Reduce plastic waste :: PlasticLess.com

The majority of cotton swabs these days are made using plastic for the stick. The packaging is also usually plastic. If you are looking for a greener alternative, I saw some organic cotton swabs with paper sticks and cardboard packaging at The Body Shop.

I did a bit of research on cotton swabs after noticing them washing up on the beach. I was not surprised to learn that the most common use for these things is to stick them in our ears. I was slightly surprised to read that medical professionals are telling us to stop that. If people listened to medical advice, this particular bit of plastic waste could be reduced by over 50%.

Don’t stick cotton swabs in your ears

Photo Credit : TheMuuj

As far as all the other uses for cotton swabs goes, consider alternatives like toilet paper, tissues, or cotton balls. I stopped buying cotton swabs for the family ages ago and my makeup wearing daughters have adjusted somehow.

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The swirling mass of plastic waste in the North Pacific is no laughing matter but Colbert manages to sieve out a few nuggets of humour as he discusses the issue with Captain Charles Moore

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Charles Moore
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

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There were a lot of posters being put up in Gozo last month – promoting everything from live nativity reenactments to The Penis Monologues. Many of them are attached to the metal utility poles with plastic zip ties. Long after the events are forgotten and the posters have fallen victim to wind and rain, those plastic straps remain.

They do photo-degrade after many months to the point where they break and become litter. In all likelihood some of them find their way to sea.

Most communities have some kind of postering by-law. Here is the Toronto Postering By-Law as an example. They don’t allow the use of zip ties, but they don’t expressly prohibit them either. I have been in only a handful of large cities in the past decade and my impression is that paste is a pretty common method of securing posters. Staples on wooden utility poles can quickly accumulate and become a dangerous eyesore. Using wheat paste is a better choice than staples or clear plastic tape.

Wheat- Paste Posters – The best video clips are here

Putting up posters is a resource intensive way to promote a cause or event but since it is inexpensive compared to buying time on radio or TV, it is an overused tactic. Word of mouth and social media marketing can probably do more to generate interest.

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I recently received two beautiful cotton batik reusable shopping bags from Wrapsacks.com. These bags fold and zip into a compact size. I like the way that the outside of the storage pouch doubles as a reinforced bottom for the bag. I am happy to finally have a grocery bag with shoulder length straps. Upon closer examination, I noticed that the strap material goes all the way down the sides of the bag and into the reinforced bottom. This should make them a lot more durable than the cheap bags that I bought on the street in Bizerte. The cheap bags have mostly held up for more than a year, but there have been two handle failures. One failure was the result of very heavy groceries and the other bag got caught in a bus door with me still standing on the sidewalk.

Catherine loves the ‘Marrakesh’ design (shown above). When I added this brand of bags to my reusable bag roundup earlier this month, I mentioned the wide variety of designs. Most of the designs are what I would describe as pretty. They were smart to include a design that’s not pretty and, strangely enough, it’s my favorite. The ‘Pedal Power’ pattern has black block printed bicycles and bicycle chains over a background of earthy oranges and browns. It would be perfect for anybody who drives their bike to the farmer’s market.

Michael Miner, the co-creator of Wrapsacks, regularly visits the production facility in Indonesia where the bags are ethically produced. While he was there recently, he took some stunning photographs of the batik dyeing process. I love the fact that they are still using the power of the sun as a dye fixative.

It’s a nice coincidence that I received these free review samples right before leaving for Gozo, where the plastic shopping bag has just recently become the target of some regulation. They had tried a small bag tax years ago, but retailers were willing to absorb the cost rather than inconvenience customers who were set in their ways. Now they charge 0.18 Euros.

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Despite my good intentions and my preaching to the children about the evils of plastic, we have accumulated a handful of DVD cases over the past couple of years. I am dwelling on them now because I am busy packing and I need to jettison anything we can do without. I struck upon the idea of giving our empty cases to a local rental place with the idea that he can use them rather than buying new ones. This strategy wouldn’t work in the Blockbuster part of the world. Here on the frontier, it’s more of a DVD-R rental business model…

The DVD-R store was closed when I walked down the street. The weather’s nice so I just put my little stack of empty cases plus 4 DVDs that had no English audio on the doorstep with a little note that said ‘Gratuit’ The cases are the exact type that he uses for his display , so I think they will get used rather than thrown in the garbage.

Reuse is always better than recycling. Reducing is even better. I don’t watch very many movies and I hardly ever buy them in the form of DVDs. Renting movies should be an action that uses less plastic than buying. Unfortunately, many people have helped make places like Blockbuster spread because we all want to be able to watch a movie the moment that it is released. You do the math. Big video rental stores buy huge quantities of plastic DVDs and packaging so they can guarantee that it is available whenever you want it. The aftermath of this is that those physical products are greatly devalued after a few weeks. How many people are going to get duplicate DVDs from cheap friends for Christmas this year?

Wouldn’t it make more sense for the providers of entertainment media to have a master copy and reproduction rights in each location? What about switching to some kind of digital file that cannot be copied? Every loyal customer could have a purpose specific flash drive that they bring to the rental store. When you pay to rent a new movie, they remove the ones that you have rented previously. I would love to get some feedback about this idea. Maybe it’s already happening. Maybe there is some fatal flaw in my logic. Let me know.

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I found myself buying a lot of plastic today in the form of two cat carriers. The pragmatic alternative would have been to find the best home possible for our rescued cats in this country. The strong emotions of children sometimes trump pragmatism. We are taking our African cats to Europe.

Alternatives to plastic cat carriers are few and far between. Airlines aren’t in the business of flying pets around. The process and the restrictions are quite a hurdle and there are stories of airlines refusing to take a pet on board because the carrier isn’t on the list of approved ones. I had to go to the biggest department store in the capital city of Tunis to find approved carriers. They were quite expensive

If you never plan on flying with your pet, there are a host of plastic free options for carrying it. You can get a Cardboard Pet Carrier. These are inexpensive and are adequate for trips to the vet, etc.. I have fashioned free cardboard boxes into cat carriers on several occasions with zero injuries. There was an unfortunate escape while I was driving. With a particularly bad cat this could have turned ugly. The real cardboard pet carriers have superior gluing and, importantly, no staples.

A wicker pet carrier has the advantage of doubling as a bed when you are not traveling with your cat.

I honestly think anyone who is concerned with sustainability should think long and hard before getting pets. Our cats were rescued from the street. One of ours was tiny and sick and starving and approached Catherine and me when we were sitting outside at the local cafe. He is now the head of our household.

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I am reusing a statement made by Jason Sweeney as my title for this post. Those three words have sent my mind in a hundred different directions thinking about what impact the human pursuit of perfection has on this planet. Most of it isn’t good, some of it is involves plastic.

The concept was still rattling around in my head when I went to the kitchen this morning to make the kids some French toast with cooked fruit topping. The apples that I bought on Friday are not perfect. They look like the apples that I used to scrounge from abandoned homesteads in Canada. They taste delicious.

Consumers in the developed world supposedly want perfect apples. The customer is always right, and those customers get pesticides, genetic engineering and lots of protective packaging.

Photo credit: Brett L

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These two blue bags are both quite thin and flimsy. They also both contain a small amount of collected rainwater which may be of benefit to the local mosquito population. Plastic containers in the environment have been noted for containing the standing water required to support the growth and maturation of mosquito larvae.

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The White Supermarket Shopping Bag has a very wide range and can be seen year round nesting in fruit trees, evergreens, even tall grasses…

Suprisingly, these feral bags do not breed in the wild. They have a lifespan of several hundred years.

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