Reduce plastic waste :: PlasticLess.com

I’ve just finished reading a fascinating account of some personal direct action from a Canadian who is living and working in Morocco. Robbin Yager provides Tours and Treks in Morocco. One day she decided to roll up her sleeves and start clearing plastic trash out of some of the dry riverbeds in that country.

Here is a summary from her page on direct action:

Over the 10 years I’ve been living and working in Morocco, I’ve seen plastic grow from a few bags blowing across the Sahara, to clogged rivers and watersheds everywhere, from a few bags left by roadsides to huge dumps into ravines and gorges. In developing countries where information is not readily available to citizens, it can take governments a long time to develop solutions for problems. I believe people learn and are encouraged by example. Tourism is very important in Morocco. As a tourist anyone can make the problem seen and heard most easily by taking direct action. And I have to add, it feels so very good to pick up that first bag!

I have never undertaken any trash cleanups as ambitious as hers. When I was in Tunisia, I would walk for a few kilometers on the beach and pick up as much as I could carry. I always worried about where this trash went after I placed it in the dumpsters. Recycling in that region was pretty much limited to those few items that were profitable such as corrugated paper and plastic beverage containers. I was once confronted by a guard as I approached the fence of a beach resort while picking up garbage. I didn’t have the command of the language that it would take to make a nuanced response when I was asked what I was doing. This was a tense and awkward moment and it was discouraging.

When I first moved to Malta five years ago, I spent the first month living in a cheap apartment on the outskirts of a resort area. There was a lot of litter. Whenever I was putting our recyclables and garbage on the curb, I would always spend some time adding to our allotment from the stuff that was lying around outside. One day, a British expat across the street was laughing at me and telling me how futile it was to pick up trash. I think his words were ‘You’ll never get t all.”

I will never get it all but I still make a point of getting some of it. I am not a strong swimmer, so when the rest of the family is snorkeling in the deep I dive around in the shallows picking up ice cream cups and coke bottles and plastic bags and bendy straws. When I have gathered an armload of trash, I usually have to walk to a receptacle that is conveniently located next to businesses that cater to tourists. The big sunglasses that are in vogue prevent me from accurately gauging the looks that I get from these tourists. I have never had anyone join me.

Littering is one a a handful of social and environmental issues that I keep my nose out of when I am a guest in a foreign country. I do keep up with the local news and I quietly cheer on any local people who are speaking up about those issues. Tunisia has an official mascot for environmentalism. It is a cartoonish looking fennec fox that is often mistaken as a mouse by tourists. Malta finally has a real tax on plastic bags. Tourists sometime grumble and pay the Euro 0.25 per bag. Locals use reusable bags or sometimes cardboard boxes.

I think spending some time picking up litter while you are on vacation is a great idea. If you want to plan a vacation around cleaning up plastic trash, Hawaii sounds like the perfect place.

I read somewhere recently that the US Army is the biggest polluter in the world. That is quite a bummer. But I decided to think about the military industrial complex as a huge untapped resource. If some amazing change in human nature and human society brought a lasting end to large scale conflict, we would have a lot of really neat stuff to reuse. 2,475,967 footlockers for starters. They would be great for container planting of vegetables. Maybe combat helmets are up to DOT standards for use by bicycle commuters.  I don’t really have any brilliant ideas.  I just know that resources are being created and used up in unfathomable quantities and the world isn’t getting any less fucked up.

Back in 2008, I spent far too much time doing research for an elaborate joke about Dennis Kucinich being a ventriloquist’s dummy.  I was surprised to find out that there was a post war boom in dummy manufacturing that was spurred on by a glut in surplus materials.  If we could somehow manage to put an end to the making of war, we would have a similar glut of material, maybe even bigger.  Who knows what cottage industries might spring up to make use if it.  Some materials could be repurposed for alternative energy projects.

The War on Boredom shares some traits with other recent and ongoing wars against mental states. These wars waste a lot of resources. I think the War on Boredom can be won without resorting to buying plastic things like gaming consoles or supersoakers.

First things first. You must know your enemy…

Boredom is an emotional state experienced during periods lacking activity or when individuals are uninterested in the opportunities surrounding them. The first record of the word boredom is in the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens, written in 1852, in which it appears six times, although the expression to be a bore had been used in the sense of “to be tiresome or dull” since 1768. – Wikipedia*

The first line of defense against boredom is to carefully examine the opportunities surrounding you. Sign up to local newsletters that include events calendars. Organize your stuff. Read the user manuals of the gadgets that you already have. If you are reading my blog, you obviously have access to the internet. The internet has been an unceasing source of information and entertainment for me for over ten years. We abandoned a gaming console in Africa late last year. I thought that the kids would be begging for a replacement. So far, they are keeping boredom at bay with online and outdoor activities. Sometimes they even read BOOKS

I am not a crafty person, but some people certainly are. The greenest way for these people to fight boredom is to make useful and/or decorative items out materials that would otherwise be a burden on landfills or recycling facilities.

I am looking for some allies in this green War on Boredom. If you can think of any great ways to fight boredom without wasting plastic please leave a comment

I’m going to end this post with a few videos advertising plastic crap designed to fight boredom on it’s home turf (the office). I hope you find the videos entertaining, but please don’t buy this crap. I don’t want to pick on Vat19 – they sell some really awesome canvas bags.

I have to confess that I have never thrown a party for dozens of people. I am an introvert. If I were to wake up as an entirely different person and decide to have a big bash for all of the acquaintances that I would call my friends, I would try to figure out an alternative to the disposable plastic beer glass.

Disposable plastic beer glasses are recommended by many authorities on serving alcohol at large parties…

…You need to invest in some plastic beer cups. The investment is relatively cheap. You can get a large stack of plastic beer cups for about the same price you are going to pay for a bottle of dish detergent to clean all those glasses.

The savings in time is astronomically higher. Instead of washing and drying all those glasses, just pull out a black plastic bag, sweep them all into it, and you’re done.

I think the most obvious alternative to plastic beer glasses is to have your guests drink straight from returnable glass bottles. The only drawback that I can see with this is the safety issue. I attended an Agricultural College in Canada. I saw a lot of beer drinking at pubs and events. Most of these events did not involve disposable cups and I can only remember a handful of bottle related injuries. One or two of them were very memorable.

A slightly more inventive alternative would be to ask your guests to bring their own drinking vessel. Those wacky medieval recreationists do that all the time.

Serving beer from plastic laundry detergent jugs is a step in the wrong direction. Don’t do it.

If your party is commemorating something important, you could shell out for keepsake glassware. If you bring home a beer glass or champagne flute from someone’s special day, don’t have it sitting on your windowsill filled with plant cuttings that you are trying to root when they visit you after the divorce. I’m just sayin’.

Virtual alternatives are greener than the real deal in most cases. I am satisfied the the calculator that came with my computer operating system. I don’t need to go out and buy another handful of plastic and heavy metal to help me balance my checkbook (like I’m the one who actually does that, lol).

I don’t need to buy bubble wrap or a Rubik’s Cube to occupy my idle hands either. There are free virtual versions of those plastic things.

I’m the one who made the stickers all green. You can get a regular one at RyanHeise.com.

Note: The Rubik’s Cube is embeddable on your own blog or website, but it seems to have some buggy javascript, or else my server/Wordpress install just can’t work with it.

I grew up with Tonka toys. They were mostly hand-me-downs from older cousins. Back when I was a kid they were steel with some plastic parts. They were durable. I wouldn’t call them indestructible. My dad drove a real dump truck and we occasionally left our toys on the lane.

Tonka started out as a company that made steel rails. They got the toy idea from a neighboring business that failed. Tonka was a huge success. I am writing about Tonka on a blog that is all about reducing plastic waste because Tonka toys are increasingly being made out of plastic. The company was bought by Hasbro (the people who make Mister PlasticHead) in 1991. Hasbro has discontinued many of the metal toys. I can’t be bothered to do the research, but I assume there was a concurrent shift away from domestic manufacturing. My observations lead me to believe that plastic Tonka toys are less durable than metal. Hasbro has a ‘Classic’ line of Tonka toys with steel parts, but many of the toys that I grew up with are discontinued.

Playing with toy trucks in the dirt seems to be something that kids thrive on. I think buying used toys that have proven durability is a wise decision. Some kids are just as happy to play with kid sized garden tools.

If you and your kids don’t have access to an outdoor imagination excavation, wooden trucks make great indoor toys.

Vintage Tonka photo credit: Steve-Photos, Others: fair use from Toys(backwards R)Us and Hasbro.

First off, a hearty congratulations are in order for To-Go Ware. Their cause and their products got the most important endorsement in the Universe. Oprah likes their stuff.

The Earth Day edition of the Oprah Winfrey Show put a spotlight on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and gave some valuable advice to her viewers on how to reduce plastic waste.

I hope that Oprah will remember the issue of plastic waste for more than just one episode. Hopefully future installments of her Favorite things won’t include stuff like melamine bowls.

I have seen plastic footwear washed up on the beaches of three continents. Most inexpensive flip flops are made from Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA).

The most enviro-friendly choice for summer footwear is bare feet. That being said, going barefoot is not for everyone and it poses some risks. There is a lot of gross stuff on the ground and also some sharp objects.

Ethletics makes all natural rubber flip flops that are Fair Trade. I love the business model employed by FairDeal Trading, but I am too cheap to buy their $60 sneakers. If you are a shoe fetishist AND an ethical greeny, you need to get a pair of green low tops. The flip flops are affordable and when you kick them off at a pool party, the Ethletic label will let people know that you care.

We often have to choose between plastic and leather when we are shopping for footwear. I am hesitant to recommend leather because of the host of environmental negative involved in its creation. Canvas and natural rubber seem like better choices. Sticking the words ‘vegan shoes’ in your search query is the best way to avoid leather.

The Evolution of Leprechaun

If you were to ask anyone to come up with a few things that they associate with St. Patrick’s Day, silly plastic hats might be the second thing mentioned after alcohol. Many of these cheap plastic hats end up strewn around the vicinity of the bars and parade routes where people celebrate this special day, along with a few beer glasses (not beer goggles, people take those home with them). Please consider buying a non-plastic green hat that will last for years and can even be worn on non-Irish days. This one is very green and slightly amusing.

Photo Credit: Amanky

I am a bit lazy today. I am not going to search all over the internet looking for statistics related to the use of bandaids. I have first hand anecdotal evidence that the majority of adhesive bandages are applied unnecessarily. The symbolic act makes the injured and the caregiver feel better. My kids are past the age where they need to have ceremonial attention for every boo-boo. There is a page on the Bandaid corporate website that encourages parents to supply kids with bandaids to put on their stuffed animals. If you are a new or prospective parent, try to develop some kind of triage routine that does not involve the pointless application of plastic bandaids.

Actually, one of the best ways to accomplish this is for parents to be properly trained in first aid and to have a carefully thought out and well stocked first aid kit. If you rush to your kid’s aid with a box with a big red cross on it, they feel like you are taking care of them. If you can confidently tell them that the proper treatment involves something less drastic than a bandaid with their favorite cartoon character on it, they might accept your expert diagnosis. If they are in a situation that requires more than just a bandaid, you will be glad that you are prepared.

I was going to provide a link to a ready-made first aid kit, but they all seem to come in plastic cases these days. You might be able to find one in a metal case at your local pharmacy. The Red Cross has a great list of essentials if you want to build your own first aid kit. Don’t leave yourself under-supplied while you look for plastic free alternatives.