Year 2, Week 16 Results: .7 oz of plastic waste. Cool music video.

Why oh why do kitties like to chew on plastic? Arya had X-rays today. She's healing well but has to wait a couple of weeks to get the pin removed from her leg. Feisty girl. Broken bone didn't stop her from jumping up on top of the refrigerator after she got home. A few more weeks of cage, I'm afraid.

News: Take Back The Filter campaign in the NY Times today! Michael was excited to be photographed by the NY Times this weekend while I was away at a meditation retreat. Can you find little black kitty Soots hiding in the photo?

Stay tuned after the plastic tally for a music video that was sent to me today to bring awareness to the problems of plastic in the oceans.

All new plastic waste:

• 3 plastic envelope windows. Notices from Financial West Group, AT&T, & Kaiser Permanente. There were a few solicitations from organizations this week, too, but I sent them back requesting to be removed from the paper mailing list.


• 1 outer wrapper from a case of Instinct canned cat food. Maybe we could get away with just feeding Arya the outer wrapper since she finds it so delicious. Nom nom nom.

Enjoy Micah Wolf's "One by One" music video which was created with the help of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation.


 

 

Searching for plastic-free water at Outside Lands wears me out.

I love music more than ice cream. Even more than fudge sauce. And to me, the band Radiohead is like magic. I don't understand how they make the exquisite and sometimes excruciating sounds that they do. I just know that as long as there are humans on this planet whose organized noise can move me to tears every single time I hear it, there must be hope for us.

So for a few months, I've been really looking forward to seeing my first Radiohead show live at the SF Outside Lands music festival in Golden Gate Park. And I was also pleased that this festival was being billed as a green event and planned to visit a section they called Ecolands, where there would be all kinds of "green" organizations and vendors measuring carbon footprints, collecting recycling (including old cell phones), and serving up organic food.


So I wasn't really worried when I got to the festival entrance on Friday and was asked (after my bag was searched) to empty the water out of my Klean Kanteen. This is standard practice for concerts, right? Organizers don't want certain illicit substances being brought in in the guise of water. And the staffer assured me I'd be able to fill it up again once inside the festival grounds.

So after staking out a spot near the mainstage where Radiohead would be playing later that evening, I left my friend Laura and set out to find the watering spot to refill our bottles. This is the sign that was projected on the side of the stage:


And this is one of the many waste stations throughout the grounds for recycling, compost, and trash.


I thought I'd start by asking these guys, as they worked for Clean Vibes, a company "dedicated to the responsible waste management of outdoor festivals and events." But they didn't know where the water was. "Let us know when you find out," they said.

So I walked and walked, and finally spotted this!


But a closer look revealed this is what they were selling:


The only water to be found were plastic bottles of Arrowhead water in the new "Eco-shape" bottle which according to Arrowhead's site, "contains 30% less plastic than the average half liter bottle." Turns out Arrowhead is one of the festival sponsors!

"Look," I said, "I don't want to buy a plastic bottle. I just want to fill my Klean Kanteen. Where can I fill it up?" The staff at the "water" booth didn't know. So I asked at every booth in "EcoLands" where I could find regular tap water, and nearly every person gave the same answer, "Good question. Let us know when you find out!"

Someone suggested filling up from the hand washing station by the porta potties:


Um. I don't think so.


And then I saw it. An actual drinking fountain right near an actual restroom!


Seriously, would it have killed the organizers to set up the fence AROUND the water fountain so festival goers could use it? I even tried sticking my Klean Kanteen through the fence, but alas, it would not fit.

After asking an official looking guy in a blue uniform where I could fill up my water bottle, he told me, "We have no intention of providing free water to everyone at this festival. I don't know why you'd think that." Um... you charge $85 a ticket and can't afford to provide SF tap water? And um... if you weren't going to let us refill our bottles, why'd you make us dump them out and promise we could refill when we got inside?

Someone manning the EcoLands info booth even tried to give me his own bottle of Arrowhead water, thinking maybe I just couldn't afford to buy my own. You can believe I passed out a ton of Fake Plastic Fish cards during that hour-long water search and had quite a few discussions about the craziness of this whole "eco" scheme. And what we all realized was that when the organizers talked about diversion, they meant recycling plastic bottles. Diversion is not the same as zero waste, is it?

There's nothing to divert if you don't create a bunch of waste in the first place!

Okay, so I finally did find free water. Coming out of the bathroom behind the fence was a long hose with a nozzle. It was what the coffee vendors were using to make their beverages. Aha! And this nice guy (whose name I neglected to get) happily filled up both Laura's and my bottles for us.


It took an hour of wandering around in the chilly Golden Gate Park fog (which, to be honest, was actually kind of fun in a challenging, albeit surreal, sort of way. Almost like playing a game and finally winning!) to get our bottles filled up. But that wasn't the end of my quest. Oh no! Laura and I wanted wine, too!


So I checked out the much-touted Winehaven wine tasting tent, only to find that 1) a "glass" of wine started around $10 for the cheap-ass stuff and 2) the "glasses" were, of course, plastic. "Oh, but they are fully recyclable!" I was told. Feh. We know about plastic recycling. Not doing it. And thankfully Laura wasn't into paying that kinda cash for cheap wine.

But on the way back to the main stage, I spotted the tell-tale green label indicating a compostable cup. "Where did you get that?" I asked the woman holding it, probably a bit wild-eyed at this point. I think I freaked her out, but she was nice enough to point me to another tent. Yes! At this point, I didn't care if I was drinking rotgut. It came in a compostable cup and it cost less than what they were selling in the swanky Winehaven tent. I bought Laura and me a cup each and headed back to our blanket.


Yes, the cup is made from corn, and I should have been more prepared and brought my own reusable cup for wine. Didn't think of it. And I'm actually not sure I have something that would have been legal. No glass was allowed in the park. But you know what? I saved those compostable cups, and I'll bring them with me next time!

Just before the show, Laura went off and found us an awesome organic veggie curry dish from Bombay Kitchen (all fully compostable, although as before, I should have brought my own bamboo cutlery) and our tummies were happy.


And then the music started. And for a few hours, I didn't care about anything else.

First, a set by Steel Pulse:





And then Manu Chao:





And when it finally got dark... RADIOHEAD...














A beautiful set list. And yes, the encore was Fake Plastic Fish Trees.


Then, trudging out of the park, the crunch of plastic underfoot...

...it wears me out, it wears me out.
It wears me out, it wears me out.
 

 

More on Coffee: Saying goodbye

Goodbye old friends. You served me well. But did you poison me in the process? I don't know. Supposedly #5 polypropylene is safe. But that's what they used to say about your buddy polycarbonate, and look what he's doing to us! So you have to go. White coffee drip cone, black coffee drip cone, and Braun electric coffee maker with the plastic coffee cone, goodbye. And you, new Melitta coffee filters in the plastic bag, you have to go too. Hope you will all enjoy being with the brave Freecycler who has agreed to take you home, despite the warning in my Freecycle post that I was getting rid of you because I wasn't sure it was safe to drink hot liquids poured through plastic.

So hello new coffee friends. It's a good thing I bought you last week before Crunchy Chicken's Buy Nothing Challenge began on April 1. Too bad you came with a plastic bag of bleached white coffee filters, which the above-mentioned Freecycler is going to enjoy. But considering that you are all porcelain, come in a cardboard box with only a tiny bit of cardboard inside and no plastic packaging, and will last me for many, many years if I'm careful, it's a small price to pay. (Maybe I should send the filters back to Melitta with a note, but at the moment, I have too many other things going on.)

You're nice because I can set your coffee cone directly on my travel mug for making coffee for myself in the morning. Or I can use the porcelain 6-cup pitcher and make coffee for friends as well. I still have half a box of unbleached #2 filters (smaller than this #4 cone, but still workable.) But when they are gone, it would be nice to get some reusable coffee filters. And not the gold/stainless mesh ones because they still have plastic in and around them. How about it organicneedle? Are you up for sewing organic cotton or hemp coffee filters that don't come in a plastic bag? (I've only seen reusable cloth filters in plastic bags. If anyone knows of filters that come sans bag or at least in paper or cardboard, please let me know.)

The other nice thing about you is that you came from Greenfeet, an environmentally conscious online retailer that packaged you 100% plastic-free. They even used paper tape on the box instead of plastic! That is rare these days, indeed. And when I emailed them to find out about their packaging policies ahead of time, this is what customer service rep, Jessica, wrote:

At Greenfeet, we do not purchase new plastic or styrofoam packaging. If anyone ever receives styrofoam or plastic packaging, it is packaging that we are reusing. Though typically, we try not to use those materials at all. If the merchandise ships out from one of our manufacturers, there may be plastic or styrofoam packaging in there. However since most items ship from our facility at Greenfeet, we try not to use those packing materials.

See? The box was full of paper and a little bonus surprise...


This photo is dedicated to homeschoolmom's almost 13yo son, who likes it when the kitties come out to play. The packing paper is still all over our living room floor. Yes, I know it would be better to gather it all up and save it to be reused. But Soots and Arya are enjoying it so much, I just can't take it away from them!

Tomorrow, I'll have a post about the milk that goes in the coffee. And another dairy product. I said I was going to slow down on posting, didn't I? Not this week, I guess. I seem to have all this extra energy. Could it be because of Madonna???

I April Fooled my co-workers today telling them that "Oh my god! You will not believe this! Madonna read my blog and called me this morning! She did! Well, her rep did, but then she herself got on the phone after I picked up. Really. She says she's banning plastic from all of her tours from now on just because of Fake Plastic Fish!" It's a nice thought. Tomorrow I have to confess I made it up, right?

But that's not why I'm in such a good mood. My energy level is being artificially boosted by repeat playings of the Madonna/Justin Timberlake/Timbaland single, 4 minutes, on my iPod, which has me dancing Ellen Degeneres-style at the BART station in the morning exactly 4 minutes at a time over and over and over again. Sometimes being a little obsessive is a fun thing!
 

 

Information and chocolate. I need some sleep!

For weeks I've been staying up all night researching plastic, what it does in the environment, alternative products, alternative packaging, etc. etc. etc. I wonder how much having my computer on all night contributes to global warming? Of course, if it weren't for this project, I'd probably be sitting in front of it watching recorded TV shows all night and playing Spider Solitaire, so I guess this is the lesser of the evils.

But this morning, as I was grabbing yet another plastic-laden frozen entree as I ran out the door because I hadn't given myself time to prepare anything else, I paused to think about the irony of the situation. And I realized that I don't have to solve every plastic problem that arises this week or this month. I can slow down and spend some time in my garden. Or get some exercise and start running again. Or just sit and follow my breath.

I'm tired. And I think a lot of other people are tired. So many people are trying to cram too many things into their lives without stopping to breathe. And just maybe all this frantic activity helps create the need for all this plastic in the first place. We want convenience because we don't have time to cook fresh food. We want a cucumber shrink-wrapped in plastic like I saw the other day at Trader Joe's because we don't even have time to wash off our fruits and vegetables.

But even as I'm writing this, another voice inside me is screaming, "But I don't want to cook dinner! I don't want to make a salad. I want to sit in front of my computer all day, munching on chocolate bars, until I merge into cyberspace and become pure information." (Don't laugh, Jo Anne.) So what I just said about doing too many things is true, but it's not the whole story.

Are we living in the Information Age or the Plastic Age? I think it's both and that they go hand in hand. Our brains are plastic, malleable, our minds so easily seduced and manipulated by the volume of input coming in faster and faster. People like me become fascinated with all this information. In fact, the Web site Plastic.com is not actually about plastic but is an ever-changing (plastic) user-driven news and discussion forum, "recyling the web in real time."

Remember when I said that having a project to be passionate about has resulted in my desire to buy fewer things? Well, that's a nice sentiment. It's what you're supposed to say in a blog like this. But honestly, I think I'm still just as aquisitive as I was before. It's just that now, the desire is for knowledge, information, data. Feed me data! (And chocolate because I do still have a body.) More data! More chocolate! More data! More chocolate! Yum! If we only had a food replicator, like on Star Trek, we'd be set. But we don't. We have plastic, plastic packaging that allows us to live plastic lives. We can freeze it, bake it, microwave it, submerge it, and it'll still be there protecting whatever is inside so we can do whatever else we want to do besides worrying about preparing food.

In fact, the only thing about plastic that isn't plastic is the firmness with which it will continue to exist even after we are gone. And when I think about that, and about the harm it is doing to the other creatures who live on this planet and who are not seduced by information and chocolate, I feel sad. And responsible.

So... so... I have no pithy conclusion to this post. I can't tie it up with a neat moral. I don't know that there is one. Except to reiterate that I need some sleep. And a plan for how to continue to pursue my passions without forgetting this human body, without which those passions would not exist. But first, I need some sleep.