My friend Axelle, super minimalist and organizer extraordinaire, sent me an email a few days ago that was so funny I would have snorted milk out my nose if I’d been drinking milk in the first place.  Axelle doesn’t have a blog–or, she does, but she hasn’t written anything in it since 2010.  So I asked if I could share it here, since  it’s related to my favorite way to reduce plastic use:  reducing consumption of everything.  

Please enjoy.

Secrets of Celebrities

by Axelle Fortier

How do Bill and Melinda Gates, two busy bees, keep overwhelm from knocking at their kitchen door?

How do Brad ‘n’ Angie keep it together with their 6 or 7 kids and the dish washing that’s generated by this big, happy family?

How do Donald Trump and the missus maintain their serene bedroom closet and kitchen home-style?

The Obamas:  What’s the secret to their success in keeping a tidy White House?

“Two changes of bedding and two bath towels and washcloths allowed for each household member!” they all shout.

“One dinner plate, one salad plate, one dessert plate, one bowl, one cup, one spoon, one knife, one fork, and one drinking glass per person per household!   Wash your dish after every use and put it in the dish drainer.  When you need a dish again, just pull it out of the dish drainer and use it, then wash it, put it in the dish drainer, and on and on you go until you die,” says Axelle Fortier, creator of Do it My Way Home Organization in Richmond, CA.

The Obamas are big entertainers.  “It comes with the job,” Michelle laughs.  Michelle and hubby Barack have no need for fancy, old-fashioned White House dinnerware that’s been out of style for over a hundred years. “We followed the advice of Axelle, who recently became our Home Organization Dictator, and got rid of all that stuff.  You wouldn’t believe the space that opened up in the kitchen cupboards!”

Fortier advised the Obamas to add at the bottom of invitations to White House dinners a request to BYO table-and-flatware, including wine/beer/water glass and coffee/tea  mug.  “We have a lot of guests who live out of town, not to mention who live out of the country altogether.  A lot of those people aren’t always able to bring their own eating utensils.  We used to tell them to get some disposables at a supermarket or a Walmart.  When Axelle found out, she put a stop to that.  Now, we’re green and we tell our guests to get used dinner things at a secondhand store.”

If you’re single, solitary, and sad about it, Fortier reminds you that your life is easier than that of these happy married folks because you can keep a smaller dish drainer on your counter top.

“Of course, no excess dishes means no dishes ever piling up on the counter, waiting to be washed,” snaps Fortier.”  Three changes of underwear, two pairs of jeans, 3 changes of sox and a couple of t-shirts is all anyone needs,” says Fortier.  “If you can get truly minimalist about your clothing, you can eliminate a dirty-clothes hamper, thereby opening up more space in your home.”  A sweatshirt or two takes the place of  ”all those sweaters that hog valuable drawer space,” and, she continues, “A heavy-gauge, black plastic trash bag with a couple of slits makes a great California-style raincoat.  When you’re not using it, you fold it up and stick it in a drawer that was once stuffed with sweaters.”

The Trumps, used to a glittering lifestyle, find the simplicity of a home with just a few dishes and a few articles of clothing a refreshing change.  “We love to come here to this apartment  Axelle organized for us and inhale the unused space,” says Donald Trump.  His wife agrees.  “We come over at least once every year to see how we could be living. We’re not quite ready to live up to Axelle Fortier’s standards, and we know this causes her a great deal of frustration,” says the former neonatal brain and toe surgeon who is busy with her own budding interior design business.  “It’s not easy to live up to the perfection of this fabulously talented dictator of organization who wants only for everyone to live her way. “

I’ve gone commercial!  Well, no I didn’t. But I did make a commercial. Okay, not exactly. Filmmaker Alec Bernal, who created last month’s Lunchbox Project video, just finished making me an awesome YouTube video promo for my book Plastic-Free. All I did was show up… and bring along the plastic sea monster.  Check out the transformation…

(Note: Because I had to reduce the dimensions of the video to fit on this blog, Youtube automatically reduces the default resolution, making some of the video look kind of pixelated. If you want to see and hear the better version, either click the little symbol at the bottom that looks like a gear and select 360p, or watch on Youtube directly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53h5MjiB3l4.)

Feel free to share this video and embed on your own website if you want to.

Happy Thursday!

Recently, several readers, including my dad, have forwarded me articles about a group of Yale students who discovered an Amazonian fungus (pestalotiopsis microspora) that can not only eat polyurethane plastic, but can actually survive on it as its sole source of carbon. Could a fungus be the solution to our plastic pollution problem? And what does it mean in terms of the kinds of plastics we see littered every day?

Let’s stop and think it through.

There are many different types of plastic polymers. In general, single-use disposable products, the kind that make up the bulk of municipal plastic waste, are made from polyethylene terephthalate, high and low density polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, polypropylene, or polystyrene. Not polyurethane. Polyurethane is used as foam for furniture cushions, car seats, and mattresses; garden hoses; footwear; liquid varnishes;  and a whole host of other durable products–not the kind that are routinely littered. So a fungus that eats polyurethane is not going to affect most of the plastic waste that ends up in the landfill or incinerator or environment.

But perhaps this organism is just one of many to be discovered that will break down other kinds of plastics. In 2008, a Canadian high school student discovered a type of bacteria that could break down polyethylene bags. Musing on the ramifications of his discovery back then, I wrote:

But does this mean that plastic bags are now off the hook and that plastic packaging has been redeemed? Can we continue to use as much of it as we want guilt-free? Plastic is still made from non-renewable fossil resources. It’s manufacture uses energy and creates pollution in the form of pre-production plastic pellets, aka nurdles, that can escape and cause harm to the marine environment. And unlike paper bags which biodegrade easily and naturally when exposed to the elements, plastic bags will need to be processed in a controlled way at a temperature of 37°C (99°F) because the microbes that break them down don’t exist in abundance in the natural world, certainly not in the cold ocean.

Using microbes to dispose of waste is otherwise known as composting. We compost food scraps and some bio-based plastics now, and perhaps some day, we will be able to compost fossil-based plastics using bacteria, fungi, and other organisms. But we need to keep in mind that composting is simply a method of waste management. It’s better than landfilling and incinerating, but it does nothing to reduce the amount of new plastic being produced in the first place. It doesn’t address the massive amounts of plastic polluting the ocean and other areas of our planet. And it certainly doesn’t mitigate the toxicity of the chemicals used to make plastics and plastic products.

While it’s useful to find “natural” methods to deal with the plastic waste that already exists, the real solution is reducing the amount of plastic we use in the first place by refusing single-use disposable plastics and lowering our consumption of other plastic products. If news of these new technologies gives consumers the impression that it’s okay to consume plastic as usual, is it possible that this information could do more harm than good?

I am so full of excitement right now I could burst.  I just received the first case of my new book:  Plastic-Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too, and I feel like a proud mama right now.  A few nights ago, I had a dream that the book arrived and the pages were made out of plastic.  I couldn’t believe it.  So I called my editor and asked how that could have happened in a plastic-free book, and he said, “It’s not plastic; it’s nylon.”  And I was all, “What?  Didn’t you even read my book?  Nylon is plastic!”  And then I woke up and it wasn’t true.  Still, I have been wondering and worrying.  One commenter on Facebook wrote, “I’m assuming your publisher checked ‘no’ on the plastic shrinkwrap option on the book’s print bid…” and that started me fretting all over again.  What if there was some accident or oversight and the books were sent shrink-wrapped in plastic?  What a nightmare that would be.

So, when I got home yesterday and found that my case of books had arrived, I opened it with trembling hands.  Today, I re-enacted that moment and took a ton of pictures so you can experience it with me.  I did it because 1) I’m giddy with excitement but also, and more importantly 2) I’m all about transparency. If I expect companies to reveal all the materials used in their products, I have to do the same, right?

Okay, so the box itself had plastic tape and a plastic packing slip pouch. I’ll see if I can get them to change this. At the very least, I hope I can get them to skip the packing slip. I don’t need it since they already emailed me an invoice.

Opening the flaps, I see a protective piece of cardboard. No plastic so far…

Under the cardboard, bare books. No shrink wrap! Whew.

Under each book, a thin sheet of paper and cardboard dividers between the books.

As I’ve mentioned before, the book itself was manufactured without plastic materials. But did I tell you how cool they made the cover? See the raised writing that makes the plastic label look like real Dymo tape?

The design is pressed into the book jacket. It’s really not plastic.

So, what does a plastic-free book look like under the jacket?  The cover is bare, uncoated, unprinted cardboard. The spine is bare.  The glue is non-plastic.

The pages are sewn together with cotton thread.  Seriously, you could compost this book at the end of its life.

So now, let’s take a little tour through the book itself.  Each chapter is full of color photos and personal stories.

There are green tip boxes throughout the book, and many of the tips were contributed by readers of this blog.  If I emailed you about using your tip in the book, it’s in there.  But you’ll have to find it.  :-)

There is a ton of practical advice, organized in a way that is much easier to navigate than the five-years worth of posts on this blog.

And new information, such as the pros and cons of bio-plastic, how to tell the legit ones from the scams, and what certifications to look for.

Or how about the benefits and drawbacks of recycling and whether it really does save energy or not.  Come with me as I tour a recycling facility and show you what it’s like inside.

Each chapter contains one or more profiles of plastic-free heroes — people who inspire me to go beyond personal actions to create change on a wider scale.  A few of the people you may know or recognize.  But I’m betting there are some that will surprise you.

Knowing that I don’t have all the answers and that what is available to you will vary depending on where you live, I have included lists of Questions to Ask at the end of many chapters to help you figure out the best option when confronted with a plastic dilemma.  These are the questions I ask myself.

Some chapters contain worksheets for tracking your changes.  Keep in mind that the main advice is:  Don’t try to do this all at once!

But like I said, the book is not just all resources and information and worksheets.  There are a lot of personal stories, including some that are somewhat embarrassing.  Yep, I’m all about the full disclosure.

Every chapter ends with an Action Item Checklist that summarizes all the steps discussed in the chapter, from beginning personal changes to bigger, citizen actions.

And at the back are pages and pages of notes to back up the statements I make.

Look!  It’s me on a book cover.  Seriously, I am sitting here pinching myself right now.

The book should arrive in bookstores and online sellers within the next few weeks.  Here is how to place an order.

Support the Plastic Pollution Coalition

If you would like a signed copy of the book delivered within the continental United States, you can order one directly from me (via PayPal) at the full retail price of $19.95 plus shipping plus California sales tax, if applicable.  (Outside Continental U.S., please contact me for shipping and payment options.)  For each signed book ordered at full retail, I will donate $2 to the Plastic Pollution Coalition.  But I have to limit this offer to one book per order, simply for practical reasons.  It’s easy to slip one book into a paper mailer and take it to the post office.  It’s not so easy to find a box to pack up multiple books.  So if you want to order several books to be mailed to the same address, please choose one of the options on the book information page.

Most chewing gum is made from plastic.  Don’t believe me?  Read the details in my 2010 post “Chewing on Plastic? Yum.”  Even “natural” chewing gums like Glee, which is made with natural chicle, also contain plastic.  And the few brands that seem not to contain plastic often come packaged in a plastic bottle or plastic blister pack.  Thankfully, I’m not much of a gum chewer.  But I know plenty of people who are (including the love of my life), so I was super excited to learn about Peppersmith plastic-free natural chewing gum via MyPlasticFreeLife.com reader Dora who was equally excited to tell me about it.

Peppersmith Gum and Mints

Peppersmith makes both chewing gum and breath mints that come in a cardboard box without any plastic packaging.  In fact, Dan Shrimpton from Peppersmith wrote to me that the packaging is made from 100% Forest Stewardship Certified cardboard and is 100% recyclable.

The chewing gum ingredients are all natural and do not contain plastic or other synthetic chemicals:  Xylitol (a natural sweetener from beech trees), chicle gum base (sap from the Sapodilla tree), calcium carbonate (mineral extracted from limestone rock to make the gum softer), gum arabic (from the acacia tree), lemon oil, peppermint oil, rapeseed lecithin (from GMO-free European rapeseed instead of soy), carnauba wax (from the leaves of the Brazilian Wax Palm), vegetable glycerol.  All ingredients are suitable for vegans.

And even though Peppersmith gum is made from all natural ingredients, the company is still concerned about preventing chewing gum litter.  So they even include some little papers with each box for wrapping up chewed gum for proper disposal.  Each little paper has an interesting fact or cute saying.

Sounds Awesome!  Where Can I Get It?

Not so fast.  There is one catch:  Right now, the only stores that carry it are in the United Kingdom.  So for my U.K. readers, hurray for you guys!  For those of us on the other side of the pond, our only option is to order online from Peppersmith and pay for International shipping.  That’s a pretty heavy footprint for a pack of gum, no?  Do we have any North American entrepreneurs interested in distributing Peppersmith products in the U.S.?  Why not contact the company!

Compared to other brands

While I don’t chew much gum, I’d love to see Peppersmith alongside the other “natural” brands at my local Whole Foods.  Other chewing gum brands touted as natural are:

Glee Gum — which comes in a cardboard box but does contain plastic in the gum itself.

Spry Gum — which comes in a plastic bottle or a plastic blister pack.

Xylichew — which comes in a plastic bottle or a plastic blister pack.

Peelu — which contains synthetic chemicals.  According to account specialist Phillip Ellingson, the gum base “is very similar to any gum base you would find in any gum.  There are plasticizers and elasticizers, which give the gum the chewy consistency, but you do not swallow those ingredients.  The gum base specifically for our gums is not all natural, but the ingredients you ingest are. The Peelu dental gum is latex and petroleum free.”  [05/21/2012 Update: In a follow up email, Phillip confirms that the gum base does contain polyvinyl acetate.]

Chicza — is another natural gum which could be promising, however I have not seen it sold in stores in the U.S., and the website says it is only sold in the U.K.  I have reached out to the company for more information and will be sure and report back whatever I discover.  (Also, I’ll update this post if I hear back from them soon.)

Are there any brands I am missing here?

Want to Try Peppersmith Gum?

If you are a regular gum chewer in the United States, let me know and I’ll send you a box.  I have three unopened packages to give away.   If you are NOT a regular gum chewer, why not forward this post to someone who is?  Help them get the plastic out of their mouths.

It’s been all over the news for the past two days:  Six Oregon girls, travelling to an out of town soccer tournament in Seattle, all got sick with norovirus after passing around cookies in a reusable bag.  Scientists from the Oregon Public Health department did some sleuthing and traced the virus to the reusable bag.  (Read the full story on OregonLive.com.)  So, does that mean that reusable bags are dangerous?  The disposable bag industry would like you to think so.  Hilex Poly, the plastic bag manufacturer that mislead consumers about plastic bag recycling rates in December, sent out this gem to its subscribers yesterday:

Hilex Poly uses bogus scare tactics to discredit reusable bags

Hilex Poly wants you to believe that reusable bags are dangerous because they can carry viruses.  But let’s look at the actual facts of the case before jumping to that conclusion.

1)  The first girl who came down with norovirus had not touched the reusable bag when she got sick.  In fact, no one knows how she contracted the virus.  But after getting sick, she spent 6 hours in her chaperon’s bathroom having diarrhea and throwing up.  Her chaperon then drove her back home to Oregon.

2) The reusable bag happened to be in the chaperone’s bathroom while the girl was in there being sick.

3) On Monday, another girl saw the bag in the bathroom and brought it to lunch filled with store-bought cookies that had never been opened.

4) The girls passed the bag around, and all of them got sick.

To me, several things are clear from the facts of the case:

1) The reusable bag full of cookies was not contaminated until it spent 6 hours in a bathroom with a sick puking girl.  I would imagine that most of the objects in that bathroom were contaminated at that point.

2) If a disposable plastic bag had been in that bathroom, it probably would have been contaminated too.  Hilex Poly’s conclusion that disposable plastic bags are safer than reusable bags is unfounded.  As Stiv Wilson from 5 Gyres pointed out in an email, both kinds of bags are made of plastic.  The reusable bag the girls passed around was made from polypropylene, so it’s not like we’re comparing plastic and some other natural material here.

My conclusion is that this story really has nothing to do with disposable vs. reusable bags.  The study simply proves that norovirus can be passed via inanimate objects, and in this case, the object just happened to be a reusable bag, but it could have been a disposable bag, or a door knob, or a keyboard.  To quote the article:

That confirmation marked a breakthrough: Scientists have long known that this hardy virus is transmitted from person to person but never before have they been able to prove that transmission from an inanimate object caused an outbreak.

‘In other outbreaks, we have been able to isolate the virus from door handles or keyboards, but we have never been able to show it was the keyboard or door handle that made people sick,’ said Kimberly Repp, epidemiologist with the Washington County Department of Health and Human Services.

What’s more, asked whether she would advise against reusable bags,

Repp does not recommend that consumers ditch reusable grocery bags. But she says they should be cleaned with sanitizing wipes or in the washing machine after traveling to a store.

‘You wash your clothes after you wear them,’ she said. ‘Wash your bag after you use it.’

And perhaps more to this particular point, as Alice Park from TIME concludes, keep your grocery bags and food out of your bathroom.  Duh.

A Few More Reusable Bag Safety Tips

Whether your reusable bag is made from plastic, cotton, hemp, or any other material, you should wash it regularly.  And that goes for reusing disposable plastic bags too.  The plastic bag industry likes to insist that disposable plastic bags can be reused.  If that’s the case, then they should be washed too.  The point is not that reusable bags are somehow more prone to breeding microbes but that all objects can pick up germs from being used over and over again.

Next thing you know, companies will be touting disposable underwear because cloth undies can carry germs.

It doesn’t take much effort to wash reusable bags.  Hand or machine washing can reduce the number of bacteria in reusable bags by >99.9%, according to a 2010 study of bacteria in reusable bags.

Keep meat and fish separate from produce and other foods.  As many of you know, we buy meat for our cats in a big stainless steel pot.  What you may not know is that we have designated one particular reusable bag to carry the pot.  We don’t ever use that bag for other kinds of groceries.

Tell Mayor Villaraigosa the truth!

Hilex Poly is urging its supporters to write to LA’s Mayor Villaraigosa to oppose the proposed plastic bag ban.  That means that WE need to explain why these scare tactics will not work and why reusable bags are not a public health threat. Environment California has a form letter on its site that is easy to fill out. Whether you are an L.A. resident or not, please take a minute to use the form to explain the plastic bag industry’s misleading tactics and urge the mayor to support the plastic bag ban.

Have a great weekend!

I’m back from my meditation retreat, where one of the common admonishments is “Don’t push the river.”  What does that mean?  To me, it’s about being in the flow and not exerting more effort than necessary to live peacefully and mindfully in the present moment.  After all, the river’s gonna flow whether you push it or not, right?  Recently, I’ve discovered that it’s often not necessary to dam the river either.  I’ve learned both of these lessons from my cat.  And now I’m wondering how we can apply them to environmental activism work.

Bad Kitty / Good Kitty

Arya is sweet and cuddly and naughty beyond belief.  I love her mightily, and until recently, have fought with her every single morning for the past two years.  She climbs on my desk, and I shoo her off.  She crawls under my desk and gets tangled up in the electrical cords, so I shoo her out.  Then she’s up on the desk again, and I yell at her.  She’s underneath, and I yell at her.  On… yell… under… yell… over and over until finally, I get sick of the battle and lock her out of my office.  This makes us both sad.  She wants to be with me, and I want her to be with me, but I can’t get her to stay out of my stuff.  WHY DOESN’T SHE GET IT???

The question I should have been asking is why I couldn’t get it.  They say the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result.  Finally, by the grace of all that is logical and rational in the universe, I stopped to consider the reasons Arya was so hell bent on climbing on and under my desk, and address those issues.  First, she climbs on my desk not because she’s interested in anything on the desk (although every time she does it she knocks things over and causes chaos), but because she’s trying to see out the window in front of my desk.  It doesn’t matter that there are two other windows in the room that she can look out.  She wants to look out that one and no amount of my acting like an a-hole will get her to want it any less.  So last week, I devised a way for us both to have what we wanted.

I built a wooden window box above my desk, so she can look out without disrupting my stuff.  And it works!  She loves her box!  And she hasn’t once tried to climb on my desk since I put it there.

See Arya’s a force of nature.  She’s like the river, right? She wants to move in a particular direction.  And instead of trying to stop the river from flowing, I just redirected it a little bit.  It took one afternoon to build the box for a lifetime of peaceful kitty mornings.

Except there’s still the issue of the cords under the desk.  No sooner had I started congratulating myself, than she had stepped up her efforts to mess with those cords.  The yelling continued, until I once again stopped to reflect.  She wants the cords.  I can’t let her have the cords.  But I can find a way to block the cords from her while still allowing her to go under my desk.  Michael came up with the idea of wrapping chicken wire around the legs of my desk to isolate the electrical wires on the other side.

That solution, too works like a charm.  Arya can still hang out under my desk if she wants, but now she can’t destroy anything.   It’s actually a little embarrassing that it’s taken me this long to come up with these solutions, since I had a similar revelation way back in 2008 when we first got these kitties.  I wrote about my battles with ants and cats, “What I want to talk about is letting go of the struggle against reality, accepting things as they truly are, and finding ways to work with the world rather than against it.”

The Reality of Plastic Pollution

So what do these lessons have to do with plastic?  Well, it’s more about people and their habits.  People are like cats.  We have certain drives and desires that we can’t necessarily explain.  And we do what is easy, right?  Just as water seeks its level, we accept plastic bags at the grocery store because that is what is handed to us, and it’s just easier to take what is offered than to try something new.  We buy plastic-packaged convenience foods because they are available and cheap.  It’s not that we’re bad people but that we only have so many brain cells, and unless our passion happens to be environmental issues, we’d rather use those brain cells to focus on the things that really interest us.

We can try to educate people, and that, of course, is the purpose of this blog and my book.  I want to wake up as many people as possible to the reality of plastic pollution and plastic toxicity and inspire them to make changes in their lives.  Educating individuals is vitally important.  But it isn’t enough.   Plastic is being produced and wasted at such an alarming rate that educating individuals to change their habits will not be enough to reverse the trend.   But once we have educated enough people, we can organize ourselves to push for systemic changes… changes that will make it easier for the average person to do the right thing without having to use too many brain cells.

Bans on plastic bags work because they remove a detrimental choice from the checkout counter.  And fees on plastic bags work because they appeal to most people’s aversion to penalties.  Before his county instituted fees on plastic bags, my dad would often forget to bring his reusable bags into the store and end up with plastic bags.  Since the fee went into effect, he will leave the checkout line to get his bags rather than paying that fee.  It’s  human nature.  And what about those reusable bags that are so easy for us to forget?  Andy Keller of ChicoBags told me in an interview for my book that his motivation for designing a compressible bag with an integrated stuff sack was  to make it easy for people to remember their bags. Most of us don’t carry canvas bags with us whenever we leave the house, but if you always have a couple of balled up bags in your purse or backpack, you’re never caught without one.

In my rant about the plastic Turtleback cup holder last week, several people commented that they thought we would be better focusing our energy on educating people not to litter than on urging the company to find a different material for its beach product.  But the reality is that people do litter, often without meaning to.   Wouldn’t it be better for Turtleback to find an alternative material for its product than to try to educate the entire beach-going public about plastic pollution?  The less plastic we create in the first place, the less we have to deal with after the fact.

Taking the Easy Way Out

So, what are some ways that we can make it easier for people to do the right thing?  For example, I’m still thinking about how to approach Trader Joe’s to reduce its produce packaging.  To do that, I need to analyze the reality of the situation, understand why they use so much plastic (without making assumptions), and figure out how to make it easier, or at least worthwhile, for them to change.  It could just be a matter of public relations.  But I have a feeling there are deeper issues at work.

What suggestions do you have not just for how to approach a grocery store like Trader Joe’s but what policies should be instituted, products developed, strategies devised to make caring for the planet as easy as petting a good kitty?

Sarah Schmiechen is a long-time reader of this blog and prior participant in the Show Your Plastic Trash Challenge.  She emailed me recently to let me know about some of the successes and challenges she’s had in reducing her plastic consumption, and she suggested that it might be useful/helpful for me to post profiles of readers and the changes they’ve made in getting plastic out of their lives as well as the difficulties they still face.  I thought that was a fabulous idea and asked Sarah if she would like to be the first.  Sarah was up for it, so the following is her post.  I have added my own comments at the bottom with a few suggestions, but I’m sure you guys will have a lot more for her.

Recently, I was at an out of town family wedding catching up with my cousin April. We were chatting about blogs we read, and The Compact, and I mentioned My Plastic-free Life and how I’d won the Show Your Plastic Challenge.  April asked me what I’d changed as a result of reading this blog, and my mind just kind of went blank – I could only think of a couple of things I was doing differently. Surely I was doing better than that?

When I got home the following week, I started noticing little plastic-free things around the house, habits that had become so ingrained that I didn’t even think about them any more, like the bar soap we use now instead of buying liquid soap in plastic pump bottles or the coffee beans from the bulk section in a paper bag.

It has been over a year since the Show Your Plastic Challenge and I had absorbed and pretty much forgotten about many of the changes I had made, but I’d also lost steam on making more changes or being diligent about some plastic-free initiatives I’d been making. With that in mind I thought it would be great to take stock of what I’ve done and where I still need to keep working. Maybe some readers out there have some great advice for me!

Some of the things I’ve done:

• Switched to bar soap instead of pump bottles. This one was really easy, I just had to buy some soap dishes and some bars of soap and I was all set.
• Stopped using Brita filters and started drinking tap water. Another easy one, just stopped doing it. The tap water here tastes just fine, so we’re lucky there.
• Switched to using cloth rags instead of paper towels. I have a pretty good system going for this one – when kitchen towels become too stained or worn for my liking, I cut them in two, and they become rags. I keep a cloth tote bag hung up on a hook in the kitchen to put the dirty rags in. When it’s time to wash them, I throw the rags and bag in the wash together.
• Bring empty egg cartons back to farmers at the farmers market to reuse. This was a suggestion from someone during the Show Your Plastic Challenge. It’s a great example of community helping each other out. I never would have thought of that, and it really cut down on some bulky items in our recycling.
• Joined a meat CSA. This meat still comes in plastic, but hopefully less of it, and it’s organic, so there’s no pesticides on the other end.
• More items from the bulk aisles of the grocery store. We’re not as diligent about this as I’d like, but theoretically we do this when we can.
• Use stainless steel water bottles instead of plastic. Like the soap, I just had to buy a few initial items and we were set. I bought Kleen Kanteens. My takeaway on them is that overall it’s great, but the sport cap is terribly leaky, and the ones that are painted a color are a bad choice for the dishwasher, as it chips off.
  
• Bring my lunch to work in the lovely cloth bags from Ambatalia that I won in the contest, instead of a cooler. I found in the past that eventually things would leak into a cooler bag, and the lining would break up, food would seep into the inside and the cooler bag would start to smell bad. With the cloth bags, I just throw them in the wash and they’re good as new. There’s no insulating properties, but I don’t take a lunch that needs insulation and the problem is solved. (I could also use our gross office fridge if I had to).
• We got rid of one car. I walk or take the bus to work. That decision was made mostly from a financial standpoint, but we do buy less gas and other maintenance-related items.

Some of the plastic I’m still using:

• Cosmetics: I’ve had really mixed success with this whole area. It’s a case of the spirit being willing, but the flesh being weak. I’ve tried going ‘poo-free, using baking soda instead of deodorant, and just using soap to wash my face. All of those worked okay in the short term, but left me feeling gross in the longer term. When I look in the mirror and my hair is lank and my skin is all broken out and I smell, my morale goes out the window and I have to run out to the nearest CVS and buy lots of plastic packaged cosmetics. Another thing I haven’t been able to stop doing is dying my hair. The gray starts coming in and it makes me look 10 years older. I feel guilty about it, but not guilty enough to stop, I guess. Any suggestions? Some things that have worked great for me are using a simple sugar-and-olive-oil scrub on my face once in a while, using Rosehip Oil in a glass bottle for moisturizer, and using soap to wash my face once a day at night. (In the morning I use Clean and Clear on my face in the shower).
  
• Diapers: We had finished with diapers, but then we had a second child. I tried cloth diapering the first time around with my son, and it just didn’t work for me. The diapers would leak and smell, even when clean. When my girl gets past the infant stage of needing a diaper every hour, I might work up the energy to try it again. For now, we’re just using disposables. We do use cloth wipes, so that’s something I guess. I know there’s a million options out there for cloth diapering, each with their devoted fans. I’m wondering if prefolds might be the way to go for us? We also use a lot of plastic bags to then dispose of the diapers.
• Almond milk: I can’t drink dairy any more (my nursing child is sensitive to it), so I switched to Almond Milk. As far as I know it doesn’t come in glass.
• Gifts: We have a very generous family and they give us a lot of presents for our children. Most of them are plastic of course. If I can get my hands on it before they see it, I’ll sometimes donate it or regift it. I did try asking people to give us less stuff (diplomatically, I thought), but at least one person got in a big huff about it, so I haven’t pressed the issue a lot. I’m also just as guilty of buying other people gifts in packaging.
• Luggage: This is just a random one that came up – when we got back from our last trip, all our remaining luggage had gotten damaged by the baggage handlers or just from use. I need to buy a new set of suitcases. Any thoughts on minimizing plastic there? (All leather Louis Vuitton trunks?)

Sarah, congratulations on your progress.  It’s true that once a lot of these changes become habits, we just don’t even think about them anymore, right?

Here are some of my quick tips:

• The Reflect Klean Kanteen is made without any paint (the design is etched onto the bottle) so it cannot chip off.  And the silicone ring inside the metal cap keeps it from leaking.
• Soap can be very drying for the face.  I honestly don’t wash my face with anything but water in the shower, and my skin is great.  Other people recommend scrubbing your face with baking soda.  Coconut oil makes a fabulous moisturizer.  Other suggestions?
• I’ve had success covering my gray with dark brown henna.  Lush sells henna bars that come plastic-free.  Also, some bulk stores sell henna powder in bulk.
• A metal razor works just as well as a plastic razor.  For real.  I don’t cut myself.
• Eco-Dent dental floss comes in a cardboard box, although the floss itself is Nylon.
• I’ll let others chime in with the diaper suggestions since I don’t have kids.  But I do have a section in my book on diapers, soakers, etc.
• If you’re up for it, almond milk can be made from scratch.  Cashew milk is even easier because you don’t have to cook it or strain it through cheese cloth.  Hemp milk is another one that doesn’t have to be strained, although I don’t love it.  Google for recipes online.  They are there!
• Maybe look into secondhand luggage?

Would you believe there is a company not only producing plastic products for the beach, but actually promoting them using a photo of an ocean wave sweeping one of their plastic gizmos, filled with a disposable plastic cup, towards the sea?

I wasn’t planning on posting a rant today, as I’m leaving in a few hours for my semi-annual silent meditation retreat, but I got all fired up after I and several friends left comments on Turtleback’s Facebook page explaining how plastic pollutes the ocean and asking the company to reconsider its product materials, as well as marketing images.  I would have probably just been satisfied to leave my comment and drop the issue, until I discovered that Turtleback had removed our comments and banned us from further interaction on its page!  That kind of censorship from a company is dishonest and irresponsible, regardless of the product in question.

What’s Wrong with Turtleback?

Turtleback is a plastic cup holder meant to keep your beverage container upright on the beach.  That in itself is a pretty good idea, no?  But there are problems with the current incarnation of this idea.

First, while the Turtleback is made from recycled plastic, that fact doesn’t matter when we are talking about ocean plastic pollution.   Recycled plastic is just as lethal to marine animals as virgin resin is.  And if swept into the ocean, it will add to the growing plastic pollution problem.  It’s not a good idea to bring plastic toys or other plastic gadgets to the beach.  You may not intend to leave them behind, but things have a way of being swept away by wind and waves when you least expect it.  As one of my Facebook friends wrote, “My girls and I do beach cleanups often and it’s nauseating what gets left behind. Absolutely sickening! If someone doesnt realize that he/she left one single sneaker behind, I’m sure a Turtleback cup is more likely to be left behind.”

To be clear, the Turtleback is only the cup holder, not the cup itself.  But that leads me to issue number two: Using an image of a disposable plastic cup to sell your product.   I’ve seen these red Solo cups left behind on the beach.  In fact, there’s a photo of one in my book!

Third, another Facebook friend mentioned the irony of naming a plastic product meant for the beach after a marine animal that is often harmed by plastic pollution.  Many sea turtles mistake plastic for food and have been harmed or killed by it.  A recent study of leatherback turtle autopsy records found plastic in one-third of the animals’ GI tracts.

Please ask Turtleback to Rethink Their Product

I dislike thoughtless plastic products, but today I think I dislike censor ship even more.  Will you please take a moment to leave a message on Turtleback’s fan page asking the company to redesign the product to be made out of a material other than plastic, and even more important, to stop using images of disposable plastic cups to promote its brand?  A stainless steel cup or bottle would be a good choice, since it won’t break like glass and pose a hazard to bare feet.

Next, copy your comment here and let us know what you wrote.  Turtleback may delete your comment, but at least it will be preserved here, and we can deliver them to the company en masse.

Other ways to contact the company if you get banned from posting on their Facebook page:  Email the owner at ryan@turtlebacks.net or send a message on Twitter.

UPDATE:  Turtleback has responded to the criticism with a post of their own.  Unfortunately, those of us who left comments cannot respond to their post because we have been banned.  Please leave your own comment.

Find Plastic-Free Beach Toys and Dishes

So, what can we bring to the beach instead of plastic toys, buckets, shovels, cups, containers, utensils, and all the many plastic products meant for the beach?  For sand castles, how about old metal pots and pans, metal buckets, big metal spoons or garden trowels, stainless steel cups and bottles and foodware, etc.  What are your favorite non-plastic items for fun in the sand?

“My belief is that there’s enough material in existence in the world that we could probably freeze all new production effective immediately and just get more creative with what’s already out there.” –Josh Title, owner of the Cate & Levi Collection toy company.

When I heard Josh say those words in his video about his toy company, I just wanted to hug him.  But he’s in Canada.  So consider this blog post a virtual hug.  I don’t have kids, but I’m always on the lookout for great plastic-free toys for those of you who do. Toys made from natural materials are great, but they still have an environmental impact. So I was excited to find out about Cate & Levi toys made in Canada from recycled wool sweaters. Because the materials are secondhand, each toy is not only eco-friendly, but one of a kind. Josh sent me a box of hand puppets to check out. How cute are they?

There was no packaging material inside the box except for some cardboard tubes keeping each puppet upright.

I think the dog is my favorite, even though I’m really a cat person at heart.

Speaking of cats, I tried to interest Soots and Arya in a little puppet show, but they were more interested in chewing on the box.

While some Cate & Levi toys are made entirely from recycled sweaters (exclusive of reinforcement), other toys are stuffed with wool from a Canadian sheep coop.

Keeping it Real:  While there were no plastic packaging materials inside the box, there was plastic tape around it, as well as a plastic pouch for the mailing label.  I hope that Josh will consider switching to paper or natural cellulose packing tape in the future.  (Josh, your fellow Canadians Jay and Chantal from Life Without Plastic sell biodegradable cellulose packing tape with natural rubber adhesive.)

Interview With Joshua Title of Cate & Levi

I love to learn about how small, environmentally-conscious companies get started and who the people are behind them, not only because it’s helpful to understand the full life cycle of the products we purchase but also because my hope is that these companies can serve as an example to inspire others to make the entrepreneurial leap to creating green alternatives.  So I sent Josh some questions.  Here are his answers: