Organic food in plastic packaging: Isn't it ironic?

Arriving late to the Elmwood Theater Saturday night for the film Food Inc, Michael and I were stuck in the front row with our necks craning to see the screen. Believe me. It was worth it. Even if you've already read The Omnivore's Dilemma or Fast Food Nation, seeing images of downed cattle, abused chickens, and mistreated factory workers up close brings the subject home on a visceral level.

But in addition to needing a reminder of why I should avoid fast food and support our farmer's markets, I had an ulterior motive. I wanted to see if the film addressed any issues of plastics in the environment and in our food supply. And it kind of did, in a very subtle and ironic way. One of the interviewees in this film is Gary Hirshberg, founder of Stonyfield Farm Organic, the third largest producer of yogurt in the U.S. A glimpse of the Stonyfield plant as well as a walk through the Natural Products Expo in Anaheim, CA showed row after row of plastic containers. And it makes you wonder:

Why do producers and consumers of organic products, who are concerned about pesticides, herbicides, hormones, and antibiotics in our food, ignore the packaging encasing the food after it's produced? How can Muir Glen canned tomatoes, for example, be certified organic when the lining of the can contains BPA?

And avoiding packaging that contains BPA is not enough! That's just one ingredient we happen to know about. How about what we don't? We demand full disclosure of ingredients from food companies. How about possible ingredients leaching from the containers? Plastic is not just plastic. It often contains additives that affect its strength, flexibility, color, and even resistance to bacteria. And there's no labeling law requiring disclosure of any of that.

When our current Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) was passed in 1976, 62,000 industrial chemicals were grandfathered in, meaning they were never required to be tested for safety. Since then, another 20,000-30,000 chemicals have gone on the market. And in 30 years, only 5 have been banned. The law is so weak, that the EPA has not even been able to ban asbestos.

How do we know that the chemicals added to plastics are safe if they are not required to be proven safe before entering the market? How can we make decisions if we don't even know what these chemicals are??!!

And how can manufacturers of organic products tell us they want to protect the environment and "save the earth" when they are relying on plastic wraps, plastic containers, plastic bottles, and plastic bags without question?

I want to see safe product packaging added to the criteria for organic certification. I want producers to ask what "food grade" really means and for manufacturers of plastic products to be required to reveal all of their additives. I want all manufacturers to follow the principal of Extended Producer Responsibility and plan for a practical cradle to cradle life cycle for their products and packaging BEFORE putting them on the market.

So what can we do? Today, I'm going to share my thoughts with the following organizations:

1) Organic Consumers Association

2) USDA National Organic Progam

3) My senators

4) My representative

5) Stonyfield Farms. To Stonyfield's credit, they have extensively researched their packaging and are working on finding a more sustainable solution. You can read what they have to say about their plastic yogurt containers here:

http://www.stonyfield.com/EarthActions/Environmental%20Practices/EnvironmentalPackaging.cfm

Still, I didn't see anything in their packaging statement about what chemicals are in the plastic, so I'll be writing to them as well.

Several Bay Area farmers markets have already taken the initiative to purge themselves of plastic. I'll be writing about them later this week. And I plan to pursue the issue of organic food in plastic packaging on an ongoing basis. Plastic may be the lighter weight alternative. But unless we are told what chemicals are in the plastic, how can any of us know if it's safe?
 

Big Plastic-Free SoapNuts Giveaway from LaundryTree

Put on your fuzzy slippers. Grab a mug of cocoa. Sit back, and let me tell you a little story about why it's worth it for us to ask for what we want. There's free stuff at the end, so hang in with me.

Have you ever done your laundry with soapnuts or been curious to find out how they work? Soapnuts grow on a tree called Sapindus mukorossi (Chinese Soapberry) and contain saponin, a natural surfactant which foams just like soap. I've wanted to try soapnuts since I first spotted them in a natural grocery store a couple of years ago but have always been deterred by the plastic in the packaging. Although they are imported, the idea of using a laundry soap that contains only one, minimally-processed natural ingredient (the soapnuts are harvested, de-seeded, and sun-dried) appealed to me.

So last month, when the bloggers at Tiny Choices announced a LaundryTree soapnuts giveaway, I was pretty excited. Excited, that is, until I clicked on the site and saw the soapnuts packaging. Looked like plastic bags to me.


Not one to give up so easily, I left a comment asking what the packaging was made from. I wanted to be sure. Jenn at Tiny Choices forwarded my comment to Lisa at LaundryTree, who responded to me right away and asked for helping de-plasticking her packaging.

Less than one month later, LaundryTree has already switched to recycled paper bags! Check out the sample I received in the mail:


The natural kraft paper bags contain 40% recycled content and are lined with a minimal amount of PLA (to keep the soapnuts fresh) which makes the bags fully compostable or recyclable. But don't take my word for it. Read the article Lisa wrote tonight about the new packaging and the story behind it.

I am so impressed with a business owner that listens to her customers and responds so quickly. Isn't this the kind of business we'd all like to support?

Of course, the packaging would be irrelevant if the soapnuts themselves didn't work. So before writing this post, I of course tried them out. And actually, I could just send you over to the Tiny Choices review of soapnuts because their review is very similar to what I'm about to write here. They even linked to the same Wikipedia page. But to spare you the extra clicks, I'll go ahead and write my own glowing review.

Soapnuts only release their saponin in warm or hot water. I wash in cold to save energy. But never fear, there is an easy solution. Mix up a batch of Soapnuts Soak by bringing a pot of water to a boil, removing it from the heat, tossing in 6-8 soapnuts, and letting them sit covered over night. In the morning, strain into a couple of glass jars. The used soapnuts can go in the compost. Use 1/4 to 1/2 cup per laundry load.

By the way, I've noticed that another major distributor of soapnuts is now selling a liquid version in plastic bottles. Look how easy it is to make without the plastic. Easy as boiling water. Of course, if you're like me and forget about pots on the stove, this procedure might not be as easy as it is for most. Still, I can deal. Because one batch of Soapnut Soak will do at least 8 loads of laundry. And check out the web site for all the other uses for Soapnuts Soak.

Now, I'll be honest. Soapnuts smell pretty darned funky. In fact, when I poured some out on the carpet this morning to take a picture, Soots and Arya went just a little nutty sniffing them. So, as you can imagine, I was skeptical about how my laundry would smell. LaundryTree promises that our clothes will not end up smelling like the soapnuts.

So, after adding the Soapnut Soak to my cold water load of light colors, and watching in amazement at the amount of foamy bubbles produced, I felt compelled to sniff every item as it came out of the washing machine. And you know what? They just smelled clean. Fresh. That's the only way I can describe the scent. It was nothing like the smell of the soapnuts.

Some people prefer to add scent to their laundry, and to that end, LaundryTree sells a variety of essential oils. For me, the oils were completely unnecessary. I like my clean to smell like clean.

So, would you like to try them? LaundryTree has kindly offered to provide sample bags of soapnuts (the size of the small cloth pouch in the photo) to 10 lucky winners. Each winner will receive two bags: one to keep and one to share with a friend. Here are my contest rules, which I am making up on the spot:

NOTE: The soapnuts contest is over and winners have been announced here.

1) Leave a comment below. Since I wrote a letter to Planet Earth yesterday, and since Planet Earth was kind enough to respond, please add your two cents. What would you say to Planet Earth if you had the chance? Make it as long or short as you want. Planet Earth has all the time in the world.

2) Please leave a way for me to contact you. If you have a blog, you can leave the URL of your blog. If not, you can email me directly with your email address at beth[at]fakeplastic[dot]com. But you must leave a comment here first!

Why am I requiring contact info this time? Because I don't want to have to chase after your butts if you win and then don't check back and then I have to choose someone else. Feh. Let's just get it right the first time!

Want your soapnuts right away? Lisa is offering Fake Plastic Fish readers a 15% discount through April 20. Use the discount code FAKEPLASTICFISH when you place your order. Lisa is still using up her supply of plastic bags, but if you use that code, you'll not only receive a discount, but you can be assured that your soapnuts will be packaged in paper.

Oh, and one more thing. Soapnuts come in various sized bags, so order the largest size you'll use to avoid unnecessary waste. Paper and PLA, as you know, have their eco consequences too.
 

Year 2, Week 28 Results: 8.8 oz of plastic waste.

Well, we can't say I didn't end the year with a bang. Look at all that plastic, most of which was acquired new. And some of which is exactly the kind of packaging I routinely rail against. But I have excuses explanations for all of it, I assure you!

First, plastic used up this week that was purchased before the plastic project began:

• 1 plastic bag of Ocean Spray craisins. Found in the back of the refrigerator while cleaning on Thursday. Do I know how to celebrate Christmas or what? These things expired two years ago, apparently. Dumped them into the compost and have the bag left to deal with.


• 1 bottle of Spectrum Essentials wheat germ oil & cap. Another discovery, expired and forlorn in the refrigerator. And at this point, I have no idea why I bought this stuff in the first place. I must have read that it was good for me. Any ideas?

New plastic waste:

• 1 large plastic clamshell from a new Flip Video camera. Here's where the justifying begins because this is just the kind of thing I'm always complaining about and for which I find alternatives or buy used or don't buy at all. And in fact, I didn't buy this item. I received it free from a marketing research company as part of my payment for participating in a video consumer research project.
  
  Here's the deal. I'm registered with several research companies to attend focus groups for a fee. Being opinionated has its rewards. So a few weeks ago, I got a call from one of these firms offering $200 plus a free camera for me to spend 45-60 minutes making a video of myself in my kitchen, discussing the products I buy and tools I use and then finally sharing my thoughts about a particular brand of organic canned food. It sounded like fun. I didn't think much about plastic when I agreed to do it. I believe they called during the office Christmas party, and I'd already had a glass of wine.
  
  So the camera arrives in the packaging you see in the photo. Crap. I considered sending it back and backing out of the project. After all, the camera itself is plastic and made who knows where (Wait... let me see... it's made in... China! Big surprise.) and I wouldn't need it if I would get around to having my bigger expensive video camera repaired (although, to be fair, the big expensive camera requires plastic DV cartridges, whereas the Flip doesn't require any additional media cartridges or cards at all.) Blah blah blah. I was ready to send it back, and then the light bulb went off in my head.
  
  This project could be a perfect way for me to let this particular organic foods company know how I feel, as one of their customers. To let them see a nearly zero waste kitchen, and to address the issue of BPA in their cans! I would not be sending just an email or letter, but a whole video explaining what people like me need and want. And it would not be seen by a customer service rep but a marketing department interested in what I have to say! So I decided to keep the camera and go through with the project. The extra money in no way influenced my decision. (Okay, of course it did. In the interest of full disclosure, I'd really love to have an extra $200!)
  
  I completed the video last night and am uploading it now. (It's taking hours to upload.) Tomorrow, I'll post parts of it here... the parts I can show. I probably am not allowed to tell you the name of the research company or organic foods brand, but just keep in mind that when it comes to BPA, all food cans are lined with it (organic or not) with the single exception of Eden Organic beans. The brand in the study is not Eden Organic.
  
  If you buy beans or veggies or tomato paste in cans, consider writing a letter to the company and asking them to find an alternative to BPA.


• Another plastic clamshell from a 3-pack of LED night lights. I haven't checked, but I'll bet these are the only two clamshells I've acquired all year. Could be wrong, but I can't remember any others. And once again, this was a freebie. We had a coupon for a free CFL from a local hardware store, and when Michael went to pick up the CFL, they gave him this instead.
  
  The night lights (yes, plastic) are actually really cool. Light sensors allow them to come on only when the room is dark... an energy saver for people like us who forget to turn off our night lights in the morning. And they use much less energy than the CFL we leave on in the kitchen so as not to kill ourselves in the dark. And much less than the incandescent night light bulb in the bedroom.
  
  But isn't it ironic that a product created to save energy is made from so much plastic and packaged in still more plastic? I'll be writing two letters tomorrow... to Flip Video and to Feit Electric. I'll post them here, of course.
  
  Oh, and one more thing about clamshells. Check out the benefits as listed by Blisters.com. I love number 3: Adds value to product. Really? In what universe? These packages are so hard to open, there's now a special tool you can buy just for the purpose. Exactly what value do you think they mean?


• Plastic baggies from 2 aluminum felt door sweeps & plastic packing tape from the box. I bought the door sweeps from Amazon.com because the door sweeps available locally were made from vinyl (PVC) which I just won't buy if there is a PVC-free option. Of course, they came in plastic bags with plastic tape on the box. We've already tried using a handmade draft dodger, but our cats tore it open and spilled beans all over the house. They are not very environmentally-friendly, those kitties.


• Plastic shipping tape & UPS envelope from Skoy cloth delivery. Sigh.


• 1 piece of plastic from the ends of a bunch of organic bananas. Unavoidable in these parts.


• 1 little plastic pull tab from a large metal can of soy sauce.


• 1 plastic gift wrap bag from a co-worker. The contents of which have already been re-gifted. Yes, it was plastic. And in fact, the day I received the gift, I was in an ornery mood and considered posting it on my blog and ranting about the uselessness of the present. But then I decided I didn't want to be an a**hole that day. So I didn't. Are we glad?

Okay. This year is almost finished. If I have a chance this weekend, I'll photograph and post one shot of my 2008 new plastic waste. It all fits into one big cat litter bag. I was hoping to keep it under 5 pounds for the year, but those wacky clamshells this week put me over the top. Here's hoping 2009 is even lighter!
 

Homemade Chocolate Syrup: Delicious & Plastic-Free

Hershey's. Nestle. Santa Cruz Organic. Ah!Laska. Dagoba. What do these syrups have in common? (Besides some form of chocolate?) Some are conventional. Some are organic. Fair trade. But all of them are packaged in plastic squeeze bottles. Michael and I have begun wondering how products can be labeled organic when they are packaged in plastic. What do you think? Should chemicals from plastic packaging be considered in organic certification?

Well anyway, Michael and I need our chocolate syrup in order to be happy. So I found a very simple recipe on cookingcache.com and have been making it regularly.

Homemade Chocolate Syrup Recipe

• 1 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened) (Organic, purchased from Rainbow Grocery bulk bin)


• 2 cups sugar (Whole Foods bulk bin -- I use 1/2 dark brown sugar and 1/2 granulated sugar. Note: Rainbow Grocery carries organic, fair trade sugar in the bulk bin.)


• 1/4 teaspoon salt (Still using cardboard carton. Will switch to bulk.)


• 1 cup cold water (Tap, of course!)


• 1 tablespoon vanilla (Glass bottle with small plastic cap.)

Combine cocoa and sugar and blend until all lumps of cocoa are gone. Add water and salt and mix well. Cook over medium heat, bringing it to a boil. Keep boiling until thick, stirring to keep from overflowing. Remove from heat and let cool. When cool, add vanilla. This is great for chocolate milk, hot cocoa, and ice cream topping.

Note: This is NOT fudge sauce. It is fat-free syrup and will not be as thick as fudge, which necessarily contains fat, and lots of it!

Enjoy!
 

Ticked off Women with Bones to Pick

Ever since I started the Take Back The Filter Campaign, and especially since it's ended, I've been getting emails from folks with ideas for additional campaigns for me to start. And what I say to them is, "Hey, that's a great idea! Go for it!" I'm just one person who had a bone to pick with my water filter company. You guys may find other issues that particularly stick in your craw. (Okay, what's all this picking and sticking? I don't even know what these expressions mean.)

Don't wait for someone else to start a movement. Start one yourselves. The Internet makes it possible for regular folks like you and me to reach the world and get heard. At some point, I plan to write a book report on "What I learned from starting a campaign." But not tonight. It's late, and I've got to get up early and carol tomorrow with a bunch of pre-schoolers at a senior center. (Part of my intention to enjoy the season this year rather than avoiding it.)

Instead, I want to talk up a couple of campaigns begun by some other regular women who saw something that ticked them off and decided to do something about it.

1) Disposable Timing Chips: Robbie from Going Green Mama is irritated that the 2009 OneAmerica 500 Festival Mini-Marathon in Indianapolis, Indiana will be switching from reusable timing chips to disposable ones. For anyone who has no idea what any of those words meant, I will explain.

Participants in running races wear little devices on their shoes which are encoded with their racer ID number and record what time they step on special mats placed at the starting line, finish line, and sometimes other spots along the route. This allows the runners to receive an accurate running time and finishing place and also ensures that they run the specified route and don't take short cuts. I know this because I used to run races. Ah, maybe someday I will again...

Anyway, in the past, the timing chips have been little hard plastic thingies that you pick up before the race, attach to your shoe laces, wear during the race, and then return to the race organizers at the end. Yes, they are plastic, but they are used over and over again.

But now, some organizations are switching to disposable chips in order to avoid the hassle of having to collect the reusables. And this move has Robbie up in arms. It doesn't take that long to collect the reusable chips. And disposables will just add more waste to an event that's already full of waste to begin with (disposable water cups, energy bar wrappers, etc.) So she's started a campaign and would like you to join her.

Please read Robbie's post and then send an email to the race organizers letting them know what you think about disposable plastic. And while you're at it, let them know Aquafina bottled water is also not eco-friendly, no matter how many recycling stations they set up. (You can read about that issue in Robbie's post, too.)

2) Plastic at Costco: Last holiday season, I wrote a post about all the unnecessary plastic at Costco. A few days ago, I received an email from Ursula Myers who was also ticked off by it and wanted to know if she could use my image of apples encased in plastic for a petition she was creating in response.

My reply, "Of course you can!" I can't think of a better use for it.

Ursula's Costco petition is hosted on the Care2 web site here. Please sign it and pass it on. (E-mail, blog, tweet, you know.) And while you're at it, how about calling or writing Costco and letting them know what you think directly?

Are there any plastic issues that are particularly maddening to you? Anything you've been wishing someone would do something about? Why not jump in and start your own ruckous this holiday season? It's good clean fun for kids of all ages!
 

Holiday No Plastic Packaging Challenge

An earlier version of this post appeared on Blogher. The current version will be posted as part of the Green Moms Carnival on The Smart Mama blog December 15.

Have you seen Amy Gates's No Plastic Holiday Challenge at Crunchy Domestic Goddess? It warms my heart when other bloggers get on the no-plastic bandwagon. If you haven't already, please click the link to take the pledge and read her article. Then come back here (yes, come back!) for ideas about how to de-plastic the packaging for your plastic-free gifts. It doesn't help to buy a beautiful handmade plastic-free gift from an Etsy seller, only to have them send it to you smothered in bubble wrap or inside a box covered in plastic tape.

Plastic packaging is just the kind of disposable material that is making its way to the North Pacific Gyre. (Isn't it ironic that a material that lasts forever in the environment is so often made into single-use disposable products?)

So what can we do about it?

1) Give gifts that require no packaging at all: gift certificates for services, meals, theater tickets, other experiences. Gifts of time. Teach a skill. Cook a meal. Babysit. These kinds of gifts help bring people together without adding to the waste already choking our planet. In fact, I just realized tonight that I work for a very green company at this time of year. We provide eldercare and childcare services. What a great gift that would make. (I sent my idea to the marketing department tonight. Hope it's not too late!)

2) When purchasing ingredients for homemade treats in the store, try to shop where goods are sold in bulk bins and you can bring your own cloth produce bags, stainless steel containers, or glass jars instead of taking new plastic bags. Think of giving solid soaps and shampoos instead of liquids in plastic bottles. Skip most produce bags altogether. For larger items, they are unnecessary.

3) When ordering gifts online, request zero plastic and Styrofoam packaging specifically. I do this all the time when dealing with online sellers, and if they can't accommodate me, I don't order from them. When I do receive plastic packaging, I'll sometimes simply mail it back to the vendor with a nice note asking them to rethink their packaging policies. (Or carry it across town on my bike.)

I've been criticized in the past for the added fuel costs of sending packaging back to sellers. But I believe that the fuel cost pales in comparison to the amount of energy and resources that can be saved through bringing awareness to the issue of plastic packaging. And receiving back their own packaging gives sellers a clearer message than a simple email.

4)Re-use packaging when shipping gifts away from home. Or use mailers made from post-consumer recycled paper fiber. For example, Jiffy Padded Mailers are filled with post-consumer paper fiber instead of plastic bubbles, as are Caremail recycled paper mailing supplies, which I saw recently on the shelf at Office Max.

5) Don't forget the tape. Plastic packing tape is not the only option. Choose paper packing tape when necessary, and use it sparingly. Most people use way more tape than they need. (Although, yesterday at the post office, I was told I had not used enough tape and was forced to add plastic priority mail tape to the edges of a box I was shipping, so be sure you know how much is required beforehand.)

6) Find ways to wrap gifts without paper or tape. Many people are enjoying sewing their own cloth gift bags that are reused year after year. If you don't want to sew your own, Lisa at Retro Housewife has a list of sources. Another cloth option is Furoshiki, a Japanese style of cloth wrap that requires no paper. And if you do want to use paper (preferably re-used or recycled), try this method I figured out last year to wrap gifts without tape!

7) Be gracious and don't stress. We are all human and doing the best we can. At this time of year, most of us will end up with some plastic packaging we didn't anticipate, usually from well-meaning people who love us. Thank them for their gifts and then find a way to re-use the plastic. Me? I'm going to send out an e-mail to my friends and family (probably tomorrow) with a polite, plastic-free gift request. I may even publish it here. And once that's done, I'll accept whatever comes with gratitude. Because isn't that what this time of year is supposed to be about in the first place?
 

Less Impact Cats eat homemade food

This is the amount of waste we have been generating each week to feed our cats since they came to live with us in December of last year. 21 BPA-lined cans to be recycled, as well as a cardboard case covered in plastic wrap. The cans never made it to my tally. While I avoid canned foods for us because of the BPA issue, I don't include them in the tally because it's impossible to separate out the weight of metal vs. plastic. Still, regardless of the plastic lining, this is a lot of waste. Yes, the cans can be recycled. But imagine how much energy could be saved if we could avoid the cans altogether!

(Our cats could never tolerate dry food.)

So, I went in search of homemade cat food recipes. I found all kinds of conflicting opinions. There are those who insist cats must eat raw meat to be healthy. And there are those who feel that cooked meat and grains are fine. Not wanting to short-change my pets, I called the Nutrition Clinic at the U.C. Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. They create custom homemade diets for pets. Unfortunately, not until they are over 1-year old.

Well, the time has come. The kitties had their 1-year birthday a couple of weeks ago. So I tried again. Success. The nutritionist referred me to their affiliated web site www.petdiets.com. You fill out a quick questionnaire for each animal (they create diets for dogs as well) reporting its gender, weight, neuter-status, etc. and then select a protein source and a starch source from drop-down menus. The computer does the rest. I chose chicken, and knowing that my cats used to have digestive problems any time they were fed grains, chose sweet potato as the starch.

Here are the ingredients in one day's worth of food for 11-pound Arya:

4 ounces of cooked white chicken meat
1/4 cup of cooked mashed sweet potato
1-1/2 teaspoons of butter
1 red scoop of Balance It supplement

I ordered the supplement (unfortunately, it's not sold in stores), and it arrived the next day. Here is what the ingredients look like:


Weekly waste will be 1 waxed paper butter wrapper. Bi-monthly waste will be the plastic supplement container. And the occasional shipping box. If I order more than one bottle at a time, I'll cut down on even that.

The biggest challenge was figuring out how to buy the chicken without plastic. First, I took my stainless steal canister to Berkeley Bowl and asked that my chicken be placed directly into the container without plastic or paper. The response was, "No. We're not allowed to do that." "Okay," I said, "I'll put everything back and shop elsewhere." And I did. I returned the bread and butter I'd already picked up and headed to Whole Foods.

Whole Foods was a little more expensive. But the butcher didn't bat an eye when I asked him to put my chicken in the canister. And he had no problem first deducting the weight of the container. I carried everything home in my bike basket and got to work.

I boiled the chicken and baked the yams. (Yes, they're yams instead of sweet potatoes. I think it's okay.) Next time, I will probably cook the yams in the microwave to speed up the process. Then, I put the ingredients in my food processor in batches and mixed it up.

Finally, I used old plastic containers (yogurt, etc.) that we still had in the house to divide up the food into 7 days. (I'm thinking storing the food in Polypropylene is healthier than the BPA in which their commercial food was packed.) To each container, I mixed in 2 scoops of supplement (2 scoops for 2 cats.) I may try adding nutritional yeast (the blue container in the photo) next time and see if it helps with fleas. Forgot to do it this time. Anyone have experience giving yeast to cats?

Not sure how long the fresh food would keep, we put 3 containers in the refrigerator and 4 in the freezer.

And the big question: What do Soots and Arya think?




They go crazy for this stuff. They love it. They whine and cry and beg for more. (Yes, Arya is back wearing the plastic cone after having the metal rod removed from her leg last week.)

I know there are quite a few cat owners who read this blog and may have ideas and suggestions. Please fire away. I'd love to hear what you think.
 

Dear Music Today Feedback Department...

August 11, 2008


Music Today
Feedback Department
5391 Three Notched Road
Crozet, VA 22932


Dear Music Today:

I am returning to you this plastic padded mailer in which I received my ticket for the Outside Lands concert. I am trying very hard to reduce my plastic consumption and overall waste, and while I appreciate your wanting to get my ticket to me safely, I do believe that this package is a bit too much protection. My paper ticket is certainly not going to break during shipment.

I feel very strongly that care for our environment depends upon both sellers to reduce the amount of packaging and shipping materials they use and consumers to choose products with the least packaging. While shopping, I bring my own reusable bags to avoid taking disposables. I also carry tap water in a reusable bottle to avoid plastic bottle waste and bring my own containers for take-out food.

Plastic, as I’m sure you know, is made from fossil fuels and is not biodegradable. The manufacture of new plastic is fraught with environmental hazards, as is plastic recycling. Therefore, I urge you to rethink the type of mailers in which you send your tickets. A simple recycled paper envelope would suffice.

Sincerely,


Elizabeth G. Terry
http://www.fakeplasticfish.com

Blue Chair Fruit Company: plastic-free at the farmer's market

Our Temescal farmer's market was beautiful this Sunday, all the colors and crowds alive with the joy of summer. So many fruits to sample and enjoy on the spot. And, sadly, still so much plastic in evidence... bags & containers. Last year I wrote about plastic at the farmer's market and the effort to educate vendors and patrons about alternatives. This Sunday, one vendor left me pleasantly surprised.

Blue Chair Fruit Company produces extraordinary jams and preserves that are packaged in glass jars with metal lids. That's fine enough. But what caused me to stop at their table were the tiny metal tasting spoons they were using to give samples. While other vendors of prepared foods (including the women hawking her pesto spreads in the next booth) used disposable plastic spoons or even (to a lesser degree) disposable compostable spoons, Blue Chair used durable spoons that would be washed and reused.

I chatted with Rachel Saunders, the jam-maker herself, about the choice to use metal spoons. Her response was something like, "Plastic spoons turn me off. I don't want to taste anything on a plastic spoon. I don't want it anywhere near my mouth." (Since I didn't take notes, those might not have been her exact words, but pretty close.) I found myself hoping the woman next to her was listening and would catch the hint!

So I bought a jar of the strawberry marsala jam with rosemary and enjoyed some with local Feel Good Bakery bread and Food Mill peanut butter at the conclusion of my vision fast. Wow. Delicious. But really, I think today I need to have some of that jam on plain bread without the peanuts to compete with. Yeah, I need to do that!

Read more about Blue Chair Fruit Company in the SF Chronicle, where you'll also find several jam recipes, if you're inclined to save the whopping $10/jar and make your own. Rachel's got a jam cookbook coming out in 2010. Maybe by then I'll be ready to test those waters myself.

This year, tomatoes. I'm thinking that perhaps they will be my first canning project. We go through soooooo much store-bought tomato/spaghetti sauce. Ideas? Can I do it without investing in a canner?
 

Schwag & Twitter at Blogher '08

The Blogher Conference was kinda overwhelming. I feel like I've returned from another planet and need to be quarantined and debriefed. It was refreshing to go out to dinner last night with Michael and his sister and cousin and find out that they had never heard of Twitter. Have you? Because I had heard of it, and even signed up for it months ago, and then never "tweeted" because I didn't understand why I should. But OMG, everyone at Blogher08 was tweeting up a storm. So, never one to resist peer pressure, I started tweeting too. Wanna follow me?

It was fun to hang out with some real live green gals whom I'd only so far met through cyberspace. From left to right: Jenn from The Smart Mama, me, Michelle from Green Bean Dreams and Jenn from Tiny Choices. Mamabird from Surely You Nest preferred to take the picture rather than be in it.


We also met Green L.A. Girl Siel, Have Fun * Do Good's Britt Bravo, and Big Green Purse's Diane MacEachern, as well as several other green and socially conscious bloggers. I'm sorry to have missed Aurora from Foxy Art Studio and Vanessa from Random Ramblings. Next time, we have to make a better plan for meeting up. (Like, we need to make a plan. Period.)

Heading for lunch after the meetup, we saw this...

...and the five of us (Jenn, Jenn, Green Bean, MamaBird, and I) decided to find plastic-free food elsewhere. Great conversation was enjoyed with okay food from the Emporio Rulli il Caffe on Union Square, served up on durable tableware, except for the plastic-packaged breadsticks and salad dressing that I returned to the server.

Later, we found out that the Blogher lunch was actually packaged in compostable PLA containers, not regular plastic, and will be composted in San Francisco's commercial composting facility. Even still, the following day, Jenn, Jenn and I passed up the free lunch and took a stroll to the San Francisco Ferry Building for a nearly waste-free lunch at Mejita Cocina. If only I could remember to bring my own cloth napkin, I'd never have any trash at all!

PLA lunch offering notwithstanding, there was quite a bit of plastic at the Blogher Conference, as GreenBean demonstrates here in her best Vanna White impression. Hmm... we have the glasses. Why fill them with bottled water when I'm pretty sure the hotel has running water available? When I asked a bellhop for the water fountain on that floor, he looked quizzical and said he didn't think there was one. So I filled up with lukewarm water from the bathroom sink, since it had one of those automatic fixtures without hot and cold knobs.

As I mentioned in a previous pre-Blogher post, the conference organizers had the brilliant idea of setting up a recycling room for all the unwanted plastic and other swag attendees didn't want to take home. At the end of the day on Saturday, the Zwaggle recycling room had collected over 900 pounds of the stuff! The Zwaggle crew said they hoped most of it would be picked up by the vendors to reuse. I hope these vendors will also use the information they gain from picking up all their crap and come up with some truly useful schwag (or swag... there are disagreements all over the Net about the correct term) next time. Who really needs a Michelin Man key chain?

(Diane MacEachern returns her unwanted schwag.)

Oh, and see that bottled water? It was included in our Blogher organic cotton tote bags. It's actually Primo water in a bottle made from Ingeo, a corn-based compostable material. I left mine on the recycling table. Why? Because I don't think we need to be drinking any kind of bottled water, compostable or not, when perfectly good tap water is available, and San Francisco has some of the best. See my post, Think Outside The Biota Bottle, for more on this topic.

So, what the heck is Zwaggle? It's actually not a conference schwag recycler at all, although based on the success at Blogher, they may do more schwag recycling. I had a nice conversation with Zwaggle founder Adam Levy, who explained that Zwaggle is on online resource for parents to swap used children's items (clothes, furniture, equipment, toys, etc.) to reduce the need to buy more stuff. Zwaggle is different from Freecycle in that it is nationwide and based on a point system. Members list the items they want to give away on the site and assign a "price" based on points rather than dollars. Other members "buy" items using their points, and only pay for applicable shipping.

How does one get point? Each member gets 50 points for joining and additional points for referring friends and giving away items. Adam plans to add a system for purchasing points with dollars at some point, as well as a gift registry. Imagine asking friends to give used gifts for birthdays and baby showers rather than new. Adam says he got the idea for Zwaggle because, while he himself is not a parent, nearly all of his friends are, and he's seen the massive amounts of new stuff they've purchased when children are born. I think Zwaggle is a great idea that could put Babies R Us out of business if it catches on.

So, while there was certainly a major effort to green the conference (Michelin paying the cost of carbon offsetting for every attendee; GM providing hybrid vehicles for carpooling bloggers; Blogher providing organic cotton totes; the hotel providing lunch in compostable boxes and breakfast on durable tableware; Zwaggle providing schwag recycling) and probably a lot less waste than at most conferences, I wanted more. More!

I wanted more emphasis on environmental issues and environmental blogging during the sessions. But as Green LA Girl Siel said in a comment on her blog, "Beth and other enviros at BlogHer — Part of this is our fault for not volunteering to get more involved in the planning process. We must change that next year –" To which I responded, "Siel, you’re right! One more thing to add to my “To Do” list."

What do you say green bloggers? Should we get more involved in Blogher greening or create our own green bloggers conference?
 

Fudge and Styrofoam, a confusing combination

So, you guys know how much I love Fudge is My Life fudge sauce from San Francisco, right? I've gushed over it here and here and here. But I buy it only occasionally, one jar at a time, from the grocery store. (It's pretty pricey.) So it was a huge surprise a few days ago when I opened my front door to find a big cardboard box from the Fudge is My Life company sitting on my porch.

I was pretty sure I hadn't ordered it in my sleep. But I had my suspicions about who did send it, considering the mountain of Divine chocolate I had sent him and mom for Father's Day. And I was right. The card inside read, "Happy Bday, Beth. Now both of our sweet tooths are happy! Ray." Ray is my dad, and he had waited all this time to send a birthday gift (my birthday is in January) because I kept saying I didn't need anything... especially not anything new. But really, who doesn't need a case of fudge sauce?

In addition to the note, the case also came with...


Oy! What's a plastic-free fudge-lovin' fish supposed to do? It was too much packaging to mail back to the company. And besides, this company is in San Francisco. I could return it to them myself! So I called the Fudge is MY Life company, and this is where the story gets funny and the issue confusing. The phone was answered by an older woman's simple, "Hello?"

Me: Um... is this the Fudge Is My Life Company?

She: Oh yes, sorry. I thought you were going to be someone else.

Me: Oh. I'm a customer. Have I reached your home?

She: Yes, in fact my office is in my home. How can I help you?

Me: Is this actually Lillian Maremont [the founder of the company and creator of the original recipe back in 1963]?

She: Yes, that's me! [laughing]

Me: Well! [Beth loses it and starts to gush...] I just have to tell you how awesome your fudge sauce is. It's the best I've ever had. I love it so much. I just received a case in the mail from my dad.

She: Oh, do you live in Oakland? I remember your order. I processed it myself.

Me: [Remembering the original purpose of my call...] I do love the fudge sauce, but it came packaged with all these Styrofoam peanuts and bubble wrap, and for environmental reasons I don't want to throw it away, so I was wondering if I could bring it back to you to reuse.

She: Oh, well, I guess you could. But I live out the in avenues in San Francisco... kind of far out for you. Why don't you take it to the warehouse company we use in Emeryville? [She gives me the name and address of the warehouse, as well as directions for how to get there.]

Me: Okay, I'll take it to them. Just wondering... have you considered using biodegradable packaging rather than Styrofoam?

She: We would love to, and we have tried the corn-based peanuts. But they're just too expensive for us right now. And I'm not sure any other type would protect the glass jars enough. I just really want to make sure that my fudge arrives in perfect condition for my customers to enjoy.

Me: Well, I hope the price comes down for you so you can switch away from the Styrofoam, and I'll take this material over to the warehouse.

And then I gushed some more about the fudge sauce and told her the story of Axelle's and my taste test and how hers won hands down over King's Cupboard. And she said I made her day. And we both hung up happy, although I was some somewhat conflicted. What a nice lady! Probably someone's grandma. And living in this world doing what she loves and spreading happiness. And Styrofoam. And plastic bubble wrap. Things aren't always as black and white (or brown and white in this case) as they seem, are they?

So I strapped that big box of plastic onto my bike basket...


Oh yes I did! And rode it out to Emeryville, where the warehouse receptionist very graciously accepted it from me and said they would reuse it.

(I LOVE MY NEW BIKE! I can't wait to find out what else I can strap onto it.)

Final analysis: I had a great conversation with a lovely person and made her day. I returned some plastic and Styrofoam to the company without using any extra petroleum to get it there. I learned how to transport big stuff on my bike. And I got a buttload of chocolate fudge sauce. I think I win!

However... I can't open any of the fudge sauce jars until AFTER my vision quest on the 21st, as I'm preparing to fast. And even after, I do think it's too much for me. I think I'll be giving some away to my fudge-loving friends. If you love chocolate as much as I do and live in the Bay Area (or are planning a trip to the Bay Area soon -- and you know who you are) let me know, and I'll save some for you. Seriously. You'll be doing me a favor. Please don't leave me to eat the whole thing and then hate myself afterwards!
 

Dear (Blue Vinyl DVD Distributor) New Video,

New Video
687 Marshall Avenue
Williston, VT 05495

To whom it may concern:

Thank you so much for the Blue Vinyl DVD. I am looking forward to sharing it with my friends and helping them to become aware of the problems created by PVC production, use, and disposal.

As you can see, I am returning these packaging materials to you. I appreciate the effort to protect the DVD during shipment. However, it has been my experience that DVDs travel very well in only a simple case without an extra box or plastic packaging material.

In my efforts to tread lightly on the earth, I am seeking to reduce the amount of waste I produce considerably. I find extra packaging of this kind to be unnecessary and, in this case, kind of ironic considering the subject matter of the DVD. And while I realize that the plastic air cushions in the box are made from LDPE rather than PVC, nevertheless, they are plastic, which is not biodegradable and will last in the environment forever, whether it is recycled or not.

I urge you to rethink the amount of packaging used to ship DVDs in the future.

Thanks so much,

Beth Terry
 

Lush responds, for what it's worth

The letter-writing continues. After mentioning Lush solid shampoo and deodorant bars in my post two weeks ago, I received several comments from readers who had mail ordered Lush products hoping to avoid plastic packaging, only to find that the products that are sold "naked" in the store are packaged in all kinds of plastic when shipped through the mail.

So I wrote to Lush. I'm not going to reprint my actual email because I'm embarrassed to admit that it wasn't very nice. I must have been in a crappy mood when I wrote it, and rereading it tonight, I realize it's pretty confrontational, which is not the best approach when we want someone to make a change for us. Flies and honey and all that. Nevertheless, the response I got back was very polite. And while I still don't agree with all their packaging choices, I'm happy that they've obviously thought about the issue a lot and are working to get better.

Here's the full response from Lush. Take from it what you will. If you want them to make changes faster, email Amanda (adhalla@lush.com) and let her know. And don't forget that packaging is not the only issue with Lush products. Many of them also contain irritating synthetics like SLS. In my letter, I only addressed packaging concerns. Also, please read my note below regarding the "biodegradable plastic" that Amanda mentions.

Wed, 2 Apr 2008 20:11:36 -0700
From: "Amanda Dhalla" (adhalla@lush.com)
To: beth [at] fakeplasticfish [dot] com

Hi Beth,

Thank you so much for your email and for highlighting an issue near and dear to our hearts.

I’m sure you understand that to ensure that our fragile products arrive at customers’ homes in good condition we must use wrapping materials to protect them against damage. Some of our packages travel many miles and must be able to withstand lots of bumps as both Canada and the US are vast countries.

Over the last few years, we have made many positive changes in the types of materials that we use for packaging. For example:

We use cardboard boxes made from recycled materials and wood excelsior (wood shavings) to protect our products during shipment. Wood excelsior is 100% biodegradable and completely safe.

We use TDPA™ biodegradable plastic bags to protect our bath bombs during shipment. Our bags start degrading after 18 months while regular plastic bags take about 25 years to break down.

[Beth's note: TDPA™ biodegradable plastic bags are similar to the D2W bags that I wrote about in January. They are petroleum-based bags with a chemical (heavy metal) additive which helps them break down. They bring with them many of the same problems of conventional plastics. The only difference is that they will break down under the right conditions.

Also, I don't know where she gets the idea that traditional plastic bags take 25 years to break down. As far as we know, they break down into smaller and smaller plastic particles, but the actual polymers don't break down.]

Our packing tape is recyclable, tamperproof, tamper-evident, and is stronger per square inch than polypropylene.

Our gifts are wrapped with recycled paper and protected using biofoam/envirofill packing peanuts, which are 100% biodegradable.

From this month, we’re rolling out a new clear plastic bottle made with 100% post-consumer recycled (PCR) for our shampoos, conditioners and shower gels, and by this fall all of our black pots will be made with 100% post-consumer recycled plastic too.

This is not to say that we don’t have lots of room for improvement as we do still package some of our products in regular plastic before shipping. However, we are continuing to source more environmentally friendly alternatives such as biodegradable bags and containers to replace the plastic. As you can understand, this process does take some time, but we hope to have moved away from regular plastic completely by the end of 2008.

If you have any suggestions for alternative packaging that you feel would help LUSH Direct (online and phones) in our efforts to become more environmentally friendly, we would be extremely interested in hearing more about them.

Thanks once again for your open and honest feedback, and for keeping us honest.

Warm regards,

Amanda

--------------------------------------------------
Amanda Dhalla
Web Operations Manager – LUSH Canada
Tel: 604.638.5612
Cell: 604.603.1239
Fax: 604.638.3649
http://www.lush.ca

I also notice that Amanda works for the Canadian branch of the company, so I don't know if the packaging policies she mentions are the same in the U.S. But really, how environmentally-friendly is it to mail-order personal care products and spend the associated fuel when you can get them locally? Read my March 24 post as well as the comments for alternatives to Lush solid shampoo bars and deodorants. The baking soda is still doing the trick for me!
 

Batter Blaster: What's wrong with this picture?

Batter Blaster. It's organic. It's fast and easy. Just squirt into a pan and fry up some pancakes in seconds rather than minutes. What could be better?

I first read about Batter Blaster back in January in CindyW's post on the Organic Picks. She expressed total disdain for the product, as did I in my comment on her blog where I wrote, "That is just wrong on SO MANY LEVELS!" My comment caught the attention of a certain Associated Press reporter who emailed me for a follow up. This weekend, her story, including my comment, was published by news outlets large and small, from Fox News, AOL, and San Francisco Examiner, to Ventura County Star, The Sacramento Bee, The San Diego Union-Tribune, and Bakersfield Californian. All I can say is, it must have been a slow news day.

As I stated in my comment, it's not like pancake-making the traditional way is a slow process. In this CNet video comparing canned Batter Blaster with traditional batter-making, mixing up batter the old fashioned way took 3 whole minutes, compared to the 5-second squirt from the can. So we're now creating disposable steel and plastic containers, more physical waste, just to save 3 freakin' minutes? Give me a break!

On the other hand, I've never made a pancake in my life. Ever. What do I know? So I called my friend, Mark, who makes them for himself every morning, and told him about Batter Blaster. His response: What a stupid thing! How lazy are people?

Mark, mind you, is not some radical tree-hugger. He's your average concerned human being. He brings his reusable bags with him shopping, and since he started reading Fake Plastic Fish, he's become more aware of and concerned about excess packaging. He's pretty typical of what Brave New Leaf recently called "The Environmental Pragmatist." He doesn't grind his own wheat or gather his own eggs. But he does get up 3 minutes early to make his own pancakes:

Mark's No Big Deal Pancake Recipe

1) Mix together 1 cup flour, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1 Tbsp. sugar or natural sweetener of your choice (in other words, not aspartame because it doesn't bake well.)

2) Add 1 cup milk, 1 egg, and 1/4 cup oil and mix everything together. Leaving it lumpy is okay.

3) Fry up your pancakes. Now see, to me, this seems like the hardest part. How long do you leave them before flipping? How do you flip without destroying? And these problems are not solved by Batter Blaster at all!

Mark says this recipe makes 4 big pancakes, which he cooks and eats over 2 days. He says that years ago, he might have thought that making pancakes would be a pain in the butt, but now, he can pretty much do it in his sleep. In fact, when I called him at work today, he rattled off the recipe from memory.

So, maybe some people don't have an extra 3 minutes in the morning to make up fresh pancake batter. To them, I say, "Eat cereal! And leave the pancakes for the weekend!"

This has been my rant for the week. Niceness is scheduled for tomorrow.
 

Terracycle & Clif Bar: Shades of Green

Michael called me at work tonight to say he'd just heard that Clif Bar has a new program to take back its plastic energy bar wrappers and "upcycle" them in a partnership with Terracycle, the good folks who got sued by Scotts Miracle Grow for selling worm poop compost in recycled soda bottles and claiming it was better. (I'm sure it is better. Sue me.) In a joint effort, which I would have known about last week if monitor problems hadn't kept me from reading all my email, Terracycle will send free prepaid energy bar wrapper collection envelopes to anyone who signs up for the Wrapper Brigade Program and will then manufacture them into "unique accessories and other upcycled products." And Clif Bar will donate .02 per wrapper to the charity of your choice.

Sounds good right? Well, it didn't sound good to me. In fact, I got all huffy about it. "Oh great!" I ranted. "Like anyone needs a tote bag made out of Clif Bar wrappers. This is just a way to allow companies to keep creating disposable plastic wrappers from virgin plastic and let consumers feel morally superior for keeping them out of the landfill a little longer. They're still made out of petroleum. They're still made from nurdles, the plastic pellets that are polluting our oceans, harming wildlife, and concentrating toxins in the food chain. This isn't 'upcycling.' It's the same old 'downcycling' we're always bemoaning because the loop never gets closed when you're talking about plastic!"

And then Michael said, "But what about people like me who aren't ready to give up Clif Bars? Isn't this better than throwing the wrappers away?" And I thought, the man has a point.

I get so worked up about finding the absolute best solution to problems that I forget there are also good solutions that aren't necessarily the best but might head us in the right direction. Various shades of green. Terracycle is definitely doing a service by keeping plastic bottles, juice boxes, yogurt containers, and now wrappers here at home where we can take some responsibility for our own waste instead of shipping it to Asia. And yet even Clif Bar admits that the Wrapper Brigade is not the best solution. In their e-mail newsletter, they write:

We're not psyched about the fact that our wrappers end up in the garbage. We've been working hard to come up with a more sustainable solution; since we haven't found the answer just yet, we've partnered with TerraCycle to launch the Energy Bar Wrapper Brigade. Get this: TerraCycle will convert all of the energy bar wrappers they receive into handy accessories and will donate two cents for every wrapper to the charity of your choice. Sign up for free and become a shepherd for the program.

So what do we do? Nothing, if we're trying to live plastic-free. I've switched from energy bars to granola and other cereal that I buy from bulk bins and store in my own containers, leaving no packaging waste behind. But if we're not quite there yet, we can at least divert a little waste from some landfills by using this program. And let others know about it too.

I'm hoping that Clif Bar means what it says about coming up with a more sustainable solution. I'm glad they speak that language. It's my hope that companies are moving towards waste reduction as preferable to recycling. In the mean time, we have what we have. What do you think?

(BTW, I know I said I'd post a recipe today. But Beth Terry is nothing if not opinionated, and when the opportunity and mood strikes, she'll usually go with some kind of rant and save the nice stuff for another day.)
 

Store Report: The Thing About Costco...

In last week's post about tips for shopping at Safeway and other mainstream chain grocery stores, I mentioned that one way to save plastic is to buy large-sized containers. Sunny commented that for that reason, maybe shopping at Costco is not so bad. So tonight, I visited Costco with my camera to see if we really could save plastic by buying large containers there.

What I found is that yes, if you don't have access to a store with bulk bins, you can buy large bags of rice or beans or large containers of laundry detergent or ibuprofen and save some plastic. But the thing about Costco is that most of the merchandise is not packaged in large single containers. In fact, if you're not careful, you could end up with way more plastic from Costco than you would otherwise. For one thing, most "bulk" purchases are actually plastic-wrapped bundles of smaller items:

It doesn't help to buy products in plastic containers that are joined together with plastic wrap or bundled in plastic blister packs. You're still getting the same amount of product as if you bought the individual containers separately. The difference is that you're also getting the extra plastic outerwrap. Inside each jumbo pack of toilet paper or paper towels are several smaller plastic-wrapped packages.

Another thing about Costco are those ubiquitous large blister packs protecting very tiny items. The store's got everything from gift cards and SanDisks to postage stamps and FasTrak bridge passes locked in those things! I figured Costco used them for theft control to keep people from pocketing the smaller merchandise. That reason wouldn't make me any more inclined to buy an item in a huge blister pack, but at least I can understand the logic.

Then I saw what I thought were rows of blister-packed iPods:

But upon closer inspection, I realized that all these plastic packs were actually empty! A little sticker on the package says, "To purchase your iPod, please present this empty package at the register." So why do these empty packages have to be packaged in plastic? A simple cardboard card wouldn't suffice? I should have asked an employee what happens to the empty iPod blister packs after the iPod is purchased. I'm assuming they can't be put out on the shelf again if they're being used for inventory control. Or are they? Anyone know?

Plastic at Costco. Plastic galore. But wait. There's even more! Unlike most regular grocery stores, Costco packages most of its produce in plastic containers, too.


And if you look up and down the overwhelming rows of merchandise, the one thing each aisle has in common is the plastic wrap surrounding every palette of goods:



And here's a photo I thought I'd throw in just because. I felt like a little spy tonight creeping around with my camera and waiting until employees left the areas to snap my pictures. I took this one in the seconds before the guy returned to his cart with more trash.

So what's the moral here? If you are truly disciplined and you really have no way to buy the products that you need plastic-free, you might save some plastic by buying them in large containers at Costco. But even then you need to be careful! If you buy a container that holds more than you can actually eat (or more than you actually should eat) you're still not saving plastic in the long run, are you?

A few years ago I watched a news story describing a study that related the size of the container to the amount a person ate. According to this article from the Bariatric Medical Institute,

The study subjects were simply asked to pour what they would consider to be a reasonable serving size of each onto a standard sized plate. What differed in the experiment was the size of the container holding the food item. What was found was that the larger the container, the more each subject poured what they considered to be a reasonable amount. In fact, those pouring from the largest containers poured 30% more than those pouring from the smallest containers regardless of the type of food studied. This clearly demonstrated that with food containers size matters and that while you might be saving money on the giant Costco-sized items, you.re probably doing so at the expense of extra calories.

And I would add that you're probably also doing so at the expense of extra plastic. So for the most part, I think Costco is a trap. Even I didn't get out tonight without buying a couple of things: 2 bottles of wine and a big hunk of cheese. Oh, and a slice of pizza. I do love that greasy, cheap Costco pizza. Talk about calories! Believe me; I won't be going back again any time soon!
 

Target, Multi-Pure, my Cupboards, and the Perils of PVC

By now, many of you have heard that after a national campaign by the Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ), Target has agreed to systematically reduce its use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic (aka vinyl) in products and packaging it carries in its stores. If you haven't heard this news, you can read the full press release here. Blogger LifeLessPlastic wrote a letter to Target to show her support for this action, and I have done the same. It's always a good idea to let companies know when we appreciate the things they do. Here's a link to Target's online contact form if you'd like to send your own message.

Coincidentally, I had my own little PVC panic this past week when I discovered that the tubing used in my new Multi-Pure counter top water filter system, which I bought in place of the Brita we had been using, is made from virgin PVC.


As I wrote on October 29, I was already somewhat disenchanted with Multi-Pure because of the volume of plastic bubble wrap in which the unit and filter cartridge were wrapped. But it wasn't until the unit was installed and working that I actually read the fine print and discovered the more serious problem of PVC used in the product itself.

When I called Multi-Pure to address this issue, I was told that the tubing had been tested by NSF and found not to leach anything harmful into the water. However, the rep was unable to confirm whether phthalates such as DEHP, the chemicals that are the biggest worry, were included in the list of possible contaminants for which to be tested. But regardless of whether or not this particular tubing is leaching anything harmful into my water, I decided to send the unit back anyway.

So what's the big deal about PVC? And if the tubing's been tested and found not to leach, why send it back? Here's a rundown of the problems of PVC:

1. PVC is the only major plastic that contains chlorine, so it is unique in the hazards it creates. During production, PVC plants can release dioxins which harm workers and community members who live nearby. According to pvcinformation.org, residents of Louisiana, which is home to half the PVC production facilities in the USA, have been shown to have much higher concentrations of dioxins in their blood than the average U.S. citizen.


2. The plasticizers used to make PVC soft contain carcinogenic phthalates which can leach from the plastic, especially when used in children's toys and other products that may find their way into children's mouths. In fact, many hospitals have replaced the PVC tubing and IV and blood bags they use with less toxic alternatives.


3. According to ecocycle.org, because so many different additives are used to make PVC, recycling the plastic is extremely difficult, and any PVC bottles (#3 plastic) that make it into the recycling stream can contaminate and ruin a whole load of #1 bottles.


4. When incinerated, PVC forms dioxins, a highly toxic group of chemicals that build up in the food chain. When landfilled, PVC poses significant long-term environmental threats as chemical additives can leach into groundwater.


5. Greenpeace says that in a house fire, fire-retardant PVC will smolder for long periods of time rather than burn, "giving off hydrogen chloride gas long before visible signs of fire appear. Hydrogen chloride gas is a corrosive, highly toxic gas that can cause skin burns and severe long-term respiratory damage." For this reason, the International Association of Firefighters supports alternative materials to replace PVC.


6. In fact, according to Greenpeace's hierarchy of plastics, PVC is the very worst, even worse than Styrofoam! For a more in-depth analysis of the problems associated with PVC, please read Greenpeace's article, "The Poison Plastic."

Whether or not the tubing in the Multi-Pure system actually leaches pthalates into my water, I don't want to support the production of a material that is so harmful to humans and the environment in general. So this morning, I shipped the Multi-Pure unit back to the company.

And then tonight, after reading that PVC cannot be recycled, and realizing that I had included several #3 Act fluoride rinse bottles in my recycling in the last few months, I went through my cupboards and refrigerator to see if there were any other PVC culprits still lurking in the house. Sure enough, I found four of them:


#3 PVC bottles look very similar to clear #1 PETE bottles. In fact, many manufacturers have switched to #1 plastic as an alternative to PVC. The only way to tell is to look at the number on the bottom of the container. #3 means PVC. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to tell when other, unlabelled products are made from PVC. These can include children's toys, shower curtains, window blinds, flooring, pipes, house siding, insulation, roofing membranes, protective pipes for electricity and telecom cables, casings for electronics, refrigerator gaskets, power cords, carpets, furniture, the inside of screw caps, shoes and boots, purses and luggage, raincoats, T-shirts with plastisole prints, packing tape, vinyl records, the covering on ring binders, strollers, garden furniture, tarps, car interiors, and more.

So, what do we do with PVC that we already have? The National Geographic Green Guide article, "How To Handle Vinyl," recommends either disposing of it at a hazardous waste facility or sending it back to the manufacturer and letting them know that PVC is an unacceptable material for them to be using. For the four items I found tonight, I think I'll go on a research mission and see if these products are still being sold in #3 bottles. (Act fluoride rinse, by the way, is now contained in #1 PETE.) If the bottles are no longer #3 plastic, I'll just toss these current containers into my hazardous waste bag for later. But if the products are still being sold in PVC bottles, I'll send these back to the manufacturers with a nice note.

Now once again, I am without a water filter. What to do? Well, how about something I should have done a long, long time ago: testing the water to see if we even need a water filter in the first place! Last week I purchased a Culligan water test kit at Ace Hardware and did some preliminary home tests. Turns out, our chlorine and chloramine levels are much lower than I expected! I mailed a water sample away this morning to be tested for lead. If that test comes back okay, I think we'll drink our water unfiltered and save a whole lot of money and plastic. Imagine drinking water straight from the faucet again, just like we did as kids. What a nice idea.
 

Week 20 Results: 22.1 oz of plastic

No, it's not my Halloween costume. Any guesses? Read on. Here's the weekly tally:

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

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


• 1 pump sprayer cap from a bottle of Formula 409 all-purpose cleaner. See below.


• 1 cap from a bottle of Act fluoride rinse. See below.


• 1 cap from a bottle of dried onions. See below.


• 5 pieces of plastic from various iPod accessories packages. I'm forever discovering little plastic goodies while cleaning.


• 1 plastic liner from a queen-size mattress cover. This thing had gotten all ripped up, so I just decided it was time to stop sleeping on plastic and removed the lining from the cover. It's a pretty heavy hunk of plastic.

Recyclable items used up this week but bought before the project began:

• 32-oz bottle of Formula 409 all-purpose cleaner (#2 plastic). As I've mentioned before, I've switched to vinegar and water for all-purpose cleaning these days. This bottle goes in our recycling bin.


• 18-oz bottle of Act fluoride rinse (#3 plastic.) This is the last one! As I've mentioned, I've been debating whether to continue to purchase fluoride rinse once these bottles are used up. After checking with several dentists, I've decided to forego the fluoride and see how my teeth fare. I have, however, found a possible alternative for mouth rinse. Will write about it in a future post if it turns out well. This bottle goes in our recycling bin.


• 3-oz bottle of McCormick dried onions (#1 plastic). As I use up bottled spices, I replace them with bulk spices that I'll store in glass jars. This bottle goes in our recycling bin.

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

• 1 wrapper from a block of Loleta Cheese Company organic sharp white cheddar.


• A bit of plastic from around a Recycline toothbrush container. The toothbrush and the rest of the container get sent back to Recycline.


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

This week, I also got rid of a bunch of plastic packing materials that I'd been storing. I took the Styrofoam peanuts to The Packaging Store, where they will be reused, and I gave the box of bubble wrap to a Freecycler who wanted it for an art project. These were materials I'd had before beginning this project. As I've written before, nowadays when I get new plastic packaging, I send it back where it came from.
 

Hidden Plastic

Confession time again. Well, maybe not a confession, but more of a clarification. There is some plastic that I use that I don't include in my tally. It's plastic that hides in objects that many people don't realize contain plastic. Plastic that coats and lines cartons and cans and caps and lids. Plastic that can't be separated from the material it's attached to, and therefore can't be weighed. I do avoid most of these kinds of plastic, but not all. Here's a rundown of some of them.

Paper milk cartons are lined with two layers of polyethylene, inside and out. Many people are under the mistaken belief that these cartons are waxed. In fact, although the original paperboard milk cartons were coated with paraffin wax, they haven't contained wax since the 40's when polyethylene became the waterproofing material of choice.

Here is a diagram of how they are made, directly from Elopak's web site. Also, eNotes.com has an excellent history of the milk carton which describes the production process in detail.



The point is that if it's made from paper these days, and it holds liquids, it's generally going to be coated with plastic. As far as I know, there's no ice cream container that's not coated with a petroleum-based plastic, although there are manufacturers experimenting with bio-based plastic coatings.

So choosing paper cups and paper plates does not necessarily mean plastic-free. Cups are always coated with a layer of polymer film to make them waterproof. Plates may or may not be coated with plastic. You can tell if they are shiny or not and if wet food soaks through them or not. Georgia Pacific's Dixie Brand (pictured) contains a "Soak-Proof Shield." Their site does not reveal what the shield is made from, but you can be sure it's plastic.

There is a new paper cup being used by Tully's and a few other coffee houses called the Ecotainer. It's coated with NatureWorks PLA, a corn-based plastic, rather than petro-plastic. Hopefully, this is just the beginning of new, more environmentally-friendly options, as they are fully compostable (the cups, that is; not the lids.) Still, disposable is disposable, NatureWorks PLA is produced by Dow Chemical and Cargill, and bringing your own is always the best choice.

Moving on from paper products, we come to cans. There's been a lot of news lately about the fact that many food cans are lined with polycarbonate, which has been found to leach Bisphenol-A. As far as I know, there is no comprehensive list of canned foods that contain this lining and canned foods that don't. Most do, however, contain some form of plastic. So buying canned foods is not a way to remain plastic-free.

Neither is buying canned soda! Aluminum soda cans also contain a plastic lining to prevent the soda from reacting with the metal. See for yourself in Steve Spangler's Inside The Soda Can demo.
 
 
 

So, what kind of food container is really plastic free? Glass? Not quite. The lids of glass jars are lined with plastic as well. Some Mason jar lids don't seem to contain plastic, but all of the twist-off ones do. See my discussion of the differences between jar lids.

And metal twist off caps are not plastic-free either. This photo shows a twist-off wine cap. Wineries have been switching to these lately as an alternative to cork. However, these caps are lined with PVDC, a possible hormone-disruptor, which is yet another reason to stick to natural cork stoppers, especially since producers are taking new measures to make sure natural corks do not develop mold.

So, these are the types of hidden plastics that would not end up in my tally at the end of the week. It seems like nearly everything has some bit of plastic in it these days. I eat as little as possible from cans. And I use as few disposable products as possible. While I buy my milk in glass bottles (the carton in the photo belongs to someone else), I do indulge in Straus's local, organic ice cream and I do use glass jars with those plasticized lids.

I'm not listing these things to scare you or make you think you have to avoid everything. But I think it's a good idea for us to be mindful of all the plastic we use every day and to try and minimize our consumption as much as we can. I always think it's better to be educated than blissfully ignorant.

Every item on this page is either recyclable or compostable. The question to think about is what happens to all that plastic? As we know, it doesn't biodegrade. It's all still out there somewhere, even if the metal has been made into new cans, the paper has been pulped into new paper or broken down into new soil. The plastic's still there in our environment. I don't know the ramifications of this fact. But I do think it's important to keep in mind.
 

Sending things back...

You've heard of paying it forward? This post is about sending it back. And no, I'm not talking about that mean thing that sport fishermen do. I'm referring to unwanted plastic that shows up my my doorstep unsolicited. I've decided that in addition to e-mailing or sending a letter to the company, I'm just going to ship it right back to them! So here are a few things I've sent back this week:

As many of you know, I've been having no luck finding plastic-free cheddar cheese here in the Bay Area. (And no, I haven't found a deli that will wrap it in plain paper that is not lined with plastic.) Yet cheese is one of the few things I'm not willing to give up. So I decided that I would put my eco-energy into purchasing good quality local organic cheese from happy cows that graze on pasture, rather than hormones, antibiotics, and corn (organic or not); and allow it to be one of my few plastic indulgences. That said, I didn't want extra plastic. Just the unavoidable cheese wrappers.

So when I ordered several blocks of organic cheddar from Loleta Cheese Factory, I included a note asking not to have any plastic or styrofoam packaging if possible and for them to call me before shipping if there was any problem with that instruction. Well, the cheese arrived, packaged with a bunch of styrofoam peanuts. I could have cried.

Instead, I took out the cheese, put a nice letter inside the box explaining why I was sending them a bunch of styrofoam peanuts, sealed it up, and mailed it back to the company. And two days later I received a very apologetic e-mail from Loleta employee, Cindy Davy. Turns out I'd accidentally used the word, "extra," in my instructions. As in, "no extra styrofoam." So they interpreted that to mean I wanted some styrofoam. I've got to be soooooo careful with my words!

Anyway, Cindy graciously offered me a credit in the amount that I paid to ship the box back and promised it wouldn't happen again. The cheese is great, so I may reorder. We'll see. There is another cheesery, Spring Hill Cheese Company, that is geographically closer to me and also raises happy cows. In fact, they sell at my farmer's market. But I didn't care for the taste of their cheese the last time I tried it. Maybe I should give them another chance too.

That worked so well, I decided to send a few more things back. I received this DVD along with a bunch of coupons from Straus Family Creamery after sending them a love letter about their ice cream. Straus, located in Marin County, also raises happy cows (we've got a theme going here) and in addition to selling the milk, they make the best ice cream in the world. (Okay, Michael, besides Toscanini's in Cambridge.) And they use the least plastic possible on their cardboard cartons: just the coating on the inside. You guys know that all cardboard ice cream and milk cartons and pretty much any paper products that hold food are coated with plastic, right?

Well, I gladly accepted and used those coupons! But I don't need the DVD, which is just extra plastic. Especially since the videos, showing how Straus's farm and dairy operate, are also on their web site. So tonight I'm sending that back with a very nice note thanking them nicely but letting them know I don't need the extra plastic.

And here's another send back for tonight. A promotional mailing from General Mills. It's a plastic ring that says, "Eat Better." You're supposed to wear it around your finger to remind yourself to... um... eat better. (Than what?) And it's packaged in a plastic sleeve. I don't feel like composing a letter for this one. The label is marked "Return Service Requested." So I wrote, "Return to Sender" and in the tiny available space, "Please do not send me unsolicited plastic. Plastic waste is harmful to the environment." And I'm not even getting into the irony of General Mills, makers of Hamburger Helper, Cocoa Puffs (sorry Marika!), and Totino's pizza rolls, advising me to eat better.

And finally, I'm sending myself back. Back to the old homestead in Maryland for a few days where my dad advises me to "metamorphize vis-a-vis plastic use in this here household. Just give it up, babe! Don't think about it. Then, we all will be HAPPY!" Are you reading this Dad? I'll be there in a day and a half, reusable bottle and camera in hand. Are your kitchen cabinets and refrigerator ready for my exposé?

As Bill Maher might say, "I kid my dad from love!"

And I do plan to blog for at least a couple of days while I'm there to capture the parental perspective. Don't worry. It'll be fun.