PlasticLess.com

Here is the razor and blades that I bought at a local store recently.

The razor came in a plastic case. The blades are packaged with paper.

The razor cost less than $10. The blades are not as cheap as I was hoping that they would be, but using this shaving system will use much less plastic than modern disposables in the long run. I am still looking for a definitive answer about the number of shaves I should perform with each blade.

I found out from the shopkeeper that these items were stocked upon repeated requests by elderly gentlemen. If you have some retro alternatives in mind that you cannot seem to find in stores, consider asking at Mom and Pop places where the elderly shop.

I spent about two years of my life tending a small herds of goats that provided milk for my young family. This news story about a dairy switching to bags reminded me of my reason for making the move to producing milk in my backyard. I lived in an isolated spot in Canada at the time and during the spring thaw, the road on which I lived had become unpassable. I started thinking about adding milk producing animals to my little hobby farm on the day that I was carrying 16 kilograms of milk bags across a 1/4 mile of mud.

Here is the container that I chose for milk storage:

Time constraints, lifestyle choices and even municipal bylaws make something as extreme as goat farming impractical for almost everybody. You are left with trying to figure out which milk container has the least environmental impact.

Here is a list of American Dairies that offer milk delivery in glass bottles.

Milk cartons are coated with plastic and are not always recycled.

Bagged milk uses 75% less Plastic than Jugs.

I applaud the legislators in Melbourne Australia who have just brought in a law requiring shoppers to pay 10 cents per plastic bag at points of sale. I am not sure whether this step will work in their economy. I have heard of similar efforts that were short lived. In a competitive environment, retailers may start eating the cost in an effort to gain customers from the competition. Eventually nobody is charging for bags.

I like the idea of cashiers always asking if you brought you own bag. My local grocer gave me a tall reusable bag with wheels on the bottom last year. It is just the right size for 2 days worth of food for a family of four. The wheels come in handy when I am getting a watermelon.

Source: inhabitat

Celebrity news site TMZ has video and commentary related to the launch of a designer canvas bag. The copy is quite jaded, referring to the SUV’s that rich patrons most likely drove to Robertson Blvd. to wait in line for the bags.

The bags have the words I am Not a Plastic Bag written on the side. They are sold out and ebay has them selling for upwards of$100. The designer is working at increasing availability and says that July 18th will see I’m Not A Plastic Bag available in East Coast Whole Foods Market stores. They retail for around $15-20.

If you prefer to eschew fashion trends, canvas bags without catchy slogans are still widely available.

Consumer demand for an alternative to plastic shopping bags is being met with a variable and somewhat insufficient supply. Small retailers who are asked for cloth bags by environmentally conscious customers have to weigh good intentions against herd economic reality. Some small businesses can’t absorb the approximately $1 per bag cost. Retailers who feel it is worth their while to give out cloth bags can’t keep them in stock because of demand.

I think promotions that give the bags away with a minimum purchase are a good option for retailers to consider. Another possibility would be to stock bags that are sold in support of a charitable organization.

Options for consumers include reusing plastic shopping bags for several trips before recycling them or purchasing their own durable cloth or string bags. I also reuse boxes that my local market would have otherwise placed on the curb for collection. A durable box that was originally built to transport canned food can be used several times for various purposes.

Source used for this post: www.thewhig.com 

If you have children watching television in your home, they are probably watching a lot of ads for plastic action figures and other toys. I knew a full grown man who owned every single Transformer that had been sold at that time. It may be pretty hard for you to sell your children on something as environmentally friendly as a Corn Husk Doll.

Maybe if you are really creative, you could make some hard sell commercials for corn husk dolls and pay to air them on Saturday morning. Maybe not.

What I want to get across is that your kids aren’t begging you to buy them plastic. The hunks of multicolored plastic are just props for imaginative play. If you want to have happy kids and still reduce your plastic use, why not steer them towards paper card based games?

I have witnessed children creating these kind of games from scratch, complete with complex rules and point systems.

There are also fresh air, sunshine and physical activity as alternatives to buying and playing with plastic toys.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating mass of plastic debris twice the size of Texas, is just one of the many reasons that the world can benefit from every single small action we can take to reduce plastic consumption.

Here are five easy ways you can cut back on plastic starting today:

1. Carry and use cloth or string bags. Keep a couple of these in your purse, your glove compartment, your briefcase, and get in the habit of using them instead of plastic grocery bags.
2. Switch from liquid laundry detergent in plastic bottles to powdered detergent in cardboard boxes and check out these alternatives to liquid fabric softener.
3. Instead of buying bottled water, carry a stainless steel water bottle and refill it with tap water.
4. Buy whole food, local food, and bulk food to cut back on unnecessary packaging. Grow a garden, join a CSA, or shop at a local farmers market instead of buying prewashed veggies in plastic bags — reduces your carbon footprint too!
5. Refill your empty Windex bottles with homemade glass cleaner (made from equal parts tap water and vinegar sold in glass bottles).

This post is part of SustainaBee’s Blog Carnival, Small Actions to Change the World.

In the interests of balance, I spent some time reading a site that was created for the Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council. The tagline for plasticsinfo.org is Better Living With Plastics.

The site paints an overly rosey picture of how recycling works. They use, with permission, a piece of fluff journalism from the Christian Science Monitor. The reality of the recycling industry is not all about making soda bottles into mittens. When I was researching the impact of yogurt containers and possible alternatives I found a page published by an environmentally conscious company that found out that their recyclable containers were being diverted to a landfill because they had a different melting temperature than other containers in the same recycling stream. They made the difficult decision to go with a non-recyclable container that contained less plastic and required less energy when it was produced.

Today I ran across a fantastic resource and source of inspiration for everyone who is trying to cut back on their plastic use:  the blog of a woman who is spending a whole year attempting to use as little plastic as humanly possible.  Her blog is all about her quest to find alternatives to plastic, which is extremely challenging since plastic has become such a pervasive packaging material.  This blog is a fantastic source of everyday tips for cutting back on plastic — check it out!

There is an amazing variety of gadgets available to consumers. You are bombarded with voices telling you that you NEED these things. Probably the best tip I could ever give as far as reducing your use of plastic is to stop buying so much stuff. I am just going to go through a quick list of things that you may not need:

• A waffle maker (how many times are you going to use one of these?)
• A plastic skateboard ramp
• A second or third gaming console (tell the kids Retro is cool, get them a funky N64 t-shirt)
• Inflatable beach toys
• A lava lamp
• Plastic Snowmen, reindeer, old guys in red suits

I guess I will stop there. Now that I have made my case for not buying things, I am still going to talk about a product. I really do want you to think twice about whether you have a real use for the product.

I eat yogurt on an almost daily basis. The only locally available yogurt is in the standard foil topped plastic containers. One plastic reduction strategy would be to buy a yogurt maker. This one uses reusable plastic containers. You are buying almost 9 pounds of plastic. You will have to make quite a bit of yogurt to have an impact on your plastic use. Keep in mind that you still have to buy milk and other ingredients in packaged form. My introduction to yogurt makers was actually on a dairy farm and the lady was using raw milk. This is a slight health risk, and as such it is against regulations in some areas. I would jump at the chance to get raw unpackaged milk if I could.

This one is a better choice. It has glass jars. I chose to preface my introduction of these items with my “Do You Really Need It?” spiel because I don’t want anybody to buy something like this if they are not seriously going to use it.