Category: Plastic Bags

Dear Valley Yellow Pages. Sorry I Was Mean.

OMG.  You won’t believe what happened Friday.  I still dont believe it myself.  Here’s the story.
After hassling with Valley Yellow Pages (not to be confused with AT&T Yellow Pages) last year to be taken off their automatic delivery list, I was finally assured that I would no longer receive their unwanted plastic-bagged phone books.  So [...]

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Collecting Garbage Without Plastic Trash Bags?

It’s a new week, and I’m ready to talk trash. One of the most common questions I get about plastic-free living is what I do for garbage bags. And the second most common question is what to line our waste cans with if plastic grocery bags are banned.
Here’s my short answer: We don’t [...]

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Bread: Buy It, Store It, Keep It Fresh Without Plastic

Whoever coined the expression “the best thing since sliced bread” must have worked for the plastics industry. According to the American Scientist article Twists, Tags, and Ties excerpted in The Encyclopedia Britannica Online,
A machine to slice an entire loaf of bread in a single operation was invented by Otto Rohwedder, of Davenport, Iowa, who [...]

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Dianna Cohen: Getting the Message from Her Own Art

Dianna Cohen is a painter, but she doesn’t use a paint brush. Trained at UCLA, she gave up the brush for materials most people consider trash: bags, boxes, little pieces of plastic. This year, she helped to found the Plastic Pollution Coalition. After twenty years, she finally started to get the messages [...]

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Fantastic News from Temescal Farmers Market! (Also a Note About Plastic Stickers)

I’m so happy I could cry! This morning, I was all set to write about my meeting yesterday with one of my personal heroes, Colin Beavan, the No Impact Man. But checking my email, I found the following message from Bianca Pardini of my local Temescal Farmer’s Market:
from: Bianca Pardini to: Beth Terrydate: [...]

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Plastic-free Farmer’s Markets need our thanks!

There’s a new trend in the Bay Area: Farmer’s Markets going plastic-free. But we still have a long way to go, and the vendors need to know we care.
Back up: Two years ago, I wrote the post, “Plastic Farmers Market“, about all the plastic bags and packaging at our local Temescal farmers market [...]

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Joey Totes Reusable Bags Give-Away

Almost two years ago, I published the rant, “Be Careful On the Reusable Bags Bandwagon” in which I slammed people who ran out and bought brand new reusable bags instead of reusing the disposable plastic bags they already had on hand.
While I still believe that it’s generally more sustainable to make use of what we [...]

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Clothesnik saves plastic, if only dry cleaners would use it!

Way back in October, my friend Doug from BuyGreen.com, one of the advertisers on this blog, sent me a Clothesnik canvas garment bag to try out. I finally had a chance to use it last week. We haven’t taken clothes to the cleaners since July of last year! Unfortunately, it took a [...]

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Love the Ocean, Use Less Plastic

My friend Eli Saddler from OceanHealth.org wants you to make this a plastic-free Valentine’s Day in 2009. Here are some tips from The FaceBook event he created:
Show your love for that special someone in your life and the ocean on this Valentine’s Day.
Love the Ocean, Use Less Plastic:
1. Bring your reusable bag when you [...]

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Dec 18: Day Without A (Disposable) Bag

Have you all seen the recent article in the NY Times about the decreased market for recycled materials? Apparently, much of the cardboard, newspaper, metals, and plastic that we toss in our recycling bins is piling up and making its way to landfills, as recycling contractors are unable to find buyers for the stuff.
I’ve [...]

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