Evert Fresh Update

In my November 7 post about Evert Fresh bags, I expressed my frustration that people seeking to go plastic-free were buying these bags, believing that the bags were not made from petroleum-based plastic. I explained that this mistaken belief came from misleading or missing information on various web sites.

I'm now happy to report that after many emails and phone calls to these companies, at least three web sites have been updated with the correct information. Greenfeet was the first to fix their listing on Amazon.com, rewording the description to state that the "bags are made from a low-density polyethylene plastic (#4) impregnated with a natural clay based mineral that absorbs ethylene." Now, it appears that while Greenfeet still sells the bags on its own site, it is no longer selling them through Amazon.com.

Amazon seller 877MYJUICER also changed the product description to say that the "bags are made from low-density polyethylene plastic materials...."

And after my persistent e-mails and phone calls to Reusablebags.com, they have updated their Evert Fresh description to read, "Evert Fresh bags are made from low density polyethylene that is coated with a fine layer of natural clay containing high levels of a mineral proven to absorb ethylene gas." I am particularly happy about the change to the Reusablebags.com site since it caters to people looking for plastic-free options.

The changes to the Evert Fresh bag descriptions on these sites gives people the information they need to make decisions about whether or not to purchase the bags. So I'm glad for that. I personally won't be buying them, as I stated in my earlier post, because I don't like the idea of using a petroleum-based non-biodegradable plastic bag to keep food fresh a little bit longer.

Wouldn't it be great if someone came up with a compostable bag using the same natural clay technology as Evert Fresh that would keep food fresh until then end of the bag's useful life and then be composted with other green materials? Wouldn't it be great if everyone composted, if even a little bit? Or stopped to think before buying too much food in the first place? These are a few things on my holiday wish list.

So this issue isn't finished for me. There are still a few sites giving somewhat misleading information about the bags. But more importantly, it seems like there is an opportunity here for someone to come up with a truly "green" competing product. I'd love to find the person or company with the knowledge and desire to make something like that happen.
 

 Tweet this!

Plastic-free yogurt? Well, almost. Plus ways to use whey.

Turns out we do have an almost plastic-free prepared yogurt here in the SF Bay Area. Saint Benoît yogurt comes in a reusable, returnable ceramic container and is sold at Whole Foods, Berkeley Bowl, and other natural foods stores. As with the Straus milk containers, you pay a deposit which the store refunds when you return the container. The containers are covered with foil tops, which can be reused until the yogurt is gone, and have a small plastic seal around the rim. That's way less plastic than buying yogurt in disposable polypropylene containers, but I've found a better way.

I thought that in order to make yogurt myself, I needed to invest in a yogurt machine. Not worth it considering the small amount of yogurt we eat. But then Melanie Rimmer of Bean Sprouts revealed a brilliant method of making yogurt with only a Thermos in her post, How To Make Greek Yogurt. You should check out her post to see photos of the step by step process. Here are the basics:

1. Fill a Thermos with any kind of milk you want to use. I used nonfat milk in my handy KQED Public Radio travel Thermos. This step is simply for measuring out the correct amount of milk.


2. Pour the milk into a pan or microwave bowl and bring it to a boil. I used a Pyrex container in the microwave.


3. Remove it from heat or microwave and stick a thermometer into the milk. I used a candy thermometer attached to the side of the Pyrex container. Allow the milk to cool to 122°F (50°C).


4. Pour milk back into Thermos and add a tablespoon of yogurt from a previous batch. I used a tablespoon of my Saint Benoît yogurt.


5. Cover the Thermos and let it sit for 8 - 14 hours. I left it at 8:30 this morning and opened it back up at 7:00 tonight. And it worked!


6. For less watery yogurt, strain it through a cheese cloth. Actually, I put it in a wire sieve over a bowl, and that method worked fine. As you can see in the photo, I ended up with some nice yogurt and a bowl of whey (the watery part.)

In fact, I left the yogurt draining for so long that it was a little thicker than I wanted, so I stirred back some of the whey for a softer consistency. But apparently, if you left it straining longer, you'd end up with yogurt cheese. I may just have to try that.

So now I have this delicious yogurt and a bowl full of whey. I hated to pour out the whey, so of course I did a little more research and found all kinds of nice uses for it. According to this Fias Co Farm article, whey is full of protein, vitamins, and minerals. You can use it in soup, bread, to cook pasta and beans, drink it plain or sweetened, and even feed it to your plants. You don't get that added benefit when you buy prepared yogurt from the store. And this way, I can save the last tablespoon of each batch to start the next one, only needing to buy more milk (which is also not entirely plastic-free, but I've discussed that fact elsewhere.)

And there's another use for whey that the article doesn't mention which I actually discovered this weekend before ever making yogurt. I needed a non-toxic coating to protect an unfinished pine bookcase I bought a few weeks ago. I don't enjoy painting or staining furniture, so I wanted something clear I could slap on quickly. The salesperson at the Ecohome Improvement Store in Berkeley recommended Vermont Natural Coatings PolyWhey Natural Furniture Finish, which is made from, of course, whey instead of petroleum! This whey is a biproduct of the cheese industry.

So I happily slapped on several coats of the mild-smelling stuff (the smell is a little like Elmer's glue) until the container was all used up. It wasn't until I was rinsing out the empty can to recycle it that I noticed it was made from black plastic! Fortunately, this plastic is 100% recycled polypropylene, just like my toothbrush. San Francisco accepts wide-mouthed polypropylene in its recycling bins, so I thought I was all set.

Until I noticed the rim of the container. It's metal! I tried to pry it off with a screwdriver to no avail. The metal rim, as far as I know, renders the container unrecyclable. So I e-mailed the Vermont Natural Coatings company last night and this morning received the following e-mail back:

---

From: "Gregory Hebert" (ghebert@vermontnaturalcoatings.com)
To: beth@fakeplasticfish.com
Subject: RE: VNC Website Inquiry
Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:52:36 -0500

Beth,

Thank you for purchasing PolyWhey Furniture Finish.

Good to know San Francisco's recycling includes #5--not every city is embracing the full range of plastics. Regarding the metal lid, a handsaw is probably the only way to adequately remove the metal lid from the plastic can. Please be careful if you choose to use this method.

Currently, only one U.S. manufacturer makes the recycled plastic cans and so we source from them. They now produce all plastic gallon cans (including the rim and lid) and our newest batch was just put into these. All plastic quarts will be available in 2008 though the company has no plans to make pints. We hope more manufacturers will move toward recycled and recycle-able containers.

Please let me know if you have other questions and good luck with your wood projects.

Gregory Hebert
Vermont Natural Coatings
180 Junction Road
Hardwick, VT 05843
802-472-8700 phone
802-472-5227 fax
ghebert@vermontnaturalcoatings.com

---

So that answers that. I've already hacked open a plastic Brita cartridge. I guess I'll be breaking out the saw again. I do like this coating (although, as Anna Hackman from Green-Talk suggested when I contacted her for furniture finish recommendations, I should wait and see how it holds up in the long run before recommending it to others. So that's what I shall do.)

Is this way more than you ever wanted to know about whey? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
 

 Tweet this!

I'm not the only one thinking about tape lately.

There was a very serious message on my answering machine this morning from my sister, Ellen, who was worried about the Christmas present she was wrapping to send me. "Help. I'm standing here paralyzed. I reused the wrapping that you used for my present last year, I got a cardboard box, I filled the empty space with scrap paper, I thought you would be so proud, and then I went to tape the box shut... with plastic. Please tell me what to do. I'm serious. I respect what you're doing. I don't want to send you something that you don't want. But I can't finish packaging your gift. Please call me back."

This message was heart-breaking. I never, ever want to cause such distress to the family that I love. But it was also really sweet to hear how hard she was trying to send me a plastic-free gift. Of course I called her back and told her to use whatever tape she had and not worry about it. And I thanked her profusely for what she was trying to do for me.

I just thought it was such a funny coincidence because she hadn't read the blog post I wrote last night about wrapping gifts without tape. And then, to add another coincidence, I got an e-mail update this morning from a blog I subscribe to, Sustainable Is Good, which was all about using less plastic tape in packaging! While the article is geared toward industry, there are a few things we as individuals can do:

1) Use less tape on the box. As the article says, "When plastic box sealing tape is applied manually, it is almost always over-applied. Packers perceive tape to be flimsy, so they tend to apply several long strips when a single, shorter one will do. In reality, most grades of plastic tape have outstanding holding and cross directional strength."

2) Use paper tape. This is the kind of tape I've been using the few times I've needed to package something since I stopped using plastic. I don't know where we bought this tape because I found it in a drawer a few months ago, but I've seen it in a local office supply store in San Francisco (Patrick's) and also on Amazon.com. It's probably coated with a little bit of plastic, but this is what we have for now.

Of course, there's also the kind of reinforced paper tape that requires water to activate the glue. I don't know how practical that kind of tape is for home use. Maybe if you were moving and had to pack a lot of boxes at once it would be worth it.

Another reader asked me what I use to seal envelopes that I reuse. So far I've been using either a bit of masking tape or some free stickers that I got from another junk mailer. Sorry I don't have a better answer than that right now.

This post feels kind of disjointed, but I need to get back to house organizing and kitty-proofing! Also, I have a couple of kitchen experiments I might try tonight, if I have time, and post the results tomorrow.
 

 Tweet this!

Wrapping presents without tape or glue

Here are two Christmas presents I received tonight from a company I work for, each containing at least 4 pieces of Scotch (plastic) tape. One thing my friends and family know about me is that I can't wait to open presents, and tonight was no exception. So I justified my impatience by resolving to figure out a way to re-wrap the same presents using no tape or glue at all.

For a few weeks now, I've been searching the web for instructions, hoping to find a way to wrap gifts without any tape OR ribbon. I even went to Borders after work tonight to look for a book on gift-wrapping, to no avail. The couple of books I found required double-sided tape. So I decided I'd just have to figure it out myself. I got part of the way there. The method I discovered does require some ribbon to hold it in place, but nothing sticky.

Why, you may ask, am I making a big deal out of something as petty as a little bit of tape? Well, I guess it's not a huge deal when you look at the mountains of plastic in this world. But why use something if you don't have to? And not putting tape or glue on the paper leaves it in better shape to be reused by the recipient.

Normally, I'm a terrible, lazy gift-wrapper, preferring reused gift bags and a bit of reused tissue paper. And I guess if I were going to wrap a box, I wouldn't use new wrapping paper, but maybe a grocery bag or the comics pages from the newspaper, with twine or yarn instead of plasticy ribbon. But these are the materials I was given to work with, so here goes:

1. Wrap the paper around the box and pull the two long edges together so that they meet in the middle.


2. Fold both edges of paper over and flatten them down.


3. This is what the seam looks like.


4. On the side of the box, fold each flap of paper one at a time, clockwise.


5. 


6. 


7. 


8. Tuck the bottom flap underneath the right flap and press it flat.


9. Turn the box on its side and fold the flaps on the other side of the box in the same manner. Use the pressure of the box against the floor to keep the first side in place while working on the second side.


10. If you were really careful, the paper might stay put without ribbon. But who wants to be that careful? Tie your ribbon or string or yarn very tightly around the box to hold the paper in place.

So you want to know what was in the boxes? A very nice Riedel wine decanter and two merlot glasses. Totally plastic-free! (I don't know if there was plastic in the boxes before they were wrapped or not. A lot of people know I am not into plastic these days, so the gift-giver may have taken it out. Or maybe there wasn't any in there to begin with. I'm just glad I only ended up with a tiny bit of tape!)

There are all kinds of other creative ways of wrapping gifts. Clever fabric bags, handkerchiefs, Japanese furoshiki, etc. What are your favorites? I'll certainly be using the bare minimum of wrapping simply because I don't enjoy doing it. But others love to wrap gifts. Please share!
 

 Tweet this!

Week 26 Results: 1.0 oz of plastic.

The amount of plastic is back down again, weighing less than ever. This is the 26th week, the end of the first 6 months, and you'll notice that the graph looks somewhat different.

From now on, I'll still photograph and tally my waste each week, but the graph is going to show one bar for every 4 weeks so that I can fit a year's worth in the same amount of space. Tomorrow, I'll photograph and tally everything that I've collected since the project began. Here's the list for this week:

Non-recyclable items used this week but purchased before the plastic project began:

• 1 Trader Joe's Nori Maki rice crackers bag. Found in the back of the cupboard, totally stale. Didn't even realize I still had them.


• 1 cap from a prescription bottle.


• 1 Emergen-C packet. Another find, this time in my suitcase. Didn't realize I had any left.


• 1 wrapper from a bar of rose-scented soap. A gift from a friend. As far as I can tell, this is our very last bar of plastic-wrapped soap, and man does it smell strong since I took the wrapper off!


• Plastic from a box of Kleenex. We may still have a few Kleenex boxes left. Will be searching for plastic-free after these are used up.

Recyclable plastic waste purchased before the plastics project began:

• 1 prescription bottle (#2 plastic.) Will either recycle or check to see if a vet will take it. Regular pharmacies are not allowed to reuse precription bottles in California.

So that's all the old stuff. Now for the new plastic waste.

• 3 Refresh Endura single-use eye drop containers (#4 plastic).


• 1 plastic ziplock bag from the bracelet I bought as a gift at Itsy Bitsy this week. I wrote about this little baggie on Wednesday.

So that's the plastic for the week.

We had dinner with our friends John and Laura tonight and visited with the kittens that will be coming to live with us next weekend. Can't wait! This week we'll be making all kinds of preparations, kitten-proofing and getting the things we need, hopefully as plastic-free as possible.

Also, we are both seriously considering becoming vegetarians. (Are you happy, Marika?) Watched the movie, Fast Food Nation last night. While I had already read the book, as well as Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, actually seeing images of the slaughter house/meat packing plant and the way the workers, not to mention the animals, are treated left me sobbing in my chair for twenty minutes. Then, John and Laura's delicious dinner of North African chickpea/tomato stew tonight helped us realize how easy and delicious it could be to make the switch.

I don't eat much meat to begin with. I doubt I'd miss it. What are some of your favorite easy, plastic-free, vegetarian recipes?
 

 Tweet this!