The Plastic Bag Gets Its Own Mockumentary
Check out this ‘mockumentary’ narrated by Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons on the path of the disposable plastic bag.
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Plastic Pollution
Earth Day Experiment: My Plastic Inventory
For Earth Day next week, I decided to do a personal inventory of the amount of plastic in my daily life. I l kept it simple and didn’t include things related to having two young children (it’d seriously skew the number). I only counted plastic containers, products or pieces of plastic I consumed or touched as part of my day. I kept a Daily Plastic Tally for 5 whole days. And the results? It isn’t pretty – on an average day I touch 53 plastic products (the range went from 34 to 76). Here’s my average list of things:
- Alarm clock
- Shampoo bottle
- Soap holder
- Razor
- Moisturizer
- Sunscreen
- Deodorant
- Toothbrush
- Toothpaste
- Dental floss container
- Trashcan
- Hairdryer
- Hair products
- Medicine container
- Make up pods
- Lip balm
- Cereal liner
- Milk carton
- Toaster (plastic lever)
- Yogurt cup
- Dried fruit container
- Hot water kettle (for tea)
- iPhone case
- iPhone charger (wires are coated in plastic and the charging base is plastic)
- Credit cards (made of plastic)
- Car (so many parts are made of PVCs and other plastics)
- Hand sanitizer
- Tissue soft pack
- Desktop screen
- Keyboard
- Desk phone
- Pen
- Presentation remote
- Elevator button
- Bread bag
- Deli meat container
- Condiment jar
- Refrigerator
- Snack zip-top bag
- Frozen vegetable bags
- Food packaging
- Radio/CD player
- Light switches
- DVD case
- TV Remote control
- TV
- Camera (I take pictures nearly every day with a digital SLR, but the body is mostly plastic)
- Various gym equipment (this could get long – think treadmill, bike helmet, swim goggles, push up bar, etc)
- Random kitchen tools like spatulas, measuring cups
- Dishwashing soap
- Sponge scrubber
- Dish drying rack
- Laundry soap and measuring cap
To be fair, plastic is unavoidable in certain things and in some ways it can reduce the weight of products or increase the convenience. But as I kept tallying – day after day – I kept realizing I could make better choices and cut down on the plastic in my life. For the last 36 days, I’ve been tweeting the 1 green thing (see #my1greenthing) and challenging myself to make an effort to be better for my health and the environment. Thankfully my water bottle is glass with silicone grippers and cap and I switched to glass food storage containers. Small changes add up.
So what do you think? Or better still send me your Daily Plastics Number and any tips you have to cut down on the plastic.
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Wasteful Plastic Packaging for Food
There are several areas where plastics are helpful, where their lighter weight can save tons in shipping costs and fuel expenditures (really, another reason to buy local, but that’s another post). Yesterday, we came across this slide show from The Daily Green of the six worst offenders in food plastic packaging. You look at the slides and are astounded to see the packaging for such small products all in the name of convenience and the guise of “portion control.”
Here’s a better solution: buy food local, buy in bulk, and personally package it in reusable containers. I’m partial to these glass containers for food storage and these snack bags for food portability.
What do you think is packaging a small price for convenience? Or do you have other reusable suggestions for how to better package our food? Share them here.
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STOP Set to Launch, Builds Community
Today, while reading The Economist, I found about a new nonprofit organization working to prevent plastic pollution in the marine environment (that’s the oceans). Science & Technology against Ocean Plastics (STOP) is set to launch in 14 days, you can sign up to become part of the community here: http://www.stopoceanplastics.org/page/Signup. Or consider attending the upcoming STOP Live Conference being held this June in Los Angeles, Calif. I’ll be certain to follow the foundations efforts and share the solutions they (and the community) develop.
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Just One Word…Plastics
This year, more than 250 billion pounds of plastic will be created with very little of that production ever being recycled – that’s about 37 pounds of new plastic created for every single person on the planet. Since we’re focused on solutions at BottlesUp, we’re completely committed to absolutely no plastic in our products or in any of our packaging.
Even while we work to make a difference, the machine for plastic production continues. I’m reminded of one classic scene from one of the all-time movie greats, “The Graduate.”
Just curious, but what are you doing to reduce your plastic consumption this year?
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