Time is Running Out for 2 Causes I Care About!

This month I've asked you guys to participate in two quick and painless campaigns to help out some worthwhile projects and organizations. This is the final stretch. The Netflix Find Your Voice Contest ends Sunday at 3AM ET and our $1 for Charity drive ends this coming Wednesday. Please take a minute to help out if you haven't already.

Help Jenny Deller's environmental feature film Future Weather win the Netflix competition and receive the help she needs to get the film made.

Jenny is not only making an environmental film, but she's trying to run her production as greenly as possible. Read my interview with Jenny Deller here. Read more about the Netflix competition here. And please vote 5 stars for Future Weather here.


Time Is Running Out to Spend a Buck for Charity

Thanks to everyone who has reached into their pocket and kicked-in $1. Hundreds of you have responded (many with more than a dollar) as eleven environmental websites team up to make the world a better place. Together, we're supporting some great organizations. And you get to help choose the two from this list which will receive 100 percent of the collected donations:

• Sustainable Harvest: Helping farmers and communities in tropical regions


• Kiva: The revolutionary microloan agency


• Healthy Child, Healthy World: Creating safer, greener homes for kids


• Environmental Working Group: The environmental watchdog


• Water for People: Supporting clean, safe water for everyone

Please take a moment to look these organizations over. Pick your favorite, then go to my $1 for Charity Page and vote with your dollar. You can also donate directly through PayPal to this address: 1dollarcharity@gmail.com.

Summer is a lean time for charities

The summer months are always tough for charitable organizations: People are busy, discretionary funds get diverted to well-deserved vacations, and economic times are hard. To be honest, donations have slowed since our initial call, and we're playing catch-up to meet our goals.

We'd love to present the winning charities with meaningful checks. So would you please consider donating right now? Deadline is Wednesday, July 8th. Each of these charities matter, and every dollar counts.


Share both messages with others!

You can multiply your Netflix vote and your $1 donation by passing the messages along to others. Twitter about them; email the article to friends; post it on StumbleUpon or your favorite social media service. There's still time to help!

Thank you, thank you. I promise that once Pledge Week is over, we'll go back to our regularly scheduled uninterrupted programming. :-)
 

No Technology is Truly Green: A guest post from Alyssa J. Pasquale

Before you invest in that new "green" computer or purchase those fun solar deck lights, read this insider's perspective from Fake Plastic Fish reader Alyssa J. Pasquale and consider whether buying new technology is ever truly green. If you have an idea for a guest post, please email me at beth[at]fakeplasticfish[dot]com and let me know. I'd love to feature more of your ideas here!

I would first like to thank Beth for allowing me to write this guest post. My name is Alyssa and I am a PhD candidate at a very large university in Boston. I work in electrical engineering and have a focus on photonic devices. These are generally nanometer-scale devices that use light to do something cool. Some people in my department work on biological sensors, some on solar cells, some on lasers, and some on LEDs.

I’ve been doing research for a long time (I started as an undergrad) and one thing that’s prevalent in my work is lots and lots of waste. As I told Beth, I find it awfully ironic that the technology that is being hailed by many as able to save the world is such a large producer of toxic waste. And people who don’t work in R&D or in high tech industry might not be aware of what goes into your LED flashlight or the laser that does your eye surgery.

Being a PhD candidate can be disillusioning in many ways. Not only are you constantly surrounded by many of extremely intelligent people who know more than you, but you learn about all of the limitations of everything. LEDs will always consume power. Solar cells will never be 100% efficient. Lasers will never be perfectly coherent. In other words, nothing comes for free.

My work brings me into a class 1000 clean room quite often. (A class 1000 clean room means that there are 1000 particles of dust allowed in any cubic foot of airspace. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s clean!) This is probably the area of my research that creates the most waste, and much of it is plastic. What follows is a list of the plastic things that I interact with in the clean room, as well as whether or not it’s reusable, disposable, or can be reused.


(Shown in photo: two bouffant caps, four nitrile gloves, a few strips of Parafilm, one small wiper, one petri dish with lid, one gel pack sample holder.)

REUSABLE (Routinely reused.)

o Gowns, booties & hoods – It is mandatory to wear a gown when you enter a clean room. It is not to protect you from chemicals; it is to protect the clean room from all of your skin cells! The ones in my lab are made of 99% polyester and 1% carbon. (I don’t know why they have carbon in them.) These are washed once a week and are returned individually shrink-wrapped in plastic disposable baggies (to keep dust out during transit, presumably).

o Goggles – These are likely made from polycarbonate.

o Face shield – Probably made from polycarbonate, these are important to wear when working with dangerous chemicals. The last thing you want to get is acid splashing on your face. They’re also a joy to wear when you have on glasses and goggles and your glasses start sliding down and you can’t touch your face. (Not.)

o PTFE tweezers – When working with acids and bases, you need an inert material to use as a tweezer because metal will corrode. PTFE is polytetrafluroethylene, better known as Teflon.

o Beakers – As I said before, some chemicals etch glass, so if you have to pour them out it has to be into a plastic jar.

MIGHT BE REUSED

o Sample holders – These can be simple like plastic petri dishes or more complicated gel packs that have a layer of sticky gel to keep samples from sliding around.

o Protective equipment covers – These are like the film that comes over your cell phone screens. I’m not sure what exactly it’s made of but I’d be shocked if it’s not plastic. These are to protect equipment from any chemicals that may be on our nitrile gloves.

o Heavy duty chemical gloves – These are for when you work with heavy duty chemicals. The plastic it’s made of depends on which you buy. Some can be PVC, Neoprene or heavy duty latex. Nitrile gloves are thin and easily eaten by acids. Heavy duty gloves can generally be reused until they start to break down after too much chemical exposure.

o Chemical jugs – Most chemicals we buy are in plastic jugs, some in glass. Some chemicals (such as HF) absolutely have to be in plastic because they etch glass. There are only two chemicals (out of many) that I use in glass jars, most come in plastic. We reuse them as waste jars but I honestly have no idea what happens to them after that.

DISPOSABLE

o Pipettes & wrappers

o Clean room wipers – These are pieces of “paper” that we use to wipe up chemicals, or write notes about things as we’re working. I was astonished to find out that they are not really paper, but a mix of 55% cellulose and 45% polyester. They are not supposed to release any fibers (dust) into the air, and cannot be easily ripped (if you do manage to rip one, no fibers are released, unlike what happens when you rip paper).

o Bouffant caps – Made from 100% polypropylene, these protect the clean room from hair. (They are like hair nets that food service workers use.)

o Nitrile gloves – The clean room uses nitrile gloves. Other facilities use latex gloves but I’m not sure if they are natural or synthetic. Nitrile gloves are a synthetic rubber copolymer.

o Parafilm – This is a thermoplastic used to seal jars and bottles.

o Tape – We use a lot of plastic tape in the lab. Vacuum tape and double sided tape are very popular.

That list just encompasses the plastic that is generated due to clean room work. It doesn’t consider any of the other waste, such as the HUGE amounts of chemical waste. (In one day I can easily use acetone, methanol, isopropanol, polymer resins, methyl isobutyl ketone, tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid, hydrogen peroxide, potassium iodide, hydrofluoric acid, and a lot of de-ionized water. Not to mention the gases – sulfur hexafluoride, methane, nitrogen, oxygen, argon, tri-fluoromethane, etc. etc.)

There is also a lot of plastic that comes with the life of a grad student. We’re constantly buying supplies, and most of the time they come in plastic. Chemicals especially need a lot of isolation in shipping and will generally have many layers of foam, plastic, vermiculite, and lots of warning labels to keep upright. Computers come with plastic towers (and we use a lot of computers).

Seminars and other such meetings are held an awful lot in my building, and there is also plastic waste related with this. The department provides bottled water and sodas at some events (fortunately, some events have reusable beverage urns). For some strange reason the lemons for the tea are always wrapped in plastic wrap. The food is put on plastic trays (which I assume are reused). Crackers are sometimes served and they come in plastic sleeves.

Not to mention the lifestyle of being a grad student. While I personally use my flexible hours to ensure that I have enough time to home cook all of my meals (and I always bring in lunch in a glass container with a plastic – oops – lid), many grad students opt for take-out. There’s a Subway that’s not far from my building, and many students come in between noon and one with a plastic bag holding a giant sandwich. Lots of students consume lots of bottled water. I know of a few students with Nalgene bottles or reusable coffee mugs. I have a SIGG bottle. One of my office-mates actually keeps a Brita filter on his desk. But most opt for bottled water even though we have perfectly good water fountains on every floor.

So next time you buy or read about a newly engineered “green” product – such as an LED lighting device – think about what went into it. While better than older alternatives, I wouldn’t call most technology “green” at all. Although it may sound hypocritical coming from an engineer, there’s a lot to be said for old-fashioned technology.
 

Fixing my Blue Plastic Umbrella

Plastic is good for some things, right? Like keeping us dry in the rain. A few months ago, Treehugger posted an article about eco-friendly umbrellas ranging from those made from recycled plastic to one touted as the first biodegradable umbrella. So when my little blue umbrella broke, I considered replacing it with one of those -- until I remembered that the most eco-friendly choice would be to repair the one I have!

The problem: One of the umbrella's ribs was broken. (I now know it's called a rib after finding an online diagram called Parts of an Umbrella.)


Upon close inspection, I could see that a Springy Part A needed to go back into Straight Part B.


But how to hold them together? Michael came up with the brilliant idea of using a straightened paperclip. And voilà!


I twisted the paperclip with pliers to hold it in place and bent it in a circle to keep it from puncturing the umbrella.


And here's the finished product, complete with a few pieces of duct tape (which we already had) to patch a couple of little holes. The duct tape might not be beautiful, but it worked. Isn't it nice when "green" and "cheap" get together?


This is nice too. Just because I couldn't resist.



And now please check out Cat's fantastic blog post about disposable umbrellas and an artist who makes unique clothing and bags from donated old umbrellas. Fix first! Donate later.
 

Kathleen Egan: Surfing the Plastic Wave

Kathleen Egan -- surfer, artist, and environmental activist -- heads up SF Surfrider's Plastics Subcommittee, which is working to end the plague of plastic pollution in our oceans. I first met her last month displaying her Plastic Wave sculpture (made from the collected plastic of 12 friends over two weeks) at Adventure Ecology's SMART Art competition.

We met again this past Friday and ended up hanging out at San Francisco's Pier 29-1/2 (where David de Rothschild is building his Plastiki boat from recycled plastic) after an unfortunate collision between a U-Haul trailer and a metal warehouse gate. Sitting and waiting for the repair people to arrive gave us a chance to see a glimpse of the Plastiki in progress, play with a couple of cute dogs, and enjoy the sun while chatting about all things plastic.

Kathleen began surfing in 2001 after moving to San Francisco and having a surfer friend take her under his wing, and the practice has become life-changing.

"Every wave is unique. Every time on the board is a slightly different experience. Balancing is hard, but catching a wave in the first place is the first challenge. It takes hours of practice. You can't accelerate the learning process. You just have to put the time in."

She tells me that to surf is to be totally in the moment. Multi-tasking is not possible because the sport requires total focus. You're aware of wind, water, other animals or people around you, and emotions like fear. These waves can be very scary. And then she says something I love so much, I have to make her pause so I can get the words down exactly right:

"You are where you are. You have to go through the waves to get out and through the waves again to get back in."

It's a metaphor, not only for life, but for the environmental movement and for finding ways to live sustainably. There are no shortcuts. My interpretation: we can't wait for some miracle technology to save us from the mess we've made. Each of us must do our part, every day. We can't bypass the waves; we have to go through them.

Kathleen became aware of the plastic pollution problem after a presentation given by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation over two years ago. Surfing in destinations all over the world, she's seen the problem first hand in Indonesia, Mexico, Hawaii. Now, she points at an empty plastic bottle on the dock near our feet and says that when you first start noticing how much plastic there is, and then realize how fast the population is growing, you make the connection about how much plastic each person generates, and the amounts are alarming, the problem overwhelming. "We can't reach everyone all at once, but we can focus on the people who are open to change and who just need the right information to get involved."

(Perhaps we can start a "wave" that will pick up the others as it gains momentum and grows bigger.)

As for art, Kathleen has always been creative, but she started working with plastic trash around the same time she became aware of the problem. During a beach cleanup a few years ago, the colored shards of plastic strewn across the sand reminded her of mardi gras beads and gave her the idea to create mosaics. She collects plastic from the beaches wherever she surfs. In fact, the plastic in her blue wave mosaic (on the left) is from a trip to Indonesia. She plans to create her next piece with plastic from El Salvador.

But scooping up bits of plastic for art projects isn't enough. And, Kathleen insists, all of our small personal changes will not be enough without cooperation and change from businesses. Our conversation becomes animated at this point -- me arguing that we won't get companies to change until individuals themselves change first and begin to vote with their dollars -- and Kathleen insisting that not all individuals are going to change and that a handful of passionate activists can make a big difference.

We're both right, of course. Look at the success of the Brita campaign. Kathleen wants to take a similar approach to urge Jamba Juice to give up using Styrofoam cups and plastic straws for its drinks. And she wants more visibility into what companies are doing. In addition to her avocations as surfer, artist, and activist, Kathleen has a day job involving some pretty large corporations. When she asks what motivates them to "go green," she hears answers like brand image, efficiency, government regulation. But she never hears that they want to avoid negative press. She asks, why not? Why aren't more of us out here letting companies know we won't tolerate unsustainable products and practices?

What will it take to create this wave?
 

Kids Less Plastic: A Guest Post from Deborah Hladecek

Deborah Hladecek is newly committed to reducing plastic in her family's life. And living in Northern California, she's practically my neighbor. So I was thrilled when she offered to write a guest post about what she's been doing about the plastic in her child's world. Deborah writes the truly awesome Pure Mothers blog. She also participated in the Show Your (Plastic) Trash Challenge this month. It was an eye-opening experience for her. Check out her stash.

When Beth at FakePlasticFish asked for more bloggers to write about plastic, I thought, what could I possibly have to say that she hasn’t said already? She’s the plastic-free goddess! Then my toddler clamored and clawed his way on to my lap to see what I was doing on the computer and I realized that I have another perspective - the mommy view. Beth has her cats, and I have another human being using more resources and contributing to my plastic consumption. I’m a green mom trying to balance what’s good for us with what’s good for the planet, and I am learning that they don’t always co-exist.

Plastic tends to fall into five categories when it comes to babies and children; feeding supplies, food packaging, personal care products, toys, and gear.

Let’s start with feeding. Breastfeeding is the obvious green choice. My son got great nutrition and the planet didn’t suffer one bit. There was absolutely no packaging or energy used (other than my body burning up those extra calories to make milk). No bottles to sterilize and no formula bottles or cans to purchase and throw away. Once my baby started eating solid foods, I was able to make most of it from organic, local fruits and vegetables and I froze servings in reusable plastic baby cubes. Not much waste there either. I can continue to use the cubes for fruit ices and then pass them on to another mom. I did purchase a delicious, fresh, organic baby food called Homemade Baby, and it was packaged in recyclable plastic. I chose a couple of flavors from them that were more difficult or too expensive to make at home. If you buy pre-made baby food, fresh tastes better than jarred, but glass jars are more eco-friendly. The lids on glass jars are still a problem though, because they are lined with BPA, a hormone-disrupting chemical. Homemade is still the greenest choice.



The biggest problem I see out there is the use of “Toss and Go” cups, straws and plates. What a terrible concept- use it, toss it and off you go, while the plastic doesn’t ever “go”. The more we can make at home and package ourselves in reusable containers, the less will go to the landfill or end up in our oceans. We use stainless steel bottles, stainless steel baby utensils, To-Go Ware containers and reusable snack sacks that we found on etsy. This helped us do away with Ziploc bags - a staple in most homes with children. And why do I want my child to eat with plastic utensils when Mom and Dad use stainless steel? Oneida makes a beautiful baby and toddler collection.



Once my son reached toddlerhood he got picky- like most toddlers, and it’s easy for me to grab a box of cereal bars, juice boxes and prepared, organic frozen meals - all laden in plastic. As busy as my son is, I do whatever it takes to get him to eat. And, today, who has time to make everything from scratch? I’m a SAHM and I still can’t find time to make everything from scratch. This is where the dichotomy comes in. There are plenty of organic, choices available that my son will eat, but there is always some plastic involved in the packaging. I can’t always make it to the farmer’s market or health food store to get fresh fruits and veggies. A child can throw a wrench into the best-laid plans and I have to account for illnesses when I can’t get out to the store. If you have a child, you’re probably like me and keep some frozen foods on hand. It’s a necessity because they ARE convenient. But here are some ways I’ve cut back on plastic associated with my organic foods:

- I always bring my own bags everywhere - including cotton produce and grain bags for fruits, veggies and bulk bin items. Why bring your own grocery bag and then proceed to put all of your produce in those clear plastic bags?

- I also don’t purchase pre-packaged chicken anymore, because it comes on Styrofoam and is wrapped in plastic. I ask them to just wrap it in the paper and leave out any plastic. Unfortunately, I can’t purchase hot dogs and sausages directly from the deli because they use pork casings. We only eat fish and fowl, so, I have to purchase the pre-packaged organic sausages - they’re the only choice with no casing.

- When in season, I purchase fresh fruits and berries from my farmer’s market and freeze some for later. I still purchase frozen blueberries, because my son devours them!

- I am reducing the amount of juice boxes and filling up a stainless steel kid’s thermos with juice from glass bottles to take with us when we are out.

- I make homemade muffins more often and sneak veggies in there, like carrots or zucchini, to bring with us when we are out. This cuts back on cereal bars.

- I’ve started making my own yogurt. I have to work on my recipe a bit. It was a little too tart for my son’s taste, but my husband and I ate them. So, that cuts back on our store bought yogurt, which comes in plastic tubs, and are not accepted into the recycling, where I live.



My biggest frustration has been with personal care products for my baby and me. There are actually quite a few organic choices available today, but almost all of them are contained in some form of plastic. And, if they’re packaged in glass, they usually have a plastic lid. Those lids bother me. They always have, because they cannot be recycled. How many little lids exist in the world? I would bury my head in the sand on that one, but would probably choke on a plastic lid. So, what have I done in this department? For myself, I have switched to solid shampoo bars and as soon as I run out of my pump hand soap, I am using good old-fashioned bars. I learned how to felt soap to make them look prettier and they don’t leave the soap dish a scummy mess. I also signed up to take a class to make my own soap and body butters/lotions. I will make some for my child too, because I simply cannot find baby stuff in glass. There is only one company, who I love, by the way, called BabyBearShop. They make an organic shea butter balm for babies in glass (with a pesky plastic lid), body oil in glass with a metal lid and my favorite organic lip balm in a little tin. I am never buying lip balm in a plastic tube again!



The biggest personal care item has got to be diapers and wipes. Cloth diapering has made a comeback – good news for the environment. I hate to say it, but we mostly use your run-of-the-mill disposable with a splattering of all-in-ones and organic training underpants. My son is so skinny; he always tried pulling the cloth diapers off and had difficulty walking in them. Sorry Beth. Sorry Earth. I tried. I really did. My saving grace is that we use 100% biodegradable, earth-friendly wipes packaged in a biodegradable compostable chalk-based package called Nature Babycare. No plastic involved!



Toys and gear are different from the other baby categories, in that these are longer-lived items. I have some solace knowing that a fish hasn’t swallowed a stroller or a baby car seat, but I still think about the amount of plastic when making these purchasing decisions. Legally, we have to use a car seat. But other than that, we really don’t need all the “stuff” that “they” say we need. I opted for eco-friendly slings over using the stroller, but I do have a stroller; I own two, actually. First time moms will probably empathize with me. We just don’t know what will work- and I fell for the “stuff” at first. Some babies like bouncers, some like swings. They all contain plastic. From crib mobiles to teething rings, plastic abounds. We limit our plastic by purchasing used toys made of plastic and new toys made of wood, fabric or metal. Learning more about Waldorf education and their toys has helped tremendously. Some of my son’s favorite toys are his carved wooden figures of people and animals from Germany.


There are a lot more ways I can cut down on our plastic and I am finding alternatives every day. Changes like this don’t happen overnight, but they can happen and life with less plastic is not as hard as it sounds. Just take it one item at a time. So, that’s my challenge to all you moms out there. Just look at where you could find an alternative that would eliminate some plastic. Day by day it gets easier and your kids will thank you for trying to make the world we are leaving to them, a better place.

And if you know if ways you can share with me, I’m listening.