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Our oceans are filling up with plastic: plastic that harms wildlife and never biodegrades; plastic that enters the food chain and leaches toxic chemicals. This blog is a record of my journey to live with as little unnecessary plastic as possible. Won't you join me? Fake plastic fish may be cute, but if we keep filling up our oceans with plastic, they could be the only kind we have left.... |
Week 32 Results: 3.7 oz. of plastic waste
The weight is up a bit this week, but with only 6 items in the tally (I count container and top as two separate items) it’s the lowest number of plastic items yet.
Recyclable items used up this week but purchased before the plastic project began:
- 1 laundry detergent bottle (#2 plastic). I’m not sure what was in this container originally because it’s missing its label. I don’t need it right now, so it’s going into my stash, but I may reuse it if the need arises. As I mentioned before, I’m not actually recycling any plastic this year until I can make sure it’s not poisoning children in China.
Non-recyclable items used this week but purchased before the plastic project began:
- 1 cap from the laundry detergent bottle.
- 1 wrapper from a roll of Kirkland Signature paper towels. We have almost a whole case of these still and are trying very hard not to use them. We wipe the kitchen counters with cut-up rags and use cloth towels whenever we can. But we haven’t entirely graduated from paper. I’m hoping we can make our 1 case last for the next ten years.
Now for the new plastic waste:
- 1 Refresh Endura single-use eye drop container (#4 plastic). Don’t know how I am managing to survive with so few eye drops applications these days, but I’m just grateful my corneas have been cooperating.
- 1 Grafton Village Cheese Company 1-year cheddar cheese wrapper. I have one more small block of cheese to use up and then I won’t be buying more for a while.
- 1 disposable ink cartridge from a Lamy fountain pen. This was the original cartridge that came with the pen. I’ve now replaced it with a converter that allows me to refill it with ink from a bottle, so I won’t have any more of these cartridges to throw away. Here’s the original post where I wrote about these pens and ink.
And here’s a story about ACTUAL fake plastic fish in Australia. Um… what’s a tuna toss? Can someone please explain this to me?
Comments
Comments
5 Comments on Week 32 Results: 3.7 oz. of plastic waste
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CRUNCHY GREENOLA on
Mon, 28th Jan 2008 4:18 am
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Anonymous on
Mon, 28th Jan 2008 5:15 am
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Rosa on
Mon, 28th Jan 2008 10:53 am
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Mazzajo on
Mon, 28th Jan 2008 6:22 pm
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Anonymous on
Tue, 29th Jan 2008 5:49 pm
Hey Beth,
Thanks for checking out my blog – your blog has definitely been an inspiration in taking this step. And yeah, I thought it was pretty great that this guy decided to share his compost heap with everyone in the city – maybe that’s an idea that people in other cities could use?
karen
I just want to say how impressed I am that you’re giving up/cutting down on cheese in order to avoid the plastic wrappers.
Also, aren’t you excited at how much less this week was than in the past?
The tuna toss! Port Lincoln is a pretty isolated place with LOTS of tuna…
Tuna, gumboots, cowpats… there’s nothing an Australian won’t fling around at a country fair!
Dear Beth,
I’m a former Bay Area gal (from Albany) now in L.A.. I certainly admire what you’re doing. I have been trying to cut down plastic for some time but not anything like what you’re doing. You GO girl!
You threw away a plastic cartridge this week… I save mine. I kept an injection needle used on my cat at the vet’s (saving me the $3.95 “hazardous waste” disposal fee) and bought a glass bottle of ink. I suck it up in the syringe and refill my ink cartridges for a variety of Sheaffer ink pens. The needle lets one get right in the hole and fill it back up again without a problem.
As far as cheese in plastic… I was deep, DEEP in the mountains of Mexico at a market and curious to see how they wrapped their cheese. They use palm leaves, wrapped with palm twine. I told the girl that all cheese in the U.S. came in “plastico” and she said, “Por que?” (why?)
Lauri in Los Angeles
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