutton Cellars, told me that the bits of cork in agglomerated corks come from numerous sources and are more apt to be contaminated with TCA, the chemical responsible for “cork taint.” He wants to avoid that as well as the glue.

He explained these things after I emailed him to ask about doing a review for this blog. And then he told me I should come to one of his “Jug Sunday” events at the winery where you can pay a deposit for a refillable jug (1 liter or 4 liter size) of the mystery wine of the day (it’s different at every event, and Carl will not reveal what it is) that you can bring back to the next Jug Sunday to refill. So last Sunday, I headed into San Francisco for a fun afternoon of wine tasting and education.

Right away I bought the jug of the day to take home. I got the four liter size because Carl had run out of one liter bottles. Oh, who am I kidding? I would have bought the big jug anyway.

And then I tasted the other offerings. In addition to various red wines, which are all unfiltered and unfined and just so delicious, Sutton Cellars is famous for its vermouth. Vermouth? I thought that was something you waved over a glass of gin for half a second so you could call it a martini. I didn’t know people actually drink vermouth by itself. But Carl explained that vermouth is an apéritif, stimulating the appetite through its mildly bitter flavor. Sutton’s vermouth is a neutral white wine fortified with unaged brandy, infused with seventeen botanicals, blended and bottled fresh weekly. (I copied that last bit from the website.) He displayed three of those botanicals for us: rosemary, chamomile, and dried orange peel. I could maybe develop a taste for this stuff.

He also explained how his dessert wine called Solera is made:

(Almost) every year I make a fortified red dessert wine rotating between Syrah and Zinfandel and every time I make one of those I keep some back and add it to the solera. The current bottling has wines from 1999 through 2007 in it. In addition to not topping the barrels in order for the wine to oxidize and soften, some of the wine is placed in glass demijohns and baked in the sun. I know of noone else in the US doing this, but it’s common practice in a few small appellations in France and Spain. It gives the wine such an amazing complexity, there is no other process that can replicate it.

Solera, I have to say, is a little taste of heaven.  Plastic-free living is fun.

If you live in the Bay Area, you can find out when the next Jug Sunday will be by sending an email via the website to request to be added to the mailing list or by following Sutton Cellars on Facebook.

Wait a minute, you might be thinking, that’s all very well and good if you live in the Bay Area. But what about those of us who don’t have local wineries offering wine in refillable jugs? What are we supposed to do with this information?

Thanks for asking.  Look at Sutton Cellars as an example of what sustainable wine-making can be. Sure, you can order wine from Sutton Cellars through the mail. But I’m not sure shipping individual orders of wine around the country is the most environmentally friendly practice. If there are wineries in your area, how about speaking up and asking for less plastic and less packaging? See if they will institute refillable jugs or at least use less packaging on their bottles. Show them that it can be done another way.  And the next time you are looking for wine to buy, notice if there are any wines on the shelf without capsules around the neck and try one of those.  You can’t always tell what kind of stopper is inside before buying the wine, but you can see what is or isn’t on the outside.

The following is a guest post from 17-year old Mary Katherine from Mountain View, CA who has been participating in the Show Your Plastic Trash Challenge since October of last year and has done an incredible job reducing her plastic waste.  See her trash challenge posts here.  Recently, she started her own blog called The Plastic-free Chef to share her strategies for cooking with less plastic.  

My name is Mary Katherine and I’m 17. I love to cook. I love everything about it (except cleaning). I do most of the cooking in my house. My quest to banish disposable plastic from my life began in August in the toilet paper aisle of Safeway. My mum was going on about the wastefulness of the plastic wrap around the toilet paper. Something just changed all of a sudden for me. My mum always talked about plastic packaging, but we didn’t really do anything. Truth be told, I was apathetic and ignorant of the problem. Sure, we brought reusable bags to the store and bottled water was banned from the house. But I suddenly realized we needed to be doing more.

After we got home, I spent a couple hours researching online for solutions to the plastic problem. I found a lot of resources, but my favorite one was Beth’s blog. Since then, I’ve been working to eliminate disposable plastic from my house. The most challenging area has proved to be the kitchen. But with the help of homemade cloth produce bags, the bulk aisle in Whole Foods, the farmer’s market, Straus dairy products and Cowgirl Creamery cheese, I’ve been able to eliminate most of the plastic from my kitchen. That said, here is one of my favorite plastic-free recipes. This is a staple in my house.

Homemade Vegetable Broth

Vegetable broth is something that always comes in plastic. Whether it’s a tetra pak or a plastic lined can, you’re producing plastic waste either way. Bouillon cubes may seem like a reasonable alternative. They’re wrapped in foil and come in a paper box. But they’re highly processed and kind of expensive. Not to mention they still produce waste. I’ve found that the best option is to make it yourself. To make vegetable broth, I collect vegetable scraps in a bowl in my fridge until I get a good amount.

You can use whatever vegetable scraps you like. Some I use frequently are:

• the tough green parts of leeks that aren’t good to cook with
• onion peels
• celery tops
• carrot tops and peels
• broccoli stems
• cauliflower cores
• cabbage cores
• potato peels
• beet peels (they turn your broth magenta though)
• parsnip tops and peels
• tomato skins and cores
• wilted herbs from the fridge that didn’t get used up

Once you’ve collected enough scraps, empty the contents into a large pot. The pot I used is eight quarts.

Add enough water to almost cover the vegetable scraps. Don’t add too much water though. Your broth won’t be very flavorful if you do this.

Bring to a boil and lower the heat a little. Simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the flavor is strong enough for you. If you cook it too long it will taste bitter. Add salt to taste if you like. I happened to be baking a squash while I was making the broth. It oozed some juices, so I added them to the broth as well.

When my broth was finished, it looked like this:

Take out as many cooked scraps as you can and discard them. My apartment complex has a community compost pile and garden, so that’s where mine end up.

After this, strain the mixture into a clean glass container. I used a Straus milk bottle.

Enjoy! The broth will stay good for four or five days in your fridge. You can also freeze it for a few months, but make sure to leave enough space for it to expand so the glass doesn’t break. For more plastic free cooking ideas, check out my cooking blog: http://theplasticfreechef.com/

Two weeks ago, food columnist Mark Bittman published ten Recipes for the Semi-Vegan in The New York Times Magazine along with photos that left many of us salivating.

What a great source of inspiration, I thought, for those of us who aspire to eat more plants and fewer animal products.   I, in particular, need help.  See, in May 2010, after reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals,I resolved to stop eating meat. My reasons were personal. (You can read them here.) And I kept my resolution until the end of February 2011.

Then my mom died.

After the memorial service, my sister came home with a giant sack of Wendy’s cheeseburgers, Mom’s favorite food, and, dumping them out on the kitchen table, she announced, “Everyone must partake.”  I couldn’t refuse this ceremonial gesture.  I ate a cheeseburger.  And then another.  And then for the rest of my trip home it was all meat all the time.   Something inside me craved the comfort it provided.  The problem was that once I came back to California, I still craved meat.  So last year, a tough year, I let myself eat as much of it as I wanted.   Probably less than the average American, but still, I want this year to be different.

In addition to reducing the suffering of farm animals and being healthier for our bodies, cutting down on the amount of animal products we consume can also help mitigate global climate change.   The United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization estimates that livestock production generates about 18% of human-derived greenhouse gas emissions.  The animals themselves, of course, produce methane, and large portions of the world’s carbon-sequestering forests are destroyed for grazing lands.

I’m not ready or willing to go all the way vegan, but I will return to my previous vegetarian state and add one vegan day per week.

Preparing Bittman’s Vegan Recipes without Plastic

To jump start my vegan experiment, I plan to make all 10 recipes, while generating a minimal amount of plastic waste.  Some of the recipes — roasted squash with kale, for example — will be easy to make plastic-free.   But others include ingredients that are usually found in either plastic packaging or BPA-lined cans.   They will be challenging but not impossible.

I made the first recipe last weekend, and it was just lovely.

Recipe #1: Saffron-and-Mushroom Barley Risotto

I love making risotto.  And I love criticizing restaurants that serve something they call risotto that really isn’t.  If you have to add a ton of butter and cream to make your risotto creamy, you’re doing it wrong. (I’m talking to you, Pasta Pomodoro!) A good risotto takes time.  I’ve heard you can do it quicker in a pressure cooker, but I don’t have one, and to me, spending several hours on a weekend afternoon cooking risotto is meditative and relaxing.  And the wine doesn’t hurt.  A little for the risotto.  A little for me.

Ingredients:

• Dried porcini mushrooms from the bulk bin at Berkeley Bowl West
• Shiitake mushrooms from farmers market in a paper bag that I reuse over and over
• Saffron in glass vial. I bought this stuff many years ago and am not even sure it’s still good, but I used it anyway because I had it.
• Pearled barley from Whole Foods bulk bin in my own reusable hemp bag from the ChicoBag produce stand collection
• Onions from farmers market — except I can’t actually eat onions, so I used onion powder instead
• White wine — I always look for wines in glass bottles without any capsule (wrapper) around the neck and without a plastic cork or plastic-lined screw cap. I’ll write more about plastic-free wine in an upcoming post.
• Olive oil in our own bottle that we refill at Whole Foods or Market Hall
• Vegetable stock. I used Better Than Bouillon in a glass jar, but many of you have left comments about how easy broth is to make from scratch, and I actually have a post from a guest blogger coming up in a few days explaining how she makes her own plastic-free vegetable broth.
• Parsley from produce aisle

In addition to Bittman’s ingredients pictured above, I added a few more as I went along:

• Nutritional yeast from Berkeley Bowl bulk bin to add protein and B vitamins and give some extra umami flavor
• Juice of one lemon because I wanted just a bit more tanginess

Making risotto

You’ll have to read Mark Bittman’s recipe for the exact instructions, but I’ll just say that to make any risotto, you saute your grain (rice — or barley in this case) in some kind of fat and then very slowly add liquid, a cup at a time, stirring almost constantly to help the grains release their starch.  You don’t add the next cup of liquid until the previous one is absorbed.  The liquids are usually wine and broth, and you can use your own taste buds to determine how much of each.  I substituted wine for some of the broth in this recipe because I love the flavor of wine in food.  Use as much liquid as it takes to create a super creamy food that melts in your mouth.   When the barley or rice is soft enough to eat, the risotto is probably not done yet.  Keep going and have patience to create the perfect texture and mouth feel.   Yum!

The next Bittman recipe I’m going to make is Spinach and Chickpeas. Care to join me?

This post is part of the January Green Mom’s Carnival, hosted at Strocel.com.  The theme this month is climate change.  And this post is sort of about that, even if it’s really an excuse to make yummy food porn.

As many of you know, 2011 was difficult and challenging for me in many ways. My mom passed away early in the year, and I didn’t really have time to truly grieve until after I finished the biggest project ever: writing my book. Plastic-Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Toois now available for pre-order on Amazon. (I’ll tell you more about the book in a future post.)

I kept collecting my plastic waste all year and just today have finally made the time to photograph and post the 2011 tallies. Surprisingly, and somewhat disappointingly, the total was almost exactly the same weight as last year: 2.11 pounds. Keep in mind that this number represents both recyclable and non-recyclable plastic because I don’t consider recycling to be the answer to the plastic problem. While recycling is necessary, reducing our consumption should be the first priority.

So here’s what the 2011 batch looks like. It all fits inside one regular-sized plastic grocery bag.  (Click on 2011 tally links to see individual items.)

Making a change

I feel like I kind of let the plastic get away from me this year. Yes, 2 pounds is very low when you consider the average American generates at least 100 pounds of plastic waste per year. Still, I know it’s possible to reduce it even more with a bit more mindfulness. To that end, I have decided to return to posting weekly tallies. Don’t worry, I won’t post them on this blog.

From now on, I’m going to post my weekly tallies to the Show Your Plastic Trash Challenge site along with the other participants. In fact, I’ve already posted my tally for the first week of 2012.

Why not join me over there and start collecting? It’s a great way to not only keep ourselves accountable but learn from the discoveries and solutions of others.

6.7 oz Plastic Waste [6.7 oz new/0 oz acquired prior to June 2007]

Here’s the final tally for 2011.

Beth’s September to December 2011 plastic waste collection

New plastic waste (6.7 oz):

• 21 plastic envelope windows from various sources, including financial institutions that don’t offer online banking yet. Learn about what plastic envelope windows are made from.
• Two prescription bottles and caps. Preserve’s Gimme5 program will accept the #5 bottles for recycling. But sadly, the state of California will not allow pharmacies to refill them, which would be the ideal solution to me.
• Plastic bottle, cap, and foam seal from 1 bottle of BalanceIT cat food supplement. Read about our homemade cat food here.
• Three mystery plastic baggies. Once again, I ended up with 3 mystery wrappers. Good thing I’ll be tallying my plastic weekly in 2012.
• Three Bandaids. It’s been a year for cutting myself — accidentally.
• One unwanted big fat plastic straw. Plastic straws do happen to the best of us sometimes when we’re not on our toes.
• 1 small clamshell package from a VoIP adapter that converts my thinksound headphones to PC headphones for Skype. I’m doing a lot more teleconferencing lately and instead of buying a whole headset, I found a tiny adapter that lets me use the headphones I already have.
• Tyvek wrist band. From the Green Festival. In the previous year, I refused to wear the plastic wrist band so that I could hand it back at the end of the day for someone to reuse the next day. This year, the person registering me put it around my wrist before I could even blink! There must be a better alternative to plastic wrist bands for events.
• One expired credit card.
• Plastic wrapper from 3-D movie glasses. *Sigh* I have a pair of 3D glasses that I kept and usually bring with me so I don’t have to take new ones. Yes, the 3D glasses are returned and reused, but not the plastic packaging. This time I forgot. Read more about what happens to 3D glasses and bringing your own.
• Bubble wrap from book I ordered. Amazon.com, why the plastic for paperback books all of a sudden?
• Two plastic seals from glass bottles. Don’t remember what the products were.
• 1 plastic mailer. A book sent by a publishing company to review. No more. If they come in plastic after I’ve requested no plastic, I’m sending them back. Seriously.
• Two plastic tear strips from cardboard and paper mailers.
• Packing tape from 3 different packages..
• Plastic wrap around newsletter from nonprofit. I’ve asked to be removed from the paper mailing list.
• Three plastic caps from glass bottles. Oil, vinegar, soy sauce.

We’ll be buying soy sauce in bulk from now on.

• Two more plastic neck threads from glass bottles of olive oil. We usually buy olive oil from the bulk bin, but Whole Foods gave us a couple of bottles for free.
• One cigarette butt of shame. Danielle, don’t kill me! A friend came to visit me while I was in the throes of writing my book, and that cigarette tasted soooooo good. Kids, do not smoke. It is bad for you and the planet.

That’s it for 2011! I’ll post a wrap up next…

30.5 oz Plastic Waste [15.1 oz new/15.4 oz acquired prior to June 2007]

2011 was a busy year, and while I’ve been dutifully collecting my plastic waste, I’m just now getting around to posting it. Here’s the 2nd third of the year.

Beth’s May through August 2011 plastic waste collection

Plastic purchased before June 15 2007 and used up in May – August 2011 (15.4 oz):

• 1 pair dead flip flops. These are completely worn out, as you can see in this photo, and I have finally found a great pair of Feelgoodz natural rubber flip flops in the right size. The old flip flops can be sent to Feelgoodz for recycling. Read more about Feelgoodz flip flops here.
• 1 plastic spice bottle and lid. Still using up spices in plastic containers and filling glass jars from the bulk bins when I need to restock.
• 4 packets bonito dried fish. We gave it to the cats as a treat, as it seemed I was never going to use it in a recipe.
• 1 cracked acrylic bathroom cup. I keep a small glass in the bathroom now.
• 1 tube Queen Helene Mint Julep Masque and cap. I make my own facial mask with bulk bentonite clay. Read about my homemade mint julep masque.
• Sally Hansen sugar wax tube and leg conditioner bottle with caps. Read about making homemade sugar wax that really works.
• 1 bottled water cap. I bought a case of bottled water way back in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks, and we have never opened the case. The water is no longer drinkable, of course, and we haven’t bought any bottled water in 5 years. But I used one bottle this year to try and make a wasp trap. It didn’t work too well. Anyway, I added the cap to my collection.

New plastic waste (15.1 oz):

• 5 plastic labels. 2 labels from a block of butter wrapped in brown waxed paper, 1 label from glass bottle of mouthwash, 2 labels from soap I bought to try and brush my teeth. Read about the tooth soap fiasco here.
• Two vials of Vectra flea treatment for cats plus plastic packaging.
• 27 plastic envelope windows from various sources, including financial institutions that don’t offer online banking yet. Learn about what plastic envelope windows are made from.
• Four prescription bottles and caps. Preserve’s Gimme5 program will accept the #5 bottles for recycling. But sadly, the state of California will not allow pharmacies to refill them, which would be the ideal solution to me.
• Plastic bottle, cap, and foam seal from 1 bottle of BalanceIT cat food supplement. Read about our homemade cat food here.
• Black polystyrene plate from BlogHer lunch. Read about how Amber Strocel and I were surprised by plastic plates and carried ours around with us during the BlogHer conference.
• Three mystery plastic baggies. This is why I shouldn’t wait so long to post tallies. I can’t for the life of me remember what these were.
• Two stickers from a box of Lush Toothy Tabs. Read about this nearly plastic-free alternative to toothpaste.
• Four Bandaids. It’s been a year for cutting myself — accidentally.
• One unwanted plastic straw. Plastic straws do happen to the best of us sometimes when we’re not on our toes.
• 1 clamshell package from a pair of Etymotic High Fidelity earplugs. Andrea, a reader of this blog, convinced me to buy special earplugs for concerts to prevent injuring my hearing, after I wrote about not needing earplugs. I tried them. They are plastic and come in plastic packaging, but I thought of them as a medical expense. And they did work. Sadly, I ended up taking them out during the Muse concert in Golden Gate Park in August because… I just wanted to HEAR LOUD MUSIC. I’m sorry. I’ll regret destroying my ears in a few years probably.
• Wrist band. From the Outside Lands music festival in which I destroyed my eardrums to Muse.
• Four expired credit cards. This year was one credit card fiasco after another. I don’t feel like going into the details.
• Plastic window and 3 plastic twisties from cardboard package of thinksound headphones. Read about PVC-free thinksound headphones here.
• Six plastic air pillows and 3 plastic baggies from replacement mobile phone. My Credo Mobile Phone bit the dust and had to be exchanged. The replacement phone was shipped with plastic packaging. I couldn’t get around it. Read about getting refurbished cell phones instead of new.
• Three plastic seals from glass bottles. Don’t remember what the products were.
• 1 shipping label pouch. Don’t remember.
• 3 plastic tear strips from cardboard and paper mailers.
• Packing tape from 8 different packages. This year I promise to get better at insisting on NO PLASTIC TAPE. This mostly happens when vendors want to send me products to review on this blog. If they can’t send it without plastic tape, then I don’t want it.
• 1 plastic-tipped toothpick from sandwich.
• 1 tiny blister pack for replacement battery for digital scale. The scale I use to weigh my plastic waste and for making homemade cat food.
• 3 plastic wine corks. I mostly keep track of which wines have plastic stoppers, but these surprised me.
• 1 plastic baggie from part needed to fix rice cooker. Read about how I fixed my rice cooker instead of replacing it.
• 1 plastic wrapper from Japanese ear pick. I bought an ear pick as a reusable alternative to cotton swabs for cleaning my ears. I still haven’t figured out how to use it.
• 1 plastic blister pack for micro USB cable. I tried to find a micro USB cable secondhand to no avail. I have mini USB coming out my butt but micro USB was knew to me.
• Six plastic caps from glass bottles. Oil, vinegar, etc.
• Two plastic neck threads from glass bottles of olive oil. We usually buy olive oil from the bulk bin, but Whole Foods gave us a couple of bottles for free.

I sleep with my smartphone.

There, I said it. My virtual life is out of control. I am powerless over my addiction to checking email, Twitter, and Facebook. Listening to podcasts while playing endless rounds of Yukon solitaire. Googling the answer to any question that happens to pop into my head at 3am. I know I’m subjecting myself to radiation, and worse, I am robbing myself of much-needed sleep by staring at a bright screen into the wee hours of the morning. I need help.

As if reading my cluttered mind just in time for New Years Resolution season, Sonya from the Kanelstrand simple living blog sent me an invitation to participate in her Simple Living Challenge beginning in February. I need this. I need it like I need a hole in my head through which I can dump out all the unnecessary crap that makes me feel overwhelmed.

Join Me!

Simple living goes hand in hand with plastic-free living.  The less stuff we buy, the less plastic we generally consume.   And I’ll be contributing to the Simple Living Challenge Discussion by offering tips for weaning off plastic.  But there are other ways to consume, with or without plastic, and I am proof of that.

Please join me by signing up for the 3-week simple living challenge event beginning February 1.  Topics that will be covered are:

- financial life, living debtfree
- frugal living
- how much is enough? reconsidering buying habits
- weaning off plastic, turning to reusable sources
- cosmetics that are killing us, how to use natural sources to beautify ourselves
- re-evaluating commitments, re-evaluating Yes and No
- simplifying your goals
- simplifying your wardrobe
- decluttering your home, mind, emotions
- simplifying your online life
- stop multitasking
- slowing down – talk/walk/eat slowly and learn to enjoy the moment
- free up time to do what you love
- spend time with the people you love
- spend time alone
- connect to your inner self and your needs
- learn to deal with stress
- walk more, drive less
- establish daily routines, plan your daily tasks
- celebrate your success

I got a head start on this back in 2009 when I asked for help decluttering my office and got a ton of responses from you all.  Now I need help organizing my time and my mind.

This is NOT a New Years Resolution, by the way.   I’ve never kept one of those.  :-)

On New Years Day, I decided I needed some fried potatoes to go with the homemade ketchup my friend Mark and I had made the previous week. And not just any fried potatoes. No siree. I wanted the king of fried potato junk food goodness: greasy, crispy Tater Tots. But authentic Tater Tots come in a plastic bag, so I’d have to see if I could make them myself. As always, Google was right there with the answer. J. Kenji Lopez-Alt from Serious Eats had reverse engineered the tater tot and provided an easy-to-follow recipe, one that looked like it would win the Napoleon Dynamite stamp of approval.

But making homemade Tater Tots turned out not to be the plastic-free, waste-free process I had hoped for. I’ll explain what I mean further in this post. First, the recipe:

Homemade Tater Tots: Step by Step

Ingredients

• 2 pounds russet potatoes (I actually used 2 large potatoes, about 1-1/2 pounds)
• 2 quarts peanut, vegetable, or canola oil (I actually used a lot less oil, buying a 16-ounce glass bottle of Spectrum organic high temperature sunflower oil because it was the only high temperature oil I could find on New Years Day.)
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt (I cut this amount in half, and it was still too much salt. Be sparing! You can always add salt later.)
• 1 tablesoon cornstarch or potato starch (I used cornstarch, since it was what I already had in the house, and cut the amount in half.)
• 1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar (I used 1/4 tsp.)
• Freshly ground black pepper

1) Peel the potatoes and cut into roughly 1-inch chunks. Soak chunks in a bowl of cold water for a few minutes.

2) Pat potato chunks dry with a clean tea towel. (Why waste paper towels?)

3) Heat oil in saucepan or fryer to 350°F, toss in potato chunks, and cook until golden brown.

4) Turn down the burner to low, remove the fried potatoes, and drain. The instructions say to drain them on paper towels, but we actually don’t buy disposable paper towels. So I just drained them through a wire sieve. After all, that’s what they do at McDonald’s, right? (You should start to worry when your cooking standards start to resemble those of McDonald’s — but I digress.)

5) Place fried potatoes in food processor a little at a time and pulse quickly a few times to break up into smaller pieces. Do not overprocess them into mush.

6) Add cornstarch, sugar, and salt to processed fried potatoes.

7) Form into that familiar tubular Tater Tot shape.

8) Heat oil again to 350°F and toss in the shaped Tater Tots. Fry until golden brown.

9) Turn off heat, remove Tots, and drain.

10) Server with homemade tomato ketchup.

11) Give them to someone you love and see if they smile. If they do, you have succeeded.

So What’s the Problem?

Michael liked my homemade tots. I thought they were too salty, but that’s something that could easily be remedied the next time. Except, there isn’t going to be a next time. Why? Because of the oil.

First of all, while the oil came in a glass bottle, the cap, seal, and neck were made of plastic — all this plastic for only one meal. I mean, I do sometimes buy glass bottles of oil or vinegar or other cooking ingredients with plastic tops, but they last for many weeks or months — not one sitting.

Which brings me to the second issue — all this oil for only one meal! This was the first time I ever deep fried anything, and I’m troubled looking at the nearly full bottle of dirty cooking oil I’m left with. Think of how many sunflowers it must have taken to make this bottle of oil.

I didn’t want to waste it, so I checked Google once again to find out where to take it to be recycled. There are several locations in the East Bay and San Francisco for residents to drop off used cooking oil to be converted into bio-diesel. The closest to me was at the Oakland Whole Foods Market, so I hopped on my bike and pedaled my dirty oil over to the recycling station.

So, I recycled it.  But here’s the thing: there were 3,840 calories in this bottle.  But instead of using those calories as food to power myself, I am basically giving them away to be used to power someone else’s car!

Now, after another quick Google search, I see many foodie articles claiming that it’s okay to re-use vegetable oil a few times as long as you strain in and keep it cold, even freeze it.  But honestly, I’m suspicious of that.  Cooking causes oil to break down, creating carcinogenic free radicals.  Dr. Andrew Weil advises against reusing cooking oil because of “a toxin called 4-hydroxy-trans-2-nonenal (HNE) forms when such oils as canola, corn, soybean and sunflower oils are reheated.”  Of course, it’s not like Tater Tots are health food in the first place.  Still, mitigating the damage is never a bad idea.

I’m thinking that the next time I want fried potatoes, I’ll make potato pancakes in a fry pan with a little oil.  Or maybe I could figure out a way to make the actual Tots in a fry pan.  What do you think?  Ideas? Suggestions?  How can I keep all the greasy goodness for myself instead of pouring it away?