Vajrapani Retreat Center: find the plastic; win a prize!

Vajrapani Institute is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery nestled in the Santa Cruz mountains. Care for the earth and all its creatures is one of its core practices, to the extent that the members try as much as possible to avoid killing even insects. This is where I spent the weekend, sitting in silence, listening to the birds, showering among the trees, and just having a moment to breath.

I love taking pictures, so on the last day of the retreat, I snapped a few to share with you. But so as not to lose the theme of this blog, let's make a little contest. To the person who can identify a large mass of plastic hidden within one of these photos, I'll send a copy of Sierra Club's book, Seven Wonders For A Cool Planet. It's a nifty little book that Sierra Club sent me to review. But after reading it, I'd rather just pass it along and see what you think.

Next week, I'll reveal the winner and also discuss the ramifications of this type of plastic and its use. But for now, just enjoy. You can click on each photo to see a larger version.




























 

 

Announcements: Van Jones, No Plastic Left Behind, & Message In A Bottle

I have a trio of exciting announcements, so please be sure and read the whole post.

1) Britt Bravo of Have Fun * Do Good emailed me a few days ago to help spread the word about Van Jones's new book, Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems, which is being released on October 7. If you don't know who Van Jones is, you should! Ten years ago, he founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights here in Oakland to promote positive alternatives to violence and incarceration through efforts which include the Green Collar Jobs Campaign to create opportunities in the green economy for poor people and people of color. And he was recently named a Time Magazine Hero of the Environment.

I heard Van Jones interviewed several months ago on Britt's Big Vision podcast and was blown away by this man who is able to bridge many different communities and make the links between environmental and social justice. This book is just what our country needs right now. And the campaign is urging folks to pre-order the book NOW before it releases Oct 7 so that it has a chance on the Best Seller list. All pre-orders are counted on the day the book releases, apparently. (If the previous link doesn't work, try this one.)

2) Saturday, October 11, is Earth Resource Foundation's 1st Annual "No Plastic Left Behind," A Campaign Against the Plastic Plague Conference at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, CA. I'll be participating in the 1pm panel: “Acting Out” – How activism can make a difference and also leading a break-out session on alternatives to plastic.

Do you live near Costa Mesa? Please come and join us for an entire day devoted to plastic and what we can do about it!

3) The following Monday, October 13, Anna Cummins and Dr. Marcus Eriksen will speak on marine plastics at the Marin Humane Society in Novato from 7:30 - 8:50pm. Anna and Marcus are about to begin the third leg of their "Message In A Bottle" tour which began last winter aboard the Alguita research vessel, on which they sailed out to study the plastic in the North Pacific Gyre; continued with Marcus's journey aboard the Junk, a raft made of plastic bottles; and will finish up with an amphibious bicycle trip from Vancouver to Mexico during which they'll give presentations about plastic marine debris and deliver samples of the plastic soup directly to educators, organizations, and policymakers.

I'm excited to finally meet Anna and Marcus in person after emails and phone conversations with Anna. The Algalita Marine Research Foundation's efforts to bring the "Pacific Garbage Patch" to the world's attention was the original impetus for Fake Plastic Fish! So of course I jumped at the opportunity to make a few introductory remarks before the presentation, which is being sponsored in part by Green Sangha. Green Sangha will also have its plastics display on view. If you're in Marin and you're free that night, please come and hear about what plastic is doing to our marine environments from a couple of people who have seen it with their own eyes.

That's all for now. I leave for a weekend meditation retreat tomorrow afternoon and will be gone until Sunday night. Perhaps another zero plastic week?
 

 

"We can either have plastic toy sharks or real sharks, not both."

The above quote sounds almost like the tagline for this blog, doesn't it? In fact, it is from a letter to the Monterey Bay Aquarium written by Erica Etelson, a friend of one of my Green Sangha friends. Erica visited the aquarium with her family a few months ago and was disappointed by all the plastic and other petroleum-based items for sale in the gift shop, as well as food packaging in the cafe.

Now, we're used to seeing gift shops at zoos and museums. It's one of the ways these places bring in cash to fund their educational work. However, the mission of the Monterey Bay Aquarium is special. Their purpose is to educate the public about the health of our oceans. They are the folks who publish the Seafood Watch sustainable seafood guides each year. And through their Center for the Future of the Oceans, they "champion policies that conserve and restore threatened marine wildlife on the California coast and in the northern Pacific, including the southern sea otter, sharks, tunas and sea turtles." So to Erica, it was ironic that they would offer for sale so many items that are actually contributing to the sickness of marine eco-systems.

My Green Sangha group saw the irony in the situation too when we read Erica's letter and the response she received, and so as a group action we all handwrote our own letters to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Below I have reprinted the full exchange: Erica's initial letter, the response from the gift shop manager, and Erica's follow-up letter. Included is the contact info for the aquarium gift shop manager if after reading this exchange you feel inspired to send your own message.

----- Original Message -----
From: Erica Etelson
To: jpackard@mbayaq.org ; jhekkers@mbayaq.org ; caslanian@mbayaq.org ; msutton@mbayaq.org
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 3:14 PM
Subject: ocean-friendly concessions


Dear M-Bay Aquarium Friends:

My family recently enjoyed its first trip to the aquarium and were particularly impressed with your efforts to educate guests about sustainable seafood--efforts that were in evidence on the menus of several of the local seafood restaurants. The flush toilets are great too!

But I have to tell you how dismayed I was by the volume of petroleum-based items for sale in your gift shop and cafe. Plastic toys, synthetic clothing, plastic beverage bottles and food containers--how ironic it was to see a display of books all on the theme of averting climate catastrophe right next to a rack of fleece jackets made in Guatemala.

You folks surely know better than I do how much damage plastic debris and the burning of fossil fuels do to the health of the oceans. We can either have plastic toy sharks or real sharks, not both.

I'm actually writing a book about how to transition to greener lifestyle choices so, if you're interested, I'd be happy to go into further details about some of the problems I observed and can even come down again and do a more complete audit. I know how devoted you are to your mission of protecting marine species and so I hope you will take my comments in the spirit of promoting our mutual goals. If the aquarium blazed the trail on greening its operations, surely other museums and aquariums would follow, not to mention the thousands of visitors who would receive a firsthand education.

Sincerely,

Erica Etelson
Berkeley, CA

----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Fischer afischer@mbayaq.org
To: Erica Etelson
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 3:58 PM
Subject: Monterey Bay Aquarium Guest Feedback Response


Dear Ms. Etelson

My name is Andrew Fischer , General Manager of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Gift and Bookstore. I received your comment regarding us offering products that are manufactured in other countries and therefore may contradict the message of conservation, and I wanted to get back to you with a response.

I personally appreciate feedback from guests like you. We can only improve our operation with comments such as these.

The concerns you raised regarding the origin of our products is a challenge for my team on many levels as we strive to provide our 1.8 Million visitors a special selection of quality items at an affordable price.

Our buying team is addressing the concerns that you noted by reevaluating each category in our stores. What we face is that in many areas (such as giftware, key chains, mugs, magnets, apparel, plush, and many toys) there are no options to purchase at the quantity, quality, and selection as what overseas production offers.

In fact, almost all of the books we offer on the topic of environmental concerns are printed on non-recycled paper and in other countries. If we chose to offer only domestically printed book publications, our selection would be minimal at best.

My staff and I are prepared to make a major shift in our business practices in certain categories, but it will be a challenge to do this overnight. We are working with our vendors on sourcing products from within North America , but as of this moment, we are limited.

We will be looking to offer a consistent message by presenting a permanent Think Green section of the Main Gift and Bookstore. This will officially start on Earth Day (April 22nd). The items will include many of the books you noted, as well as organic cotton shirts, actual trees that you can plant, recycled pencils and glass, as well as other aquarium themed recycled items. We will add to this department over the coming months.

We are also very proud to be the exclusive location to offer an Organic Plush Penguin (made with Soy and the fiber from the Kapok seed). This hypoallergenic Penguin is however manufactured in Indonesia . The Penguin is a great example of the challenges I noted above. No US manufacturer of quality plush exists, let alone one that would go to this length to produce an earth friendly product.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s mission is to inspire conservation of the oceans, as well as to educate on environmental and ecological concerns. The Gift and Bookstore helps contribute funds to achieve this mission, and should follow the path set-forth by the dedicated staff and founders. It is my job to find options, and to take the right direction to better match this mission.

I thank you for your focus on this very important area of our operation.

If you have any further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me at 831-645-4945 or via my e-mail at afischer@mbayaq.org

I have also sent a copy of this response to Ed Prohaska , our Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Enterprise Development.

Sincerely yours,

Andrew Fischer
General Manager of Merchandising
Monterey Bay Aquarium
831-648-4945 P
831-648-4989 F
afischer@mbayaq.org

----- Original Message -----
From: Erica Etelson
To: Andrew Fischer
Cc: eprohaska@mbayaq.org
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 12:36 PM
Subject: Re: Monterey Bay Aquarium Guest Feedback Response


Dear Andrew,

Thanks for your response. I do understand the challenge you're facing and am glad to hear of the initiation of the Think Green section. But I still want to challenge the assumption that the aquarium's mission includes providing your visitors with affordable products. I think that's Wal-Mart's mission. The aquarium's mission, on the other hand, is to promote the protection of marine life by educating the public about the dire environmental threats to the oceans. I don't see how encouraging your visitors to buy petroleum-based products manufactured by exploited workers in countries with lax environmental standards and shipped across the globe is anything other than a direct contradiction of your mission.

Part of environmental education includes challenging consumers to forego their entitlement to products that have cheap price tags but come with hidden environmental costs. It is far better to buy nothing than to buy a product whose manufacture damaged the environment. I imagine that the bookstore provides the aquarium with needed revenue but I would guess that that portion of the budget could be made up for by a fundraising campaign that highlights the aquarium's downsizing of the bookstore to a small, 100% eco-friendly selection of items. I think donors would step up to bat to help the aquarium avoid the hypocrisy of selling plastic fish and other items that often wind up as ocean debris that kill real fish.

I'd also encourage you to inventory the items sold in your cafe, most of which are non-organic and many of which are excessively packaged in plastic. There is absolutely no need for plastic water bottles or beverages of any kind. Nutritious, organic food and drinks should be sold on washable or at least bio-degradable plates and cups. Chips can be purchased in bulk and sold by the handful or by weight to avoid the packaging of single-serving snacks. There's a lot to look at here, and I hope you'll take the bull by the horns.

Thanks,
Erica Etelson

Besides being a kindred spirit, Erica Etelson is a terrific writer whose articles have appeared in the SF Chronicle. The world needs more people like her.
 

 

Rethinking Plastics with Wells Fargo's Green Team

The photo shows a sample of water from the North Pacific Gyre, specifically Sample #23 taken at latitude 34°30.87North, longitude 158°50.93West by the researchers on the Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita this winter. And that thumb at the bottom of the photo is mine.

Anna Cummins, part of the Alguita crew, sent me the sample to use for Rethinking Plastics presentations. When it arrived last week, I sat down for a minute and wept. Can you see the mixture of plastic and plankton? This is what we are dealing with. This is the bottom of the food chain. It's probably toxic and can probably never be cleaned up.

Here's a map showing exactly where the sample came from:


Friday morning, I took my sample with me, along with a Power Point presentation, Synthetic Sea DVD, and other items for "show and tell," to Wells Fargo Bank to co-present my very first Green Sangha Rethinking Plastics program with Solvig Palm-Nicholls. Wells Fargo has a "Green Team" that works to find ways to be more environmentally friendly in the office. We were invited by Wells Fargo employee and Fake Plastic Fish reader, Tanya (of the yummy salmon recipe), to come and present our information to the group. Not only did we have a room full of interested employees, but also several people who dialed in and logged on to NetMeeting to take part in the presentation remotely.

Here's a PDF version of the Rethinking Plastics presentation we did for Wells Fargo. We started a little late due to technical difficulties, so the first part, a short history of the invention of plastics, was skipped. We made a few other changes to customize the slide show for Wells Fargo, like removing some slides that deal with the Green Sangha practice of awareness. These slides will be included in future presentations if appropriate.

We also planned to show the 9-minute DVD, Synthetic Sea. Unfortunately, Wells Fargo's DVD player would not work. Fortunately, we were able to access this low resolution web version and play it instead. Not as beautiful, but it got the point across.

Do you work for or belong to an organization in the Bay Area that would benefit from a Rethinking Plastics presentation? Please let me know. Now that I've gotten the first one under my belt, I'm looking forward to doing more! In fact, I'm scheduled to do a presentation at a high school in a few weeks. Wish me luck on that one. Teenagers scare the crap out of me.

And in related news, another FPF reader, Alice, sent me this link to a recent BBC series on the plastic problems in the North Pacific Gyre as well as the Midway Atoll. It's well worth watching!
 

 

Brita, Green Sangha, Recycled Clothing, 2 Clean 2 B Green, Composts & Landfills & Muddy Shoes, oh my!

04/14/2008 Update: If you've reached this page because you want to know how to recycle Brita filter cartridges in North America, please visit http://www.takebackthefilter.org for more information about the campaign to urge Clorox (owner of Brita in North America) to develop a take-back recycling program for these cartridges!

I've been working on so many other projects this week, I didn't have time to post yesterday, and I barely have time to post tonight. So here are a couple of things I've been doing and also a couple of posts on other blogs that I think are just great:

1) I received enough interest in a possible Brita cartridge recycling campaign that I created a Yahoo Group to discuss the issue further and get feedback on whether or not to proceed. Here's the URL for the Yahoo Group if you'd like to read more or participate:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/recycle_brita/

2) I've been working on Green Sangha's Rethinking Plastics web page. Here's the link. If you're in the Bay Area and would like to get involved, please check it out.

3) National Geographic's Green Guide has an excellent, eye-opening article about what happens to donated clothes, surprisingly entitled What Happens to Donated Clothes?

4) Wise Bread has a great post called Our Obsession to Clean is Making Us Trashy. This is a web site about saving money, and often (although not always) green living and frugality intersect in its articles.

5) Yesterday, I visited a local landfill and commercial compost facility to see for myself what happens to our garbage and the food and yard waste we put into our green bins. I'll be writing about this field trip later.

6) I have to jump on the Yay China! bandwagon (And also Yay Australia!) for their plastic bag ban. Now, if only they'd stop accepting our plastic waste.

7) And one more thing... Next week I'm flying to Hawaii to visit my parents for a few days (and hopefully get my blow dryer fixed.) Are there any Fake Plastic Fish readers in Honolulu (besides my dad) who have tips about local farmer's markets, organic restaurants, other "green" must-sees and must-dos? Please feel free to comment or contact me via e-mail. My e-mail address is in my profile.
 

 

Week 29 Results: 2.6 oz. of plastic. Making a change.

This past Friday, I attended a planning meeting for Green Sangha's 2008 Rethinking Plastics campaign. At that meeting, one of the members showed us some video footage of what happens to the plastic recycling that we put into our curbside bins. I knew that most of our plastic was shipped to China, but until seeing this heartbreaking video, I didn't think much more about it. Please watch this short clip from Britain's Sky News and then see how you feel about recycling plastic:



(If the embedded video doesn't play in this window, or all you get is a commercial, try this link instead.)

Yes, this story focuses on Britain's plastic waste. But in the U.S., we also ship most of our plastic to China, causing health problems and pollution in our attempts to be "green."

Since I started this project, I have tallied all of my plastic waste, recycling those items that are accepted in Oakland, SF, or Daly City, and holding onto the rest. From now on, I'm going to hold onto ALL of it, recyclable or not. If plastic recycling is such a dirty business, we ought to be taking care of it here at home instead of shipping it off to poorer countries with lower environmental standards.

My new commitment to hold onto all my plastic is similar to that of a new blogger who is collecting and tallying his waste, Dave Chameides at 365daysoftrash.com. He has vowed not to throw ANYTHING away for a year but to tally it all and figure out what it is and what can be done with it. He says, "Any waste that I generate that can be recycled, will also be saved. Recycling is better than 'throwing away' but it still takes energy and creates waste so I think accounting for recycling will be an important factor." Perhaps the video above is another reason to hold onto all of it.

So, that said, here is the tally for this week, the first of 2008:



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

• 1 Safeway ice bag. This ice was sitting in our freezer for months and months, and we finally used it up chilling a bottle of New Year's Eve champagne.


• 1 cap from a bottle of Safeway rubbing alcohol. See below.

Recyclable plastic bought before the plastic project began (although as mentioned above, they will not be recycled):

• 1 bottle of Safeway rubbing alcohol (#2 plastic). Is it possible to find rubbing alcohol in glass or is it only available in plastic these days? And do we need it? The only thing I was using it for lately was in a homemade ant spray recipe. I could probably substitute vodka or grain alcohol. I can sterilize a needle for removing splinters with a match. My mom used to clean oral thermometers with alcohol, but I just use soap. Cuts and bruises can be cleaned with soap and water. Alcohol seems like a staple of home medicine cabinets, but do we actually need it?

New plastic waste.

• 2 Refresh Endura single-use eye drop containers (#4 plastic). Are my eyes getting better? I haven't been using as many containers of drops because I've just been lazy about putting them in at night. And so far, no traumatic cornea mornings. I'm just seeing how far I can press my luck, I think.


• 2 plastic ties and 1 plastic tag from a bamboo scratching post purchased for the kitties. More on this item in a post later this week.


• 1 plastic bag from inside a box of crackers. These were brought to our New Year's Eve party by a friend, and I ate some.


• 1 Wallace & Gromit cheese wrapper. Very cute. Also brought to the party by a friend. Of course I had some.


• 1 plastic cork from a bottle of Boissonneau Chateau Moulin de Ferrand Bordeaux Blanc. This was the last bottle!


• 1 cap from a glass bottle of Straus organic nonfat milk.

I want to welcome the new readers who have found their way over to Fake Plastic Fish from the 365 Days of Trash blog. I have a lot of exciting things to write about this week, including a trip to a landfill on Wednesday.
 

 

Rethinking Plastics

No, I'm not rethinking whether or not to buy or use plastic. That's just the title of the class I started tonight through Green Sangha. During the course, we not only learn a lot about plastic, its properties and problems, but also the best ways to present the issue to others. Next week, we'll have a special guest chemist who can explain the science behind different plastics. Having received one of the only D's of my life in this subject, I really need this one!

What I was left with tonight was the Green Sangha principle that everyone does the best they can with the knowledge they have. In presenting the history of plastic, Stuart Moody, the instructor, said some very nice things about some of the inventors of early plastic, praising the developers of Tupperware and saying they were people we'd enjoy having over for dinner. They didn't know what problems their products would cause in the long run. If they had known, they probably would have acted differently.

I said that whereas I could feel compassion for those early pioneers because they were acting out of ignorance, I have a very difficult time finding any compassion for the people that do have the information about the harmfulness of their products and push them anyway. And Stuart reminded me that those out there doing harm to our environment in the face of this information are also acting out of ignorance and illusion, the illusion of separateness.

Of course they are. Of course. Who would pollute a river if they truly felt that the river was part of themselves? Who would operate a factory in which their workers were exposed to toxic chemicals if they understood that they and the workers are all part of the same world body? Who would engage in a business that caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of creatures if they realized the connection between themselves and all other life forms on the planet?

Stuart's presentation began with what I recognized from my Mormon upbringing as a conversion story, a testimony. He talked about the night that he woke up to how much plastic there is in our everyday lives. I've been meaning to write my own conversion story in a post on this blog, but just haven't yet found the words to do it because in many ways, I don't understand how it happened. A series of factors came together, I heard and saw the right things at the right time, and all of a sudden, I was an activist.

But maybe some of you do have the words to explain how it was you first became aware of either the problems of plastic or environmental issues in general. Please share. I'd love to hear your stories.
 

 

Misc: Temescal Tabling, Environmental Ethics, & Plastic Pick Up

Yesterday morning, Terry from Green Sangha joined me at the Temescal Farmer's Market to educate the public about plastic. This time, the information was supplemented by a beautiful display, courtesy of the Marin Chapter of Green Sangha. Please click the top image to see the details of the display. We only had it for this weekend, and now it will have to go back to Marin where it normally lives.

We also handed out resusable cloth produce bags, asking a $2 donation to reimburse Green Sangha's cost for purchasing the bags. These bags are great for produce because they are thin and lightweight and when dampened, will keep produce fresh in the refrigerator. It was interesting to see how many people who initially refused the bags, saying that they had their own totes, changed their minds when we explained that the totes are great but we're concerned about the plastic produce bags that fill up the totes.

It was nice to see that some people brought their used plastic bags back to the market to fill up again. Maybe we should have a container of used plastic grocery bags to give out for people who don't want the cloth bags. That's what they do at the Berkeley Farmer's Market. I think some folks don't want to pay for bags, but they also feel guilty about taking them for free. At least if we could encourage them to take used grocery bags, we could prevent new plastic bags from being wasted. I'll bring up this idea with the group and see what they think.

If you live in the Bay Area and would like Green Sangha to bring their traveling display and powerpoint presentation to your organization or business, contact them and see if something can be arranged. Here is a link to Green Sangha's materials related to plastic: http://www.greensangha.org/plastic.html

---

A blogger who goes by the nickname of Crunchy Chicken and writes about her family's efforts to live sustainably recently found out that her husband has a very serious form of blood cancer. Today, she wrote her thoughts about all the plastic the hospital uses to treat her husband and how she feels that right now, after all their family has done to reduce their ecological footprint, they've "earned a little extra plastic consumption for a while."

Who would disagree with plastic being used in this way to keep people alive? Plastic being used for necessities rather than frivolities? What's really touching is not only Crunchy's post itself but all the comments from her readers, many of whom are pledging to reduce their waste even more in order to offset the necessary waste generated by her sick husband.

Please read Crunchy Chicken's post, Personal ethics and environmentalism. Then see what plastic waste you can eliminate in your own life in order to make up for the plastic use of those who really need it.

---

Here's a guy who went to town on the weekend pick up plastic challenge. Scott from Least Footprint sent me the following e-mail and photo:

OK, I took your weekend challenge and have attached a picture. The picture shows as much as I gathered in just half an hour. I did this sort of as an experiment to measure exactly how much plastic trash is in just one large block right in my neighborhood. It is a lot.... I have been picking stuff up one at a time... and then dumping it one at a time at the next available receptacle or bringing it home to recycle depending on the ick factor but this is the first time I actually went out with a bag to fill and measured how much there is to pick up. I know, I'm the PUP guy but I've been in the middle of moving and taking on tons of other projects as well.

Anyhow, I think you may have gotten me kick started on this. If I can pick up that much plastic in half an hour, imagine how much I could pick up in a week with very little expenditure of time. Although I think I may get one of those claw things they use. It's a challenge. I'll keep you informed how it goes. Pushing and prodding always welcome.

---

And finally, today's update on the Trash Challenge.
 
 

 

Direct Action, Part 1: Green Sangha

Sunday morning, a week ago, I'm sitting in a cottage in Berkeley with nine other people, eyes closed, watching my breath as thoughts come and go. It's a meditation retreat, yes, but it's more than that, and I'm attempting to let go of the agenda I arrived with and relax into the moment. Twenty minutes later, the bell rings, and it is time to introduce ourselves, share food, and plan environmental actions, from a place of centered compassion rather agitation or anger.

The group is the East Bay chapter of Green Sangha, and this is my first time attending their monthly meeting. It's one of the first moments of real calm I have experienced since I began my plastics project, and I can tell that this communion of like-minded, open-hearted people is what I need.

Green Sangha was founded in 2000 by Jonathan Gustin, who was "concerned about the subtle hostility he found in many peace groups and the ensuing burnout that activism based in anger produces, with the intention of having a group of people perform activism not as a reaction to what they oppose in the world, but rather from their love of the world." (From Green Sangha's web site.)

The web site goes on to explain, "Green Sangha chapters meet once a month to meditate, educate, and support each other, and to plan and perform direct environmental actions. Our time together is designed to help develop the qualities of calmness, lucidity, and awareness which we believe are vital to our work as spiritually-based environmental activists. We are non-denominational and find inspiration from the lives of non-violent leaders such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., The Dalai Lama, and Julia Butterfly Hill.

"It is important to speak out against that which threatens our planet. We can add to the violence by attacking those we perceive as the "enemy." Alternatively, we can embody the love and respect we want others to show the earth. It can be challenging to practice equanimity and love while the planet is being poisoned, yet it is vital to do so."

During this August 12 meeting, Green Sangha is planning an upcoming beach cleanup action and also discussing their experiences while tabling at the Berkeley Farmers Market. A couple of members had given out cloth bags to shoppers with information encouraging them to bring reusable cloth bags back to the market instead of taking new plastic. I had come to the meeting hoping to organize a similar action at the plastic-laden Temescal Farmer's Market, which I'd blogged about two weeks before.

The members are very open to the idea of broadening out their action to other farmer's markets, and I am assigned the task of contacting the Temescal Farmer's Market manager to get permission to come and table there.

In fact, I had already been contacted by Ron Pardini, the manager of Urban Village Farmers Market Association, in response to the e-mail I sent two weeks ago about all the plastic at the market. This was Ron's reply:

"I’ve been increasingly aware of the amounts of plastic bags (and other containers/packaging) that are being distributed during each of our farmers’ markets we operate. We’ve recently printed the logos of each market on organic cotton totes, & are selling them for less than we purchased them for, to encourage purchases. I know this is just a start, now I need help to find a source so we can offer the vendors an alternative (& cheap) bag to use when selling their products. Can you help?"

What a great match! I left a message for Ron as soon as the meeting ended, and waited breathlessly to hear back from him. Unfortunately, my excitement and drive to get things moving doesn't always match other people's time tables. Ron is a very busy man, juggling many different tasks in keeping the Farmer's Market organized. After playing a little phone and e-mail tag, we finally spoke to each other the following Saturday, and Ron gave permission for us to come and give out information about plastic bags the very next day.

Wow! Mad scramble! I had less than 24 hours to get a table together and see if I could also get some other Green Sangha members to join me. The information sheet, Don't Think About A Plastic Bag (PDF file), is downloadable from the Green Sangha web site. I printed the flyer and made 2-sided copies on green paper at Copy Central. Because of the time factor, I was not able to find paper with the highest recycled content I would have liked. I'll be better prepared the next time.

Additionally, Green Sangha has a downloadable Power Point presentation, Rethinking Plastics, which I also printed out at Copy Central. I made one black and white copy to put in a binder, which I planned to make available at the table for folks who wanted additional information about the issue of plastic in the environment. I also made 10 color copies of some of the more powerful photos in the document to display: a turtle with a plastic bag in his mouth, a dead Laysan albatross full of plastic, a plastic-strewn beach, etc.

I went to bed Saturday night with my head full of ideas about what I would do the next day, and wondering if I would have anyone to join me. As it turned out, it was too late to find anyone else able to come, so I was on my own. Tune in tomorrow for details of my day at the Farmer's Market, my first direct action since the plastic project began.