Is your home a plastic free zone?

I admit that plastic bugs the crap out of me on a regular basis. Why?

• There's so much of it.
• It often breaks.
• I spend so much time finding ways to reuse or recycle it.
• And also that it can be so bad for us.

We got an email from Rendi who is trying to make her home 70 percent plastic free. Why? Her daughter has severe medical health problems that she believes are tied to toxins in plastics. She's looking for a night light or dim lamp that is plastic free. I figured ours was, but when I went upstairs to my kids' room to look at it, I saw that the bulb housing is all plastic. Do you have any ideas for Rendi? She is also looking for ideas on plastic free garbage cans/recycling bins. The ideas I had were small wicker ones for indoors, and the "Oscar the Grouch" style metal cans for outside. Please chime in if you have any additional ideas.

Also, if you're not already reading Fake Plastic Fish, you should check out Beth's great blog on reducing the amount of plastic in our lives.

Reuse solution for plastic newspaper bags!

In the past I have lamented the insane amount of plastic bags that come into my house, primarily from having two newspapers delivered every morning. One paper is double-bagged (that miserable Wall Street Journal), which means that we receive 21 plastic bags each week. There are a number of things we could do to stop this insanity:

• Stop receiving the papers, or cancel one of them. This is the most eco-friendly action to take, however my husband and I spend about an hour every morning reading the paper and drinking coffee together before the kids arise. I value that time. I wouldn't mind canceling the WSJ, but I have to respect my partner's wishes, too. (Dang.)

• Install a newspaper box under the mailbox and request the driver not bag the paper. I'm not even sure they use those boxes anymore. Seems like I never see newspapers in my neighbor's boxes. I'm not even sure they are deep enough to keep the paper dry in our rainy climate. Look at me finding excuses!

• Petition the papers to take back and reuse the bags. That makes me tired thinking about it.

Yes, these bags can be recycled, but it really is better to find a way to reuse them. And that's exactly what has happened. The last time I posted about this, one of our longtime readers who doesn't live far from my house commented that she would love them for picking up after her dog. So last week I dropped off about 200 bags at her house. Thank you, Becky! You see, it's better for her to reuse a plastic bag that has already been manufactured for one purpose (holding a paper) than to go out and buy doggie doo bags that have been manufactured expressly for that purpose. (And don't get me started on 'biodegradable' plastic doggie bags again.)

Had Becky not taken them, I would have asked my dog-owning neighbors or posted a freebie notice on Craigslist or Freecycle. Someone's trash is always another person's treasure!

OEC collecting unhealthy plastics to deliver to Oregon lawmakers

The Oregon Environmental Council, like EnviroMom, is concerned about chemicals that leach from plastic, like Bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates, that have been linked to developmental disorders and cancer. So let's get them out of our houses, childcare facilities, schools and off the shelves -- and into the hands of Oregon's lawmakers.

Yes, the OEC wants your nasty plastics and will deliver them to Salem. Got some to off-load? Here's a few collection events:

• Portland: Through March 1, you can drop off plastic toys & bottles at the Urban Grind coffee shop 2214 NE Oregon, Portland
• Eugene: Saturday Feb 21, between 9:30 am-Noon.  Look for our table outside the public library downtown.
• Salem: Thursday, March 12, noon, at noon on the Capitol front steps. There will be other toys collected there, other parents, and speakers talking about the healthy kids bills before congress.

The OEC has more info on dropping off your toxic plastics, which plastics are unsafe, and a petition in support of the Children's Safe Products Act

ShiKai packaging change = search for new lotion

 

I've been using a cucumber melon hand and body lotion from ShiKai for a year or two now and have liked it. Nice scent, and it doesn't leave me feeling like an oil slick. But I haven't been fooled by its 'All Natural' claims either since its ingredients include dimethicone and phenoxyethanol. Yum. Tasty goodness. (It really bugs me that manufacturers can slap that All Natural label on just about anything.) But you know how you get comfortable with a product and that testing out others can be both expensive and frustrating? Like with lotion, you generally don't know if you're going to like it until you slather it on your body. And if you hate it, then you're stuck with it. This is why I haven't bothered to change lotions. But ShiKai has just made it really easy for me: they changed their packaging from an easily-recyclable lotion bottle to a difficult-to-recycle #7 tube that could be leaching bisphenol-A. Most communities can recycle #2 bottles with necks. How many of you can recycle one of these tubes? I emailed the company and asked why they switched, and to their credit they responded quickly:

Making shrink art/Shrinky Dinks with #6 plastic clamshells!

News flash: Yes, you can make Shrinky Dink shrink art with #6 plastic! It's easy! Watch this:

Crafting reuse: newspaper origami and #6 plastic Shrinky Dinks

One summer evening, a mom friend from our preschool babysat my kids, and enchanted them with origami creations: kimonos, churches, boxes, animals! It was all quite fantastic, and not having seen the actual folding of the origami papers, I came to the false conclusion that it must be easy. Flash forward to Christmas. My older daughter received an origami kit as a gift. We tried it out a few days ago with canoes. Holy cow! It's so much harder than it looks (or perhaps I am just origami-impaired?) After struggling to create a canoe for each child, we combed the instructions booklet for origami creations with as few steps as possible. I eye the short stack of pretty origami paper that came with the kit, and wonder how I will ever help my kids create anything beautiful and not shred or improperly fold or end up tossing the majority of these paper squares into the recycling bin in a fit of frustration (aren't I an excellent role model?)!

A few words with my origami guru friend calms my concerns. She says you can use any kind of paper to make origami. Newspaper, junk mail, old school papers, you name it.

BYOD: Bring Your Own Durables

A comment made by Brooke in the post below on disposable corn-based plastics has inspired me to try and generate a discussion on using durables at large gatherings. She stated,

I am still having a hard time getting around what to do for large events other then ask people to bring their own durables.

School potlucks, family reunions, church dinners or big parties anyplace -- at home or a park -- how do you avoid using disposable plates, forks, cups, napkins, etc? We've talked about using durables for kid parties, but what about grown-up or family gatherings with lots and lots of people? Check out this recent email from Sherry:

We go to a potluck every week at our local Grange hall and my husband and I bring our own plates, silverware and, yes, cloth napkins. He was sort of embarrassed at first but he's gotten okay with it, especially since our plates are bigger than the paper ones they like to use. If only I could get other people to do the same thing. I just keep trying by example.

I celebrated my 60th birthday in September and threw myself a party. In my invitation I told everyone to bring their own plates. I was so touched that everyone did. Most even brought cloth napkins. I went to Goodwill and bought up supplies of silverware and it went over great!!

Good example of greenwashing: Corn-based plastics

Here's an email from Rebecca:

Hi Enviromoms! OK I have been thinking about the fact that putting food in the landfills is bad and came up with another question. What about all the new corn based products out there that are suppose to be good because the are biodegradable? I have even found diapers that are corn based (for vacations) and use corn based garbage bags. Is this really helping though?

Corn-based plastics are still disposable products, which is pretty much the main reason neither Renee nor I like them. Here are some other reasons:

No more disposable medicine measuring cups!

Dear makers of all over-the-counter medicines,

Why do you always include a disposable medicine measuring cup with every jar of medicine you sell? Here's the thing: we only need one. My daughter needs to take one teaspoon of anti-allergy medicine once a day. We now have a stack of little plastic measuring cups that will reach all the way to the moon if we stacked them one on top of another. Well, not really that far. But it's getting tall. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the point of having a standards-based measuring system to make it easy for people to pull out the ol' measuring spoon and get the same amount that the good doctor has prescribed? It's not like we're talking about crazy measurements like micromilligrams or international units. We're talking teaspoons! Believe it or not, I have several of those in my kitchen. Without fail, every time I go to a pharmacy I'm asked if I'd like a free medicine measuring syringe or spoon, so I also have a large pile of those in my house that rivals the pile of junk cluttering the earth in the opening scenes from Wall-E.

Please. Stop packaging disposable measuring cups with every bottle of medicine you sell. Enough already.

Sincerely,
Renee

PS If you feel the same, let some of the big OTC medicine makers know what you think about their packaging:

• Claritin
• Zyrtec
• Benadryl

Portland: more plastic recycling options

The Master Recycler Plastic Roundups are coming up in October (check the sidebar for dates and locations), where Portlanders can recycle just about every kind of plastic. We've said it before, and we'll say it again: we are so lucky to have this service. However, if you miss a Roundup or are drowning in plastics in-between Roundups, you have more options for plastic recycling:

Portland Recycling Centers: This for-profit business has three locations (NW, North and Lake Oswego) and will accept (for free) every kind of weird plastic film that is accepted at Roundups: dry cleaning bags; mylar (as in the shiny balloons and Goldfish cracker bags); crinkly tortilla chip-type bags; bubble wrap; cereal box liners; six pack rings; and any type of plastic film that wraps a new product (like CDs, toilet paper rolls, shrink wrap -- you get the gist). The innovative company that collects and processes all the recyclables from the Roundups, Agri-Plas, also collects the film from the Portland Recycling Centers.

Far West Fibers: Another for-profit business, these folks will take just about every type of rigid plastic accepted at the Roundup, like take-out containers and other types of clamshell containers, lids and trays. They have four locations around the Metro area.

Curbside: Don't forget that we can now recycle plastic tubs and rigid flower pots in our new recycling rollcarts. How to tell if it's recyclable curbside? First, it should be shaped like a round tub (duh) and will probably be labeled either #2 or #5. Yogurt, margarine, fresh salsa, dips or hummus (though not the type of hummus that comes in the flat, clear containers that are usually marked #1 -- those go to the Roundups or Far West). No lids curbside, however. Those go to the Roundups. Also, as before, any kind of plastic container with a neck: shampoo and lotion bottles, empty cleaning product spray bottles (but not the spray pump), milk jugs, soda bottles. No bottles that have contained motor oil, pesticides or herbicides.