Reduce plastic waste :: PlasticLess.com

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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More people should be carrying water from their house to their place of work. I read recently that most people don’t drink as much water as they should. A stainless steel water container in your bag or briefcase would be a tactile reminder that you need to hydrate your body throughout the day. A pocketful of quarters could buy an overpriced plastic bottle of water from a cafeteria or vending machine, but many of us would be swayed by the sugary drinks and snacks that are often in the same vicinity.

I do not own a stainless steel water bottle. They are highly recommended by Beth Terry of Fake Plastic Fish fame. Back when I was working on my Dad’s farm in the summer, we always drank water from a reused plastic 2 liter soda bottle.

I carried on with that practice during most of my years at the sawmill. As luck would have it, some 21st century technology required the input of purified water, so the company installed a filtration system in one building. We were blessed with some water coolers and a hose from which to refill them.

When I managed to land my awesome job roasting coffee, it was for a company that had a cafe attached to the plant so of course they had to have a system for dispensing good water. I drank from a glass.

If I were commuting to a job every day now, I would most probably invest in a stainless steel water bottle and fill it from my Brita pitcher at home.

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I have made the case against making babies from a few different angles on this blog and elsewhere. It’s always a good way to stimulate discussion. I am personally responsible for one pregnancy. If and when you create a human, you will need to buy or borrow things that have been designed to contain and transport them safely.

Moses’ parents supposedly stuck him in a reed basket and sent him floating down the Nile, I don’t personally recommend that method of child carrying even though it was very plasticless.

Parents in many countries are now required by law to place young children in age appropriate car seats. 15 years ago, I borrowed two infant car seats from some community program. I returned them once my babies reached the minimum weight requirement for the next step up in car seats. As far as I know, all baby car seats are made from plastic. The best thing that you can do to reduce environmental impact is to borrow a seat from a family member or a community program. You should read up on proper installation and adjustment of these things. Having one doesn’t make your baby safe, you have to use it correctly.

Green Baby Guide says that car seats up to six years old are safe as long as all the parts are there and in good condition. It’s better to say thanks but no thanks to family and friends that offer you anything older or in any way worn out.

If you have to buy a new car seat, take good care of it and save all the packaging and user manuals for the next owner.

Our baby carriage was a crazily overpriced metal framed Italian job. I was assured that they had a high resale value. I have conveniently forgotten whether that was true. I was impressed by the quality. We lived on a road with a gravel shoulder, so those crappy little strollers with the little plastic wheels weren’t going to cut it.

If you want to do what is best for your baby and also better for the planet you have a lot of options to choose from.

Lots of people swear by baby slings. I have never used one, so I can’t really vouch for them. There have been safety concerns. Most injuries that have occurred are the result of improper use.

Photo Credit: AMCDawes

I did a lot of baby carrying without a sling. I once made the terrible mistake of attempting to walk down my unfinished wooden basement steps while wearing wool socks. I had a baby in my arms. I managed to fall in such a way as to gently plop the baby one step up from where my head landed with less gentleness and about four steps up from the where my ass landed without even a hint of gentleness. Carrying babies with your bare hands might be the greenest choice, but it is not the safest.

Combination car seat/strollers didn’t exist when I had babies. They are plastic, but they are one hunk of plastic that does the job of two. They also meet the requirements for taking on board an airplane. If anybody has had good or bad experience with one of these, please comment.

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I try my best to avoid insulting people, but the person who filmed this How To video is stupid.

Plastic Bottles – The best bloopers are here

I might be stupid too. I have been operating under the assumption that heating liquids in PET plastic bottles was a proven health hazard. When I took the time to try and confirm my assumption, I was surprised to find out that I couldn’t. PET water bottles are a BIG problem for the environment. Something like 85% of them are tossed into landfills or discarded into our environment after a single use. But PET bottles have not been a big problem for human health. NGOs are even promoting a water disinfection method for rural Africa using PET bottles and solar energy (PDF). Reusing PET bottles repeatedly without proper cleaning and air drying can put you at risk of ingesting dangerous bacteria.

I still contend that it is unwise to throw a plastic bottle of water on an open fire and then drink from it. I managed to find a few quotes from chemists and food scientists saying that they make a personal choice not to consume food or beverages that are contained in plastic. If any of my readers know of any new credible research into potential health risks with reused PET bottles, please let me know.

UPDATE: Beth Terry, writer of FakePlasticFish managed to find a scientific paper detailing how PET water bottles leach the toxin antimony faster when they are heated. Thanks, Beth.

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I have recently decided that the issues surrounding bisphenol A are too compelling and too complex to fit in my little blog about reducing plastic use. Here is a succinct but still somewhat exhaustive overview of the problem with BPA.

I got sucked down a rabbit hole last weekend. There are articles on the Internet detailing the way in which chemical companies provide lots of money to labs and publishers of peer reviewed research. By some amazing coincidence, these bodies provide conclusions that say a certain chemical is safe for humans. This isn’t shocking, but I was dismayed to read that the chemical companies manage to sway government agencies with the research that favors them even when the vast majority of independent research comes to the opposite conclusion. This scenario is not unique to BPA and if we extrapolate from what happened with asbestos and tobacco, you have to assume that it will be years or even decades before there is a definitive quantification of the risk posed by BPA.

My last word on BPA is that avoiding all plastic packaging and containers as much is possible will benefit your health and the environment.

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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.

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