Reduce plastic waste :: PlasticLess.com

First off I have to stand up and testify…

I am a teaholic.

There now that that’s over with you will understand why I was looking for a more sustainable option for lighting the burner of the gas range. By the way, nobody calls it a gas range here in Gozo. Cooker is the most common term and hob is often used to describe the top burner.

I am not a fan of plastic lighters. They are a pretty common site on the beach and elsewhere in the environment. Matches aren’t necessarily a green solution. I decided to try out the flint and steel option. A torch striker cost me €2.33 and it unfortunately came in a little plastic bag. It took a little while to get the hang of it but as you can see in this poorly lit video, it works.

If I didn’t have the disposable lighter that was already here when I moved in, I could light candles with a piece of spaghetti ignited with the stove. I got that tip from the comments on the FakePlasticFish when Beth Terry was debating matches versus lighters.

Before I can really recommend the torch striker as a good alternative, I have to see how long a flint lasts and how the replacements are packaged. I will update this post when I run out of flint.

Let’s get this out of the way first. Plastic waste doesn’t CAUSE flooding. Rain causes flooding.

Discarded plastic bags and plastic bottles DO impact the efficiency of flood control systems in several ways. Besides the obvious potential for clogging drains, plastic waste can also take up a lot of the volume in detention ponds. These problems are either dealt with using taxpayer funded labor and equipment, or they can be ignored with the hope that it never rains all that much. The danger presented by an accumulation of plastic trash in an urban storm drain can prove deadly after days of heavy rain.

Photo credit: bjornmeansbear

Plastic bags were made the scapegoat during a particularly deadly monsoon season in Mumbai in 2005. Plastic bags did clog the system. The system was very old and not designed to deal with the massive population that live in shanties clustered around the city center. The system was also poorly maintained. The system was built before plastic bags were imaginable. Laws against plastic bags had been imposed before the 2005 floods that killed over 1000 people.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, we have places like Salt Lake County, Utah. It’s not a place where you expect to hear about deadly floods. It’s infrastructure is not particularly ancient or under funded. Plastic garbage does accumulate in the drainage system. Draper is a city of just under 40,000 people and it employs 3 people full time to clean the trash and debris from the drains. There are almost 14 million people in Mumbai. I don’t know if they have 1,000 people cleaning out the storm sewers, but that’s how many people it would take to be proportional to Draper. Littering is more prevalent in the developing world, so Mumbai should probably have several thousand people cleaning out the storm drains. They do have a squad of Plastic Bag Police.

Making an individual choice to use less plastic won’t do much to prevent floods, but if everyone made the same choice it could make a huge difference

CBS took a moment away from reporting about how much media coverage Michael Jackson’s death is receiving to talk about bottled water and the people who are not in favor of it. They mention phthalates and they mention the price difference between bottle and tap, but they don’t mention plastic.

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Drinking water from plastic water bottles when your local tap water is safe and healthy is a big waste of money and resources.

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.

I ventured into the back alleys of the souk in Bizerte today. I bought a very cheap all metal jack knife of unknown origin for 1.000TND (that’s about 73 cents) so I could ask to take pictures of some products without feeling like I was imposing. The above picture shows a cardboard box that holds a dozen other cardboard boxes that each contain a safety razor and a small mirror.

I approve of the packaging, but I wasn’t very impressed with the product. First off, they have a plastic handle. Secondly, there is no handle twisting mechanism to open the blade housing. It just kind of snaps together. For me, part of the safety in my razor is being able to open it with my hands far away from the blade. If anybody double dog dares me, I will pick one up and do a proper product review.

I was charmed into buying off-brand razor blades last year. I recently finished using them and felt kinda stupid the first time I used my newly purchased Gillette Silver Blue blades. They were much more effective and much less murderous.

I was also charmed into getting a very cheap shaving brush last year. The pig bristles came unglued from the handle after just a few uses. I have been using my bare hands to lather up my face for some time now and it seems to be sufficient. I just read that actual badger hair is used to make some shaving brushes in China. My source indicates that paying less than $10 for a brush virtually guarantees that you won’t get badger. I worry about the level of animal cruelty in hunting and trapping badgers. I worry about the welfare of pigs as well, but since they are being farmed for meat anyway, using their bristles doesn’t seem abhorrent to me. Does anyone want to start a cruelty free shaving brush business? Certain breeds of horse have hairs that work for this purpose.

Coffee is arguably the most important commodity in the world. In terms of dollars and cents, it is #2 after oil. Coal is said to have fueled the industrial revolution, but coffee was there as well. Its effect on the central nervous systems of humans may have been a catalyst for most historical events that get tagged with the word revolution. A favorite anecdote for coffee historians concerns a decree by a British monarch that all coffee houses were to close their doors. The reasoning was that the thinkers of the day were talking about a revolution over coffee (and this was long before the crunchy granola waitresses had started incessantly playing Tracy Chapman CDs).

The wholesale abandonment of disposable coffee cups is a revolution whose time has come. The White House of George W. Bush switched from expanded polystyrene cups to biodegradable paper. Team Obama is looking for an even greener option.

An issue of concern to many is the cafeteria. So, let me give everyone a brief update. We took a small but significant step when we started selling new reusable coffee mugs in the cafeteria and the Foggy Bottom coffee shop. I am pleased that so many of you decided to support this endeavor. So much so that they sold out immediately, but now are again available for sale. (State Department Earth Day Remarks)

The simplest and most convenient way to personally eliminate disposable cups is to sit down at home or at a cafe and drink from a reusable cup. If you drink so much coffee that this seems like a hardship, you might want to consider cutting down. Three 8 ounce cups of coffee per day provides the recommended maximum of 400mg of caffeine. If your schedule simply doesn’t have room for a sit down cup, get a travel mug. Lots of cafes offer discounts to customers that fill up using their own mug.

I blogged about buying coffee in bulk to cut down on packaging waste back in 2007. That is the best way to buy coffee if you live in a place with local roasters. If you can find it, Fair Trade Organic coffee in bulk is the absolute ideal way to get your coffee fix.

I think I may have found the second best way to buy coffee today. One of the most famous Italian coffee roasters sells coffee in these nice metal canisters.

It looks to me like there is no BPA lining on these cans. That would make sense since there is little risk of food poisoning with roasted coffee. The canisters are durable and attractive and they can be used to store other dry goods after you have finished your coffee. A French press contains a lot less plastic than a typical drip coffee maker. It also makes better coffee.

Bottled water is a defining aspect of the era in which we live. Comedians make jokes about the absurdities of paying an inflated price for water…

I guess it’s true that one of the reasons North Americans buy bottled water is simply that it is marketed to them. I jokingly marketed a line of t-shirts and buttons promoting the candidacy of Dick Cheney for President last year and actually sold a few items.

But marketing alone doesn’t explain the phenomenon of bottled water. I think that insecurity also has a lot to do with its popularity. In the United States, the government is looking out for you regardless of whether you get your water from a bottle or the tap. What is really interesting about this is that the standards and the oversight are completely different. The EPA is responsible for the safety of your municipal tap water and the FDA is responsible for what you get in a bottle. I am too lazy to do the research to see which agency is more reviled by conspiracy theorists, but regardless, the most basic fact is that Americans enjoy access to clean drinking water with very few exceptions.

I have lived in Canada for most of my life. Water is one of the resources that Canada is renowned for but most of us still remember one terrible incident of municipal water contamination. What happened in Walkerton, Ontario in 2000 shook the confidence of the entire nation. I suspect that bottled water sales increased a lot as a result. I continued to drink tap water after the Walkerton incident.

When we moved to Malta we drank bottled water. The municipal tap water was desalinated seawater and the sodium content was pretty high. It tasted awful. I didn’t like buying liter after liter of water in disposable bottles and we switched to a service with returnable 20 liter bottles as soon as we got settled in.

Our move to Tunisia has presented many challenges. Finding a safe and PlasticLess drinking water source had to take a backseat to many of these challenges. I felt like a hypocrite drinking water out of 1.5 liter plastic water bottles while writing a blog about reducing plastic consumption. I couldn’t find a water delivery service. I couldn’t find a Brita pitcher. I couldn’t get any assurances that the tap water was safe for me and my family to drink. We all had a bout or two of GI upset during our first month here. I gave up actively looking for an alternative to bottled water and simply hoped that one would present itself.

Last week I took the family on a trip to Florence, Italy. I was very pleased to find that our favorite hostel provides its guests with cold drinking water from a filtering dispenser. We refilled the water bottles that we brought from Africa about a dozen times. This great alternative to bottled water reminded me of our predicament at home. I was able to buy a Brita pitcher at a pharmacy in Florence.

We are still a bit worried about micro flora in our tap water. We did a taste test of boiled, cooled and filtered water. It kinda sucked. We are now executing plan B. Catherine and I are drinking water poured into the Brita straight from the tap. The kids are being supplied with bottled water while we wait to see if our guts are sufficiently acclimatized to the local bacteria.

As far a plastic consumption goes, the plastic pitcher and it’s recyclable filters will reduce ours by about a dozen bottles per week depending on the weather.

As far as I know, all bicycle helmets are plastic. Helmets are required by state or municipal laws for many cyclists. The laws vary a great deal from place to place. If you are not required to wear a helmet, you have to make a personal decision. I was surprised to see much of the Wikipedia entry for bicycle helmets devoted to statistical arguments against compulsory use laws.

I think it would be irresponsible of me to suggest that anyone forgo the purchase of a bicycle helmet for the sake of reducing plastic consumption. Tree Hugger has a bunch of pictures of celebrities on bikes and many of them are not wearing helmets. Silly celebrities.

The obvious way to reuse a helmet is to give it to someone who needs a helmet. There are some problems with this. Many people advise against using second hand helmets because the may have been damaged in an accident by a previous owner. One green blog recommended repurposing your used helmet as a hanging planter. The fact that the blogger used a stock image of a new helmet for the post rather than a photograph of one with pansies bursting forth is telling.

The expanded polystyrene that makes up the bulk of most helmets is recyclable.

There is actually a LOT of acrimony on the Internet in relation to bicycle helmets. There must be a fairly big overlap of bikers and outspoken libertarians. When I was living in Canada, the whole family had helmets and we all wore them when cycling. We do not cycle in Tunisia, mostly because the traffic is less safe than in Canada.

I was going to link to a website that was serious about tinfoil hats. It seems almost inconceivable, but it appears that the webmaster didn’t pay his hosting fees. I guess foil is kind of expensive.

Anyway, the things that I want to write about are paranoia and hysteria. I have come into contact with enough people wearing metaphorical tinfoil hats to have developed a policy of sorts.

I listen to what they have to say.

If their assertions concern me, I search for information from highly credible sources.

If at all feasible, I base my actions on the possibility that the tinfoil hat people are right even when established science, media, government, industry experts, etc. refute their claims.

I didn’t jump right on the alarmist bandwagon with regard to BPA, but I have let the alarm affect my purchasing decisions. I am worried that the bisphenol A and its effects are not getting the attention that they deserve from the government bodies that are supposed to protect people. I am worried that the news media have moved on from the topic and that regular people will conclude that there is no cause for concern. I am worried that the petrochemical industry is benefiting from the latter and may have a hand in the former.

Now, where’s that tinfoil?

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