lowimpacthome.org

Week 30 of my blog…good lord only 22 weeks left in the year, where does time go?

So I’m back to photographing my plastic and even though there is only a small amount in the picture, I am still ashamed. Six items is nothing compared to the countless pieces of plastic that an average American family throws away each week, but after 30 weeks I should be getting better at this.

I bought or paid for all the plastic in the picture. In fact the balled up plastic wrap I just bought today when I replaced my air filter. I looked for an un/non wrapped air filter but something has to hold the paper that has the bar code on it, so it seemed I was out of luck.

Do you remember life before bar codes? Can you imagine that we used to have to go through a checkout line with a real person that had to look at the item and read the price off of a sticker? How archaic!

I also bought a halogen lightbulb and in the picture is the wrapping for it. Halogen bulbs are supposed to last as long a cfl’s but we have replaced this particular one 3 times in the year that we have lived in our house, go figure!

Along with the bulb and filter wrapping there are the drinks that we took to the movies. GASP! She sneeks in food at the movies…at $4.00 for a small drink wouldn’t you? Then there is the wrapping for the mayonnaise. I can’t find mayo in glass jars anymore, all the jars are made of plastic and the one that my husband bought the other day had an outside layer of plastic for it’s label. I didn’t mean to take it completely off but it wouldn’t stop tearing , so off it came.

Is your plastic usage dwindling? Are you down to less then me? Keep it up and see what I bring home next week.

Of course that is not a picture of the plastic consumption from last week but does do a good job of representing what I did consume and sadly it was a waste of plastic when it boils down to it.

I was looking for something quick and simple to cook for dinner one night and the granola store is not known for it’s convenience food, but they do have a good Asian Food section. I love Sushi but my husband doesn’t so I needed to find something that would go along with the sushi that I had picked up for me, well I found it it in a plastic bag.

Now I know that it wasn’t the best choice but when you have only been sleeping a few hours a night and your husband volunteers to cook, you want what’s easy, especially when all he knows how to do is cook spaghetti. The bag said that all he had to do was dice some chicken, brown it and add the other ingredients, easy enough so I bought it. What I didn’t realize was there were 3 bags inside the main bag, so I was stuck with 4 plastic bags instead of the one.

Lesson learned…conveniences food is just that and it’s never any good for you, plus most of the time it just tastes bag.

I don’t subscribe to the, no need to clean your ears with q-tips people. In fact everyday after I take a shower I break out the q-tips and gently swab my ear, cause I don’t know about you but I don’t like the inside of my ears being wet and as my husband will tell you, I have tiny ears and the towel is just to thick to do a good job of getting the wetness out. But after the q-tips ran out last week I have been trying to figure out how to buy more q-tips without buying plastic.

No not only are the middles of most q-tips plastic but the boxes that they come in are plastic. I have become so desperate that I have been using wadded up toilet paper and the end of my pinky finger (told you I have small ears) to clean them out.

This is the problem with plastic in our society, it’s so darn cheep and so prevalent that it’s hard to just stop using it. I’ve gotten plastic out of my life in so many other areas…no more plastic wrapped toilet paper or soap, no more trash bags or grocery bags, no more plastic veggie or bulk food bags. I’ve managed to find a place that will allow me to reuse my plastic kitty litter bottle over and over again. I’ve struggled in finding a plastic free/natural laundry detergent and of course I still get my medicine in plastic bottles. I am slowly working on going plastic free in the bathroom, I’m still worried about using bar soap on my hair and the only bar conditioner I can find is from Lush and I am not to keen on it’s smell or price (I’ve tried the Vinegar rinse and it’s not good for my hair at all).

Plastic has it’s good points and it does plenty of good things. Without plastic I would be without this computer and worse I wouldn’t be able to see but we need to figure out how to use other materials to take the place of all the non-biodegradable plastic that is filling up our landfills. Even the so called biodegradable plastic leaves behind a toxic residue so we need to start thinking beyond plastic box and get to thinking about using bamboo or glass as the new popular item for packaging.

In what ways does plastic impact your life? Have you come to just accept plastic because it is so easy? Are you willing to give up your q-tips to make the world a better place?

Well I didn’t post last week about my plastic because there wasn’t any! Woohoo!  Unfortunitily I can’t say that about this week but this week there are only 3 items that I added after the plastic free pledge.  The plastic noodle wrappers have been in the house for so long that I don’t remember buying them.  I had a half open box of spiral noodles that I added the other noodles into.  I kept shoving them deeper and deeper in the cabinet and had even forgotten that they were there, so this way they will get used.

The plastic that I added was the Mrs Myers liquid detergent (you guys know all about that), the plastic spout on the milk container and the plastic wrapper on the drink boxes.

Two weeks 3 pieces of plastic…how much plastic did you use this week?

I have a thing about my hair and it’s because at the early age of 28 I started going grey.  My mom would laugh because if I remember right she started getting greys when she weas in high school, but never the less I am too young to be grey!  Now I know what you are thinking…between the waxing and the coloring of hair when do I have time to save the world?  Well like any good superwoman I find the time to do it all…of course everything but scrub the mold in my bathroom!  BTW does anyone know how to get rid of mold without using bleach or chemicals?

I chose to get my hair colored at the salon because of two reasons:

1.  We discussed this the other day but it’s the conversation.  I love my hairdresser; she’s down to earth, is a single mom and has a teenager.  I love catching up with her every 6 to 8 weeks, we chat about our kids and the crazy things that happen in our city.  We talk about things that my husband wouldn’t understand or wouldn’t care to talk about…it’s great!   

2. If I was to buy hair coloring at the store the box would contain 3 or more pieces of plastic, if I get it done at the hairdresser they reuse the same bottle over and over again.  That’s less plastic going into the trash, however there is one draw back…the chemicals that get washed down the drain.

Now I will ask but I am pretty sure that they use an all natural or at least mostly natural hair colors.  You never smell anything toxic when you go into the salon and with the natural beauty products that they sell, I’ll assume that the color comes from the same manufacturer.  I’ll do more research on this and update you later. 

I am the “Director of First Impressions” (receptionist) at my office so I can’t afford to walk around looking like a hippie (sorry to all you hippies out there, it’s just an expression!) I have to dress and look the part, so that means I have to be a little vain and worry about my appearence.  If I sat in the back of the office and never had dealing with customers or vendors, it wouldn’t matter to me what my hair looked like, heck I would shower and wash it everyother day if that was the case. 

I think being proud of your appearence goes along with smiling when you answer the phone.  Try it…next time you are in a bad mood and the phone rings, take a deep breath and smile as you say hello, see what it does to the mood of your conversation!

Beth Terry at Fake Plastic Fish has started a grass roots effort to encourage the Clorox Company to take back their Brita Water Filters.

Here are some facts about the campaign:

Here are a few facts and the campaign in a nutshell:

1)  The original Brita company in Germany has had a program to collect and recycle used filter cartridges ever since 1992.  They process them in their own facility, separating the materials and recycling or reusing them.

2)  The North American branch of the company was sold to Clorox in 2000.  Clorox has not provided any way to recycle these used cartridges.

3)  Clorox and Nalgene have teamed up with the FilterForGood campaign to encourage people to give up bottled water and opt instead for the combo of reusable bottle and Brita filter, to cut down the amount of plastic bottle waste.  This is a great effort.  But Clorox has not addressed the plastic waste from the water filters themselves, as the Brita company has done in Europe.

4)  We would like Clorox to follow the principal of Extended Producer Responsibility and provide a way for its filter cartridges to either be refilled or returned and recycled.

5)  Why Brita and not other water filter companies?  We are starting with Brita because the technology for recycling already exists in Europe, Brita is the #1 water filter system in the U.S., and Clorox is making a bid for the green consumer at this time with its purchase of Burt’s Bees and its development of Green Works cleaning products.

What do we want people to do?

1) Sign our petition

2) Send us their used Brita cartridges so we can deliver them en masse to Clorox

3) Write a letter (for those who are truly committed!)

4) Spread the word

There is a lot more information at http://www.takebackthefilter.org!  Will you please sign the petition and consider writing a blurb about the campaign?

I know this is late but…well I just don’t have an excuse for being late, I just didn’t get the picture done until last night and wasn’t able to upload it until this morning. Plus Wordpress pushed out an update and I can’t figure out how to use it yet…arrg!

Anyway…as you can see I only have 5 items to talk about today. Two of which were already in my house before January and the other three I bought.

The red candy bag and the spice container were purchases from long ago. I will probably try to use the spice container, if I can get the smell out of the bottle. The candy bag had my favorite chocolate truffels in it and now that it’s gone I will have to find something else to curb my chocolate addiction.

The juice and milk containers both are coated in plastic and also have plastic pour spouts. I can’t figure out why I can find white milk in an old fashion carton but the chocolate milk and oj come with the plastic spouts…anyone have any thoughts on that?

The turkey package is something that I just won’t give up. Since I don’t eat red meat and my husband requires “real” protein at dinner, I have had to settle with the additional plastic.

How is your plastic free/less life going? Are you still on the bus with all the rest of us crazy tree huggers?

I haven’t talked about trash in a while, so I thought I would update you on the amount of stuff we throw out each week.  In a previous post I talked about how we had reduced our trash so much that it didn’t matter that we missed taking the trash to the curb for pickup.  What I thought amazing about that was it had only been 2 weeks since I started the plastic free challenge.  So what about now , it’s been 12 weeks, how little do I throw away now?

Well it’s amazing, at least to me, but we have missed 2 weeks of trash pick up and still have plenty of room in the recycle bin and the large trash can.  In fact we are throwing so little away that the kitchen trash can (13 gallons) only needs to be emptied every 10 to 14 days.

How do we do it you ask?  I’ll tell you one thing…it’s not hard to do, all you have to do is pay attention to what you buy.

Here are some ways to reduce your trash:

1. Start looking for items in the grocery store that come in little or no packaging.  Squeeze boxes and listen for the crunching sound that internal bags make.

2. Buy more fresh produce and stay away from frozen and canned veggies or fruits.  Don’t buy veggies that come wrapped in plastic.  Why do you need to buy carrots in a plastic bag?  Your gonna peel them before you use them, so what’s the point of the plastic?

3. Don’t buy things that come individually wrapped.  This one is a tough one for our family.  We have really been working on this, but we still buy the healthy breakfast bars that come wrapped in foil.  Maybe one day I will take the time to make my own granola bars.

4. Bring your own containers to the grocery store.  Unfortunitly none of the stores that I shop at let me use my own containers but other bloggers use them in their hometowns so it’s definitely something to try.  Also if you shop where you can buy from the bulk bins, use your own bags or better yet go to your local Chinese restaurant and see if you can buy some of their paper take out containers.  Everyone in the store will ask you where you got them and then you can start up a conversation about reducing your footprint.

5.  Bring your own bags to the store or don’t use one at all.  Do you really need a bag for that box of spaghetti? Can’t you just hold your receipt in your hand as you walk out the door?  Don’t let anyone tell you that a bag is mandatory.

Those are only a few ways to reduce your trash and make sure you don’t forget about composting your table scraps.

This week most of my plastic waste came from items that I had prior to the Plastic Pledge. Out of the 15 plastic items my family added 5 items and it was mostly caused by left overs and restaurants that my husband and I visited this weekend.

My son continues to buy soda at his Boy Scout meetings, that’s the reason why there is a plastic root beer bottle in the mix this week. I think he gets there and just totally forgets that we don’t use plastic. I bought chocolate milk as a special treat and it has a plastic cap and pour spout. And then there are the styrofoam containers and the bag that they came in.

All the rest were items that I had before: pill bottles, shaving cream can with a plastic top, mayo jar, mouth rinse bottle, soap bottle and pump and a spice container.

Anyone know a recipe for a mouth rinse that doesn’t include vodka and includes fluoride? My oldest son uses the rinse so there can’t be any alcohol in it. Unless one of you has a good tasting mouth rinse, I will have to continue to buy the plastic bottled kind.

This weekend it is just my husband and I.  I know what you are thinking…why are you blogging if you are alone with your husband, why are you not out having the time of your life?  Well the truth is that we are nerds and blogging and surfing Digg is what we do for fun…exciting isn’t it?

Anyway, we went out to dinner to an awesome Asian resturaunt and the amount of food was crazy.  There were egg rolls, sushi, asian curried shrimp and very yummy noodles.  I couldn’t eat everything that I ordered so I had to make a big decision…to bring it home or not.

Now that might not seem like a big decision to most of you but stop to think about what you bring take out home in…that’s right styrafoam.  In my plastic free book, styrafoam is a big fat no no. 

So what’s a girl to do?  Should I waste all that food or bring home non-recycable plastic?

I just couldn’t not bring home that tasty food, I had to break the no new plastic rule and bring home not one but two styrafoam containers. 

They are not air tight so I doubt I will ever use them again, but there was no way I could waste that food.  There was so much left over I would have hated it for it to go down the drain. 

So I knowingly and willingly brought plastic into my life just another part of the grey area that I live in.