PlasticLess.com

The key aim of this blog is to promote reduced use of plastic. I know as well as anybody that using plastic stuff is almost unavoidable. With this in mind, I am adding a link to some information about which plastics are more hazardous and which ones are less hazardous.

Thegreenguide.com/products/Kitchen/Plastic_Containers

This is a high quality bucket for temporary storage of compost material in your kitchen. I do not personally have one of these. I am reusing a container that I already had kicking around. Food preparation for my family of five tends to fill a small bucket almost every day, so it doesn’t have a chance to get very stinky before it goes outside.

Our vegetable hawker was quite happy to weigh out the produce and replace it in the basket this morning. It was the maiden voyage for this durable basket that is locally made from local materials. The guy who sold it to us did not know the English name for the dark brown plant that is used for these baskets. The light colored material is bamboo.

I may have some more focused blog posts on this topic later. For now, I am just going to throw up some numbers related to how long you can expect household stuff to last…

Vinyl flooring could last for ten years or more compared to a century for hardwood flooring or ceramic tile.

I’m seeing conflicting numbers with reference to washers and dryers, but 8-12 years has been suggested by several sources. If the initial quality of appliances accounts for a year or two of that range in lifespan, you could be saving yourself the cost of an appliance or two by getting a higher end item. With these energy consuming appliances, the cost of operating them far outweighs the purchase price. Going for an energy efficient model is the right thing to do. Also ask yourself if you really need a clothes dryer. They have solar and wind powered clothes dryers that are a reasonably inexpensive purchase and cost nothing to operate.

I saw a range of 5-25 years for fridges. Obviously quality of components and construction must play a role there.

I jokingly suggested this product as an alternative to a squirt gun last week. I should make a serious pitch for using metal buckets instead of plastic for general chores and gardening.

Having tried both plastic and metal for pet dishes in the past, I can assure you that metal is better in every way. They make a lot of noise if your dog has a chain, but you get used to that. I loved the fact that you could pour boiling water on them as a regular sanitizing routine.

Learning how to make your own rope probably probably won’t change your life much. Our modern day lives aren’t very rope intensive. I needed a rope to prevent something from blowing away today. Most rope that is available in stores these days is made from nylon. Rather than go up the street to by a few meters of nylon rope, I just made my own rope out of a shirt that was in our rag box. If you Google ‘how to make rope’ you will find that it is a serious obsession for some people. They would probably say that my little twisted length of rags is not a rope. It did serve my purpose. I used to make ropes from discarded green coffee bags. If you live near a small roaster you might be able to score some jute or sisal bags. They have a lot of different uses. I gave many of them away to a man who ripped them to shreds and used them in the smoke maker that he needed for his beekeeping enterprise.

Green is a color that we associate with environmental responsibility and it is also a color associated with gardening. If you were to check out the piles and piles of plastic pots and bags in garden sheds around the planet, you might decide that these are two different shades of green.

If you are hooked on gardening and want to avoid consuming these piles of plastic here are a few suggestions:

• Find bulk sources of soil. mulch and other gardening materials. If you live in or near a region that has sawmills, you may be able to go there and fill your trunk or truck bed with bark to use as mulch. Sometimes these resources are even free.I once lived near a facility that manufactured home heating pellets from wood waste. Gardeners in the know were taking the material that was expelled by the destoning equipment. It was mostly bark
• If you have to buy gardening soil in plastic bags, save them to reuse as heavy duty garbage bags
• Ask around to local greenhouses to see which ones are interested in getting plastic pots returned for reuse
• Consider growing plants from seeds and eliminating the use of plastic pots altogether.
• When you think about it, just about anything can be used for a plant container. I used to scrounge at a number of 50-75 year old dump sites in the Canadian wilderness and bring home enamel cookware and kettles and even bedpans to use as planters. They usually already had some drainage holes.

Sources: Baltimore Sun

I have a confession to make. A couple of years ago I bought several strips of plastic lawn edging. Not much of a confession really, lots of people buy the stuff. The thing is, I never used it. When the time came to do some lawn care, I decided that the edging was a stupid pointless idea. I didn’t send it to the landfill, I sold it at a yard sale.

Creating order and definition in the yard gives some people a great deal of joy. If you want to create a border around your lawn, consider local stone. This obviously involves a lot of work.

Another alternative is to use iron lawn edging. This creates a very distinctive boundary.

Today we’re in the laundry room. It’s amazing how fast those empty fabric softener bottles pile up. How can we eliminate that plastic consumption? Here are some ideas, with the highest-impact life changes first:

• If you are lucky enough to have naturally soft water, try going without fabric softener — it’s not absolutely necessary.
• Make your own fabric softener from baking soda, water, and vinegar (careful, it will be bubbly when you’re mixing it up!). Store it in a glass bottle or in an old plastic fabric softener bottle.
• Switch to natural fabric softener sold in a glass bottle.
• If you must dry your laundry in a dryer rather than hanging it to dry, you can switch to dryer sheets to eliminate plastic.

Happy washing!

I used to be addicted to Saran Wrap but it just takes a little creativity to find alternatives to using plastic wrap:

• instead of cling film on top of a bowl, slide a plate on top

• use an onion keeper instead of wrapping your cut onion in plastic

• try using waxed paper to wrap baked goods

Add a comment with your favorite tip!