Fake Plastic Fish was an awesome name for a blog. Beth Terry is one of the people who really walk the talk when it comes to plastic reduction and she has been blogging about it for years now. She recently made the difficult decision to change the name of her blog. As catchy as it was, it didn’t instantly convey to the uninitiated what it was all about. I have finally gotten around to updating my blogroll to reflect the change and I though it was also worth a post.
Beth Terry’s blog about her plastic free life is now called My Plastic-free Life. Here’s a great post about Plastic Easter Eggs. Below is a video of Beth at TED
Mashable came out with a list of interesting green tweeters awhile back. I was surprised at how many of them were not on my list. Here is the list of 75 names divided into the group that I was already following when I found the list and those that I added afterward.
People I followed before – ecopolitologist ecosphericblog ecovegangal focusorganic follownathan gmcheeseman greenlagirl greenrobeen greenyourdecor hyperlocavore joannayarrow molfamily MomGoesGreen MyGreenSide OliviaZaleski sheagunther swimwithswain thegoodhuman People I follow now – algore nbrightgreen britesprite carbonOutreach no
EcoFan ecofashionista EcoGlamourista ecowarriorr ejgertz elaineishere ForestPolicy ghoberg GreenAdvantage greenergirl GreenSara greenskeptic jejacquot jenandcricket kgrandia kiwimeg KSuzJ mcmilker NikkiJade podcarnews revkin sroakes steveoffutt sweetorganics windpoweruk
I follow as many green people as possible, but I also try to use twitter to get the plastic reduction word out to the general public. Twitter has some functionality that really lends itself to cliquishness and I don’t want to just be in a virtual sewing circle of people who are already doing the simple stuff like using reusable shopping bags and drinking tap water.
I said that I would do this if anybody double dog dared me. That was meant to be a lighthearted movie allusion to add some color to this otherwise quite boring green blog. Somebody dared me, in the comments, about ten minutes after I published.
I like the fact that the Overfly Brand Safety Razor comes in a cardboard box. I also like the fact that it is displayed by the dozen in a larger cardboard box. I don’t like the plastic on the handle. I considered reneging and using the plastic handle as an excuse. Then I remembered that the razor that I already own came in a plastic case. Chadd at retrorazor mentioned that his earlier importing efforts included razors in plastic cases. They have them in cloth bags now.
If the cheap Overfly Razor proved to offer an adequate shave, it would actually be a better choice than my original razor.
Here are links to photos of my test shave…
Sorry for going all old media on you with all the multiple page views. I figure I deserve some extra traffic since, as you see in the last photo, I bled quite a bit. It may have been the worst shave I have ever had. If you are tougher and/or more skillful than me it might be adequate. I have carefully dried this razor off and put it away. If I ever lose my good razor it can bridge the gap while I look for another good razor.
Update: Apparently the way I built the links late last night you could only see the pictures if you were logged in to the Plasticless admin, oops. It’s fixed now.
Beth Terry over at FakePlasticFish has just put up a blog post asking everyone to tally and photograph a week’s worth of personal plastic consumption.
This sounds like a great project and I hope she gets a broad spectrum of participants. I plan to tally my week starting sometime in the next few days. I almost wish that I had a precision scale for projects like this.
Q&A web pages like Yahoo Answers offer a chance for people who feel strongly about a cause like plastic reduction to speak to people who aren’t blog readers or tweeters. I am talking about people who ask questions like “is there anymore sites like yahooanswers?”
Questional.com is new and I am happy to see that it includes an Environment Category. I am even happier that they emailed me about their site while a certain very motivated anti-plastic blogger is asleep so I could answer a few questions about plastic before she does
I recently discovered a really cool blog called Cheap Like Me. After reading a few posts, I happened to notice a great big list in the sidebar called What we do to live greener. It is an impressive list and I decided to quote it here along with a little personal color coding…
Hang laundry to dry
Use wind-powered electricity
Do not accept plastic bags
Compost food waste
Choose recycled purchases when possible
Recycle paper, cardboard, metal, plastic
Turn off lights we’re not using
Turn off water while rinsing/brushing
Use high-efficiency washing machine
Dishwasher – full loads, water saver, turn off dry cycle
Turn refrigerator temp up to 43F
Buy many items used
Recycle, Freecycle, consign, donate instead of trashing items
Use cloth handkerchiefs
Use cloth napkins
Print on both sides of paper and re-use paper before recycling
Unplug appliances
Bring own water bottle & coffee cups
Grow our own vegetables
Drive gently to get better mileage
Reduce hair dryer use
Use low-flow toilets
Flush less
Choose EnergyStar appliances
Add low-flow showerhead and faucet aerators
Get books/movies at library instead of buying/renting
Use evaporative cooler, not A/C
Use programmable thermostat to turn heat down at night (55F)/when gone
Use bio-friendly soap
Clean with baking soda and vinegar
Buy organic and/or local foods
Eliminated subscriptions (1 newspaper, 12 catalogs, 2 magazines, 4 companies)
Choose “cleaner” energy-using appliances
Switch to compact fluorescent bulbs
Make own foods (less packaging)
Buy bulk products & refill to reduce packaging
Wash and re-use plastic bags we do use
Use cloth toilet “paper”
Use reusable menstrual products
Use public transportation when possible
Combine errands
Electric blankets instead of space heaters
Reuse gift wrap
The green means that I do it too. Orange means that it doesn’t really apply to my lifestyle. Red means that I am not doing it. I plan to make this list greener ASAP.
Here is a blurb taken from ‘The Trash Vortex’ on GreenPeace.org:
Take a walk along any beach anywhere in the world and washed ashore will be many polythene plastic bags, bottles and containers, plastic drums, expanded polystyrene packing, polyurethane foam pieces, pieces of polypropylene fishing net and discarded lengths of rope. Together with traffic cones, disposable lighters, vehicle tyres and toothbrushes, these items have been casually thrown away on land and at sea and have been carried ashore by wind and tide.
I live near a beach and this paragraph got me thinking about doing a regular feature showing readers what I find during my walks. I’m not fully committed to this idea yet. I would, of course, feel compelled to clean up the trash that I photograph. I don’t want to draw unnecessary attention to myself in the country that I am currently visiting. I used to live in Malta, which is slightly less littered than where I am now. I felt more entitled to launch into self directed cleanup jobs in that environment. I do remember feeling the stares one afternoon when I was snorkeling in front of the outdoor restaurant and cafe seating in Xlendi and occasionally climbing out to deposit an armload of plastic garbage in the municipal garbage cans right next to the tables. But the Maltese and the Gozitans are accustomed to eccentric visitors.
I was really happy to see a special report on the Chicago Tribune website detailing Trine Tsouderos’ efforts to live without plastic. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. People are looking around for something to resolve as New Years Day approaches.
On closer inspection, it seems that her experiment is not as inspirational as I had hoped it would be. I still loved reading it, and the minutia of her failure effectively highlights how ridiculously ubiquitous plastic has become. Sorry I can’t help but use really big words when I think a real journalist might read my blog
One my favorite things about reading blogs is that they are a window on the world. That being said, I have occasionally ended up at one of two ends of a particular brand of frustration. I try to blog about practical solutions to the problem of plastic, but sometimes these solutions can be difficult or impossible for people living outside of my local region to implement (in my case that’s about 100% of my readers). The situation also happens the other way around.
If you have arrived here looking for practical ways to reduce your consumption of plastic, I welcome you wholeheartedly and I promise that you will find lots of useful information. I can’t tell you where to pick up some cardboard packaged razor blades or bulk tea.
When I find the right widget, I plan to embed a little map displaying plastic-free blogs. Until then I can quickly link to blogs that would qualify as local for several million people:
I just spent a few hours blog surfing. I wanted to add a few more green blogs to my blog roll. I decided that I need to take some more time to refine the criteria. The explosion of environmentally themed blogs, like most explosions, has expanded in all directions. The tag lines say it all…
Some green blogs are very personal, while others are almost completely impersonal. Some green blogs are trying to sell you stuff and others are pleading with you to stop buying stuff. Some blog authors are all about documenting their personal dedication to specific aspects of environmental responsibility, while others offer their expert advice on econews. Some try to do several things at once. Examining a wide swath of the green blogosphere has given me what I hope is only a temporary identity crisis with regard to my own blog. I will start adding to the blogroll tomorrow.
Here is a picture that I took in Ireland last January. It looked greener in real life, but not that much greener.
One my favorite things about reading blogs is that they are a window on the world. That being said, I have occasionally ended up at one of two ends of a particular brand of frustration. I try to blog about practical solutions to the problem of plastic, but sometimes these solutions can be difficult or impossible for people living outside of my local region to implement (in my case that’s about 100% of my readers). The situation also happens the other way around. 
