Five Things We Can All Do!

1. Don’t Wash Your Hands with Plastic!

<-- Behold pure evil

Many hand washes and bath gels contain tiny plastic beads to exfoliate the skin. When I first read about this, I was absolutely dumbfounded. These little plastic beads wash right down the drain and into our water supply. How can such a thing even be legal? Lately, I’ve been finding out that many outrageously polluting products are legal. The biggest purveyor of water polluting, plastic hand wash is Bath and Body Works. Sure Bath and Body Works may look pretty, and the candy colored products are oh-so enticing, but the Deep Cleansing Hand Wash is pure evil! Bath and Body Works, sadly, is not the only plastic laced product. Look for the ingredient polyethylene as an indicator that your soap or scrub is polluted with plastic. Bath and Body Works prefers not to list their ingredients on the side of the bottle. Now I know why! If you are as outraged as I am, see below to send Bath and Body Works a message. As an industry leader, maybe if Bath and Body Works changes their ingredients, other companies will follow suit.

2 Give Up Bottled Water

Sorry, but even if you recycle the bottle, bottled water is still an ecological nightmare. First, something I recently learned – plastic does not recycle indefinitely. Plastic loses its structural integrity each time it is recycled. Eventually it is no longer useful and must be landfilled. Furthermore, recycled plastics are melted down and formed into plastic pellets, or nurdles. If there’s one thing our world doesn’t need more of, it’s nurdles! I discussed how catastrophic nurdles are in my previous post, so please take a look. Finally, please consider the most compelling argument. We live in a world where clean water is growing increasingly precious. Do we really want Nestle and Coca-Cola pumping out our water and reselling it to us at an enormous mark up? Personally, I don’t like the idea of our best water sources in the hands of private corporations.

3. Say No To Plastic Bags

Everyone has one in their house, a drawer or cabinet stuffed with dozens of plastic bags. There are also more plastic bag recycling bins available than ever before. Do the recycling bins negate the damage done by taking home dozens of new plastic bags each week? I’m afraid not. Plastic bag recycling is plagued with the same troubles as any other plastic recycling. Plus the lightweight bags are notorious escapees from recycling trucks and recycling centers. If you absolutely must have plastic bags for chores around the house, please consider bringing home the absolute minimum. I have given up plastic bags as trash can liners, and I have not noticed a decrease in my quality of life. One thing I have recently learned is that in just using up things I have had around my house from before I decided to deplasticize, I wound up with dozens of bread bags, tortilla bags, etc. to use for general purposes. Most people would end up with ample plastic bags to use, even if they never brought home another grocery bag.

4. Go Back to the Bar

Thinking about plastic pollution would make anyone want to go to the bar for a stiff drink. Just contemplating the plastic bits I washed down the drain when using up a container of Bath and Body Works hand soap has me hankering for a shot of tequila. What I’m really talking about, though, is bar soap. I remember a time before a hundred different bath gels were available for purchase. Now, nearly every shower in America has a plastic jug of fruit punch scented bath gel. The showers in my new built home didn’t even come with soap trays built in! There are dozens of great smelling, fancy soaps that are packaged in simple, paper sleeves. Switching to bar soap is one simple change we can all make.

5. Think Twice Before Buying Plastic Gadgets and Other Unnecessary Plastic Crap

I have been using my time off over the holidays to clean out my kitchen cabinets (I know, will the excitement never end?). As I do so, my husband frequently hears me scream out, “why did I even buy this useless piece of crap?” I have bought things that I never use and don’t have room to keep. I have bought things that can’t even recycle and will forever sit in a landfill:

The plastic veggie chopper—I couldn’t just use a knife?

The plastic apple slicer—As if this will make me eat more fruit?

The plastic garlic crusher thingy—Didn’t work; probably got carpal tunnel syndrome trying to use it

And, I am only halfway through the cabinets…

There we have it. These five things are so simple that everyone can do them. I guarantee that just questioning the amount of plastic in your life will make you more mindful about the amount you use.

Consider taking a moment to send Bath and Body Works a letter expressing your concern over the use of polyethylene beads in their products. Feel free to copy and paste the form letter below.

To Whom It May Concern, Bath and Body Works:

I am writing because I am deeply concerned about the use of polyethylene beads in your Deep Cleansing Hand Wash. Polyethylene is a plastic and will never biodegrade once it is washed down the drain. Water is the most precious resource on Earth, and polyethylene does not belong in rivers and streams where it will eventually become a public health hazard.

Bath and Body Works promotes its products as healthful and natural. This ingredient is a violation of the public trust as most consumers would never suspect that such an ecologically damaging ingredient is present in hand soap. Bath and Body Works needs to take responsibility for the ingredients in its products, and until the products ingredients are ecologically sound, I will no longer purchase from your store.

Sincerely,


Customer Service Bath and Body Works

The Making Of The Monster: Plastic Production Is Scary Stuff

They're called nurdles, and I almost wish I didn't know about them. Nurdle sounds so innocent, almost like a cuddly cartoon character, but there's nothing cute about them. Nurdles are pre-production plastic pellets the size of a grain of rice. They are the first stage in the creation of the myriad plastic products that we buy every day. These little pellets made out of virgin plastic resin are melted and molded into any form that the manufacturer desires. Nurdles are the beginnings of our water bottles, plastic bags, and containers. Lightweight, shippable, and endlessly malleable, nurdles are easy to transport and easy to lose.

60 billion pounds of nurdles are produced and transported in the United States every year. When that many lightweight plastic pellets are on the move, it's a guarantee that a portion will end up escaping into the environment. Nurdles spill out of packing crates, are dumped out of improperly packed trains, , and are often poorly contained at the manufacturing site. Because they are so lightweight, they have a tendency to blow on the wind and accumulate in waterways. Eventually, much of the debris ends up in the ocean where fish and birds mistake nurdles for food. Now they are also in our Great Lakes. From the remote shores of Lake Superior to the beaches of Lake Huron, millions of tiny plastic pellets are becoming mixed with the water and sand. The picture I have posted above is recent; these pellets washed up in October on Lake Huron beaches near the town of Port Albert, Ontario.

As a lifelong resident of Michigan, some of my most memorable days have been spent along the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. Pre-production plastic nurdles have combined with unfathomable amounts of plastic debris to turn our oceans into a plastic soup; the latest research suggests that there is six times more plastic in the ocean than algae. I have seen evidence of the our plastic oceans with my own eyes. I have walked a Florida beach and held handfuls of sand that were speckled with thousands of plastic bits. Are our Great Lakes headed for this fate? I certainly hope not. The Great Lakes are the the world's largest fresh water system, and I shudder to think that they will soon be full of plastic.

It was always easy for me to justify my plastic purchases by telling myself that I would dispose of my plastic responsibly. I thought my plastic would either be recycled or safely tucked into a landfill. Disposal, though, isn't the only problem. By purchasing plastic, I was authorizing more manufacture, more nurdles, and more opportunity for those little, evil pellets to enter our lakes. Before I buy any new plastic, I must now ask myself is it worth it? It saddens me to think that I might be the last generation to sit on a plastic free beach.

Links to articles regarding plastic nurdles on our Great Lakes beaches:
Lake Superior's Plastic Pellets
Lake Huron's Plastic Problem

A link that explains the gargantuan plastic problem in the ocean:
Nurdles and Other Plastic Pollutants

This is a link to the foundation founded by Charles Moore, a recreational sailor who discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Algalita Marine Research Foundation

Fabien Cousteau, grandson of Jacques Cousteau, speaking about the tremendous plastic problem in our oceans.
Fabien Cousteau

Cleaning with Less Plastic

I used to think that people who made their own soap and cleaning products were artsy-craftsy types with way too much time on their hands. Not being the artsy-craftsy type, I would spray down my entire bathroom with Scrubbing Bubbles, open a window, and hope that I could clean the tub before I passed out from the fumes. Invariably, by the time I finished, I would be lightheaded and would collapse on the couch to recover. Eventually, I began to associate the cleaning product dizziness with virtuous housecleaning. It seemed that dizziness and nausea were necessary sacrifices for a clean tub, and I would feel peculiarly satisfied with my labor. In my chemical fog, I concluded that the dizzier I became, the cleaner the bathroom would be. However, from this point forward, I renounce all vertigo inducing cleansers! I have given up my chemical dependence and am making natural cleaners that also drastically reduce my plastic consumption.

First, I would like to share this fantastic recipe for an all-purpose cleaner that works great in the bathroom. It is also very effective against any type of grime. I used it to clean the textured plastic on my refrigerator handles, which always get pretty gross, and was very impressed with the results.

All-Purpose Citrus Cleaner
1 cup white vinegar
2 tablespoons Citrasolv Cleaner
1 teaspoon Castile soap (I really like the Dr. Bronner's Citrus Castile Soap)
3 cups water
10 drops of lemon essential oil

Mix it all up in an empty spray bottle and shake gently before using.

The Citrasolv and the Dr. Bronner's Castile Soap do come in plastic bottles; however, both products are highly concentrated, so I expect that these two bottles will last for months. We all need to consider the fact that when we buy ready-made products, we are mainly buying water, and it takes a lot of plastic to package all that water! As a bonus, the East Lansing Food Co-Op has big jugs of of the Dr. Bronner's that customers can use to refill their empty bottles, thus reducing plastic waste. The Dr. Bronner's is sold almost everywhere now, so it's not at all hard to find. Plus, the bottle is made from 100% post-consumer plastic. Another plus is that I'm no longer buying spray bottles. I always recycled the bottle, but I wondered if the spray pump qualified for recycling. I suspect that the metal spring inside the pump might be a recycling deal breaker. The Citrasolv may not be completely necessary for the formula, but I have hard water and decided that my cleaning solution needed an extra boost. Citrasolv is made from completely natural extracts of citrus fruits.

This cleaning solution smells wonderful. There is a slight scent of vinegar, but in a good way, like a big citrus salad.

One last consideration is that many ready-made cleaners contain petroleum products that do not biodegrade when washed down the drain. Others contain ingredients that are now suspected to harm human health. One of the scariest is phthalate (pronounced thal-ate). Phthalate is often indicated by the indeterminate title, fragrance. Recent studies suggest that it could act as a pseudo-estrogen in the body. Since my homemade cleaner smells so incredible, I never want to smell the synthetic stuff again.

Coming soon...

Mayday, mayday! I have run out of Pantene! I repeat, I have run out of Pantene! For those of you who don't know, Pantene is a hair conditioning product of great renown. It also comes in a big plastic jug. Making shower cleaner at home is one thing, but I can I fabricate a product that equals Pantene? More to come...

Update on Little Caesars Plastic Pizza Film

I did hear back from Little Caesars customer service via phone. The customer service representative told me that the film was waxed paper. It sure didn't look like waxed paper to me, so I called the restaurant that made the pizza and asked them if the film is paper. The girl who answered the phone said that the box the sheets came in reads "poly film." I'm not a chemist, but usually the prefix poly indicates plastic materials (If anyone knows for sure, please clue me in!). This Caesar's store assured me that I could request a film free pizza, which I most certainly will do.

I think this whole exchange underscores the fact that plastic is so accepted for every conceivable use that companies will use it without so much as a thought as to the ramifications on our health or the environment. The customer service representative did not even understand the material, but that's just a symptom of the underlying disease. The fact is that we use plastic indiscriminately, but we don't understand how it will affect our bodies in the long run.

Pizza Pizza! OR Plastic Plastic?

At our house, we are big fans of Little Caesars Pizza. On Friday night there is nothing better than the Hot and Ready pizzas, but we were astonished to open up our pizza box this week and discover a greasy piece of plastic film on top of our dinner. I realize that Little Caesars probably opens up many plastic pouches of cheese and dough to make our pizza, but a pizza once in a while is something that we just can't give up. I can resign myself to the plastic bags that may go to a landfill to make our pizza, but this plastic film (which supposedly keeps it hot) is a complete waste. It may not seem like a lot of plastic, but on a busy Friday night, every Little Caesars in Michigan probably goes through hundreds of little plastic sheets.

Even more important than the waste is that I don't want plastic film touching my hot food. Plastic is notorious for leaching chemicals into food, and while some studies have shown that newer plastic wraps are far safer than they used to be, I really don't want to take any chances on this one.

Plus, there is nothing more unappetizing than removing a piece of greasy plastic from a pizza. While I know my pizza isn't exactly low calorie, the last thing I want is to be reminded of just how much grease I'm about to ingest. Pizza is supposed to be fun, not frightening.

I've been buying pizza without a plastic accessories my entire life, and I want to continue this trend. I have called Little Caesars to voice my concerns and told them about my blog. Let's see what we hear back!

Nearly Plastic Free Grocery Shopping

Yesterday I took two big bins of plastics over to Michigan State University’s new recycling center. These bins represent my old way of thinking, basically that if I could recycle it, I could buy it. Little did I know that recycling, while the best option for unavoidable plastic, is certainly not a magic solution. Hopefully, I will never take such a big load for recycling again. Even though I’m only two weeks into my experiment in plastic reduction, my household is already seeing a marked decrease in our plastic trash, mainly from more conscientious grocery shopping.

Grocery shopping without plastic is not easy. First of all, plastic creeps up in sneaky places that the average shopper would never suspect. Paper milk cartons are lined with plastic. Most canned goods have a plastic liner. Even the lids on glass jars have a plastic undercoating! Products that I remember buying in glass jars transitioned to plastic when I wasn’t paying attention. Take for instance mayonnaise. My entire life I remember it being in a glass jar, so when I started thinking about avoiding plastics, I had to take a look in my refrigerator to see if it was glass or plastic. Sure enough, plastic! While prospects appear grim for the plastic free shopper, there is a way.

First, we have stopped buying any pre-packaged fruits and vegetables. I used to buy the big plastic boxes of organic lettuce. Never again! The lettuce turned into green slime within three days of purchase anyways. I now buy produce that is as free and unpackaged as the day it was picked. I have dozens of plastic produce bags in my pantry from previous purchases that I am reusing for fruits and vegetables. When I get home, I rinse the bags out and dry them on the plastic bag dryer that my husband lovingly made for me out of craft store wood and a glue gun. Please ignore the fact that the dryer was never finished; great projects often take years to complete.

Note: Now that I know I will never willingly bring home another plastic bag, they have become precious commodities in the house, which is why I was outraged to wake up one morning and find that my husband had torn into a plastic bag with all the grace of a raccoon because the twist tie was too difficult. See the photographic evidence provided in this post.

Second, when we buy meat, we buy straight from the butcher counter and ask that the product be wrapped in butcher paper. I plan to begin bringing my own containers to the meat counter. I will let my readers know how well this innovation is received at the butcher counter (I’m a little worried as some of our neighborhood butchers tend to be on the surly side).

Third, we are buying our milk in plastic jars. The milk comes from Calder Dairy in Monroe, Michigan and is sold at the Lansing City Market and at the East Lansing Food Co-Op. It’s not cheap, but considering that we no longer buy dozens of snack foods, I think that our budget has room for this wholesome product.

Fourth, as mentioned above, there are many snack foods that we are no longer buying. The sad truth is that crackers, cookies, and a whole host of other delightfully sweet and salty snacks come in plastic bags. Even crackers in 100 percent post-consumer cardboard boxes are enclosed in plastic interior sleeves. This change means that we are eating more whole foods. One positive side effect is that we are also losing weight. This trend will probably continue until my husband, the house chef, perfects the potato chip recipe that he is dreaming about.

Fifth, we are investigating bulk food options at the Foods For Living store in East Lansing and the East Lansing Food Co-Op. We can buy cereal, nuts, coffee, and grains in bulk, using the bags and containers we take with us, of course.

Finally, we always bring our own bags for purchases, whether it be at the grocery store or the mall. We request approximately one paper bag per week for our kitchen garbage can, but other than this one exception, we haven’t brought home a bag.

I cannot close this post without first noting that our grocery shopping is not entirely plastic free. Our mission, after all, is to reduce plastic consumption; however, there are some products that we feel we cannot give up without sacrificing too much quality of life. For instance, we have decided that the minimal amount of plastic on the underside of a glass jar’s lid is simply too much to worry about at this time. Also, chopped boxed tomatoes are absolutely essential to our recipes. As a side note, readers should be aware that most canned tomatoes are lined with plastic enamel that contains Bisphenol A or BPA, an additive that is a suspected endocrine disruptor. We use Pomi boxed tomatoes, which do not use BPA. According to their website, Muir Glen Organics plans on eliminating BPA from their cans this year. Next summer, though, I’ll probably go old school and start canning my tomatoes. Maybe mom will come over and teach me how!

Where did the plastic go?

Funny how you can look at something every day and not really see it. Take for instance my spatula. We've had it for about ten years. It might be one of the first kitchen utensils my husband and I bought for our apartment. Since I have started thinking about the plastics in my life, I have a new eye for everything plastic in my house. So, the other morning when I was cooking breakfast, I actually looked at my plastic spatula. Maybe it's better not to notice these things... Over the years, little bits of my spatula have apparently either flaked off or melted off. Where did the plastic go? I'm guessing we've been eating little bits of it for the past decade. Pretty scary when you consider that nearly all Americans now have appreciable levels of plasticizing chemicals in their blood streams. What will all of these chemicals do to us in the long run? The jury is still out, but I'm guessing it won't be good. The exciting news is that our generation is the first in human history to find out! Nothing like being on the forefront of scientific research!

Bottom line, this spatula is destined for an eternity in the landfill, and we went out and bought three new wooden spatulas. We all owe it to ourselves and our health to purchase products made out of tried and true natural components, even if it means looking a little harder or paying a little more. The alternative is buying plastic and being a guinea pig in the biggest chemistry experiment of all time.

Make Your Own Yogurt

My husband and I eat a lot of yogurt. First, we started out eating it in single serve cups for lunch. Every time I threw a little cup away, I felt a pang of guilt. We evolved to buying the big 32 ounce tubs so as to use less packaging per serving. We have now reached the final stage of our evolution, making our own!

Initially I thought that making yogurt would require equipment akin to what one might find in a biology lab. After all, this stuff has live cultures in it! I half believed that it was made in some kind of underground controlled facility. How wrong I was. Yogurt is one of the easiest recipes to make. Once it gets going, it makes itself. We make a batch every week in a big glass container, and we are finding that the taste is milder and fresher than anything we ever bought in the store.

Just 6 easy steps away:

1. Everything you need to make your first batch (for the first batch you'll need to start with 1 cup of store bought yogurt for the culture).

2. Pour 4 cups of milk (we use 2% milk) into a pot and heat to 120F

3. Stir half a cup of dry milk powder (non-fat is fine) into milk (it acts as a thickener)

4. Use maple syrup or honey as a sweetener. Anywhere from 2 to 5 tablespoons. For unsweetened yogurt you still need to use 2 tablespoons. It won't taste sweet at all, but it helps the culture develop.

5. In a separate dish, mix 1 cup of reserved already-made yogurt with one cup of the warm milk. Pour the remaining warm milk from the pot into a large container. I prefer to use glass. Finally whisk the milk and yogurt that you have combined into the glass container with the warmed milk. I use a 1.75 quart container, and it has plenty of room.

6. Place the glass container in a cooler with a heating pad tucked around/below it. The goal is to keep the mixture at about 115F (medium on our heating pad). Let the mixture sit for 8-12hrs then refrigerate. Once cold, your yogurt is ready to eat. It's fantastic topped with maple syrup or honey. The only hard part is remembering to save a cup to get the culture going for the next batch!

Facing My Fears And Scaring Cashiers

Now that I am committed to accepting as little plastic as possible in my life, I have stepped up my efforts to make sure I don't bring home any plastic bags. I have tried to be conscientious about this for the past few years, but trying to be conscientious still allows plastic bags to heap up in my house. Half the time the cashier would give me a plastic bag so fast that I wouldn't even have time to pull out my reusable bag. Then I would feel bad telling the cashier to re-bag my purchase. Voila, another plastic bag comes home with me.

Now, I have learned that if I don't want a bag (and I never do), I need to shout "I DON'T NEED A BAG" at the cashier as fast as I can. Generally, they jump back and snatch my purchase out of the bag like it's on fire.

So, here we come to the part that has been gnawing at me for days. How will I line my garbage cans without plastic bags? Can I use paper garbage bags in the kitchen? My biggest dread has been that goopy stuff will leak out of the paper garbage bag onto the plastic trash can.

This week I faced down my fear. When I took the paper bag out of the kitchen trash, there it was - wet, icky, garbage juice inside the can. My heart raced. I called my mother and asked her how the heck people dealt with their garbage prior to plastic grocery bags. It turns out that if the garbage leaked, they wiped out the can. Amazing. So I did what my mother did, and my grandmother before her. I got a wet rag, and I wiped out the can. It took two minutes and I survived.

Now that I have crossed this first hurdle, I wonder why on earth I thought I needed to protect my plastic garbage can from the garbage.

Of course, I do need to use one plastic bag to put my garbage out at the curb each week. That's the only way that the collectors will pick it up, but at least my bag is no longer filled with plastic bags.

How Far Can I Go?

While I am the driving force behind this experiment in a deplasticized life, my husband (who is very good-natured) has been willing to go along with the program. After doing some deep soul searching, we have decided that into our lives some plastic must fall. I have great respect for the ladies at Fake Plastic Fish and Life Less Plastic, who have nearly eliminated all of their plastic purchases, but we're not sure if we can achieve their level of success . Instead, we believe that we can eliminate approximately 80 percent of the plastic from our purchases by being far more mindful.

The benefits:

We will be eating far more fresh food and less junky snacks.
We will be saving money by making our own cleaning products.
We will be exploring resources for a plastic free life in our corner of the world, Mid-Michigan.
We will get to share our money saving and plastic saving tips with all of our friends!

This is the legacy collection. The plastic pieces that will be passed down as heirlooms to my children. Why I thought I had to have a special plastic storage system for my wrapping paper is beyond me.

Plastic bottles that have been accumulating, and maybe even reproducing, under my cabinets for the past seven years.

What Inspired Me To Deplasticize My Life

I have always considered myself to be a relatively conservative consumer of plastic. I bought what I needed, tried not to buy too much that I didn't need, and recycled when I could. After this point, I didn't think much about the millions of pieces of plastic sold, used, and discarded everyday. All this began to change last year when I visited a beach in south Florida. While this was in many ways a beautiful beach, in a very upscale area, every few feet the sand was littered with plastic garbage that had washed up on shore. There were pieces of plastic silverware, little plastic ketchup packets, pieces of toys, combs, and every other conceivable plastic trash one can imagine. As I often do when walking, I stopped to pick up the litter, thinking that I would leave the beach a better place. I soon realized the impossibility of my good deed. When I looked closely at the sand, I was horror struck. The sand was full of minuscule plastic bits--millions of tiny pieces of blue, green and red plastic. So many pieces that they could never be cleaned up in a thousand years.

When I returned from vacation to my home state of Michigan, I redoubled my recycling efforts. I was still so innocent... I was blind to the fact that almost all of the new plastic I was buying was made from 100 percent virgin plastic. My shampoo bottle was not reincarnating as my lotion bottle. Since there are no mandates requiring manufacturers to use post-consumer plastic in their products, why would they? It's cheaper to use virgin plastic. Taking my plastics to the municipal recycling center was much better than chucking them into the garbage, but it is not a guilt free license to consume new plastic.

What happens to my recycling? Some of the plastic might be made into new containers by environmentally conscious companies (these are the minority). Some of the plastic might be made into polar fleece or synthetic decking, slowing, but not stopping, the inexorable march to the landfill. The worst case scenario is that my batch of recycling wouldn't find a buyer to process it and would go to a landfill, or it would become contaminated by non-recyclable plastic and end up in a landfill. Either way, I had done nothing to curb the tide of dirt cheap, plastic goods that flood every nook and cranny of America.

Plastic junk, bought cheap, thrown away or tossed on the ground without a thought. It keeps arriving in our stores by the truckload. Keep buying it and we feed the industry. Say no and maybe the industry will reexamine their poisonous packaging.