Year 2, Week 10 Results: 19.6 oz of plastic waste!

What does it mean when your cat's poop suddenly turns red? Could be some terrible disease. Or could just mean your cat's been eating her red blanket and explains why she's not hungry anymore. I've been so worried about poor little albatross chicks consuming pieces of plastic out in the North Pacific Gyre, while here at home under my own nose my kitty's been chowing down on polar fleece. Look at all the holes!This is the blanket the kittens came with. I put it in Arya's cage while she was healing, thinking it would be familiar and comforting. And I guess it was. Comfort food. (Plastic blanket, and god knows what kind of dye it's got in it.)
Little Hobble had her sutures out on Friday and is getting back to her normal spirited self, which is a little worrisome because her bones will take a while to completely heal. So we still have to keep her in the cage -- sans fake plastic blanket!
So, here's this week's tally. Plastic items used this week but purchased before the plastic project began:
- 1 85 oz bottle Sun Light gel dishwasher detergent and cap. The main reason this stuff has lasted so long is that we bought it when we first moved into this apartment three years ago and then rarely used the dishwasher. Only recently did I figure out that washing one load of dishes per week in the dishwasher is actually more efficient for us than handwashing. So, we've finally used up this bottle and have now switched to powdered detergent in a cardboard box.
At the moment, we are trying Ecover Automatic Dishwasher Powder because it's non-toxic and also because it seems to have the most environmentally-friendly packaging. The box is made from recycled cardboard AND the spout is also cardboard rather than metal, like those of Seventh Generation and Whole Foods brands. Fewer types of materials means better recycling, right? The Ecover web site mentions a polypropylene cover, but I'm wondering if that is referring to some other product because our box of detergent has no plastic cover.
Ecover has a statement about trace amounts of dioxane found in its products, but it seems to only apply to the liquid dish soap, not the powder. It remains to be seen how effective this stuff is. Do you guys use dishwasher detergent and if so, what works best for you? Oh, and does anyone have tips for the best way to load the dishwasher? Neither Michael nor I grew up with one, so we're doing the best we can.
And yes, I'm sure we could be super efficient at handwashing and skip the machine. But the fact remains that we are not. Let's just leave it at that. :-)
- 1 chewed up red polar fleece blanket. Already fully described above.
- 1 plastic seal from around the neck of a jar of Fudge Is My Life fudge sauce. It's almost gone. I heard back from one person who won a jar a few weeks ago and mailed it off on Friday. Haven't heard back from the other two: Small Change and Bobbi. If you want your fudge, email me at beth [at] fakeplasticfish [dot] come before it's gone!
Tomorrow, I'll report all about the ridiculous search for plastic-free water at the the Outside Lands Music Festival on Friday, and the Radiohead show that pummeled me with its exquisite noise and left me breathless with hope for humanity. (What a world where guys can make sounds that take over my whole body and soul and cause me to weep with amazement no matter how many times I hear them.)Labels: cleaning products, pet care, Weekly Results















Here's my weekly consumer letter. Okay, not actually weekly. I didn't write one last week. But I sent this one twice, both as an email (via 
So where do these chemicals come from? Outdoor pets can be exposed to pesticides on a daily basis. But so can indoor animals when we track those pesticides into our homes on our shoes. Fortunately, Michael and I maintain a shoe-free home. Our shoes make it only as far as the shelf inside the back door. So how else might our indoor kitties be in danger?
We avoided buying them scratching posts or kitty climbing trees covered in synthetic carpet, but what about the floor carpet that they roll around on on a daily basis? I have no idea what this carpet is made from. We are renters and can't just pull it up and replace it. Is it dangerous for them? I don't know.
We haven't bought them new plastic toys because, as you know, I'm avoiding new plastic. But what about the few plastic toys we already had? They love this blue ball that came from who knows where. What's it made of? I don't know. But it's now hidden in my Freecycle bag. I don't think they'll miss it.
But I've written before about the cords they love to chew. Electrical cords are covered in PVC. A few nights ago, I went around and coated some of them with Vaseline sprinked with cayenne pepper as a deterrent. Yeah, gross. Hopefully gross to Soots and Arya too. And we keep them locked out of the room where our computers live.
I am really tired. The Green Sangha Rethinking Plastics presentation, which I co-presented with friend and former chemistry teacher Solvig on Friday, took a lot of work and mental preparation during the last two weeks. I'll tell you more about it tomorrow. I think the presentation was a great success, but even though I came home and collapsed afterwards, sleeping for 12 straight hours, I'm still tired.
Oh dear. So you know how last week I had zero new plastic waste and only stuff I'd purchased before I started this project? Well, this week, it's all just new new new stuff. Some unavoidable and some completely and embarassingly avoidable. So here goes.
The nice thing about pumpkins is that they last a really, really long time. We've had this one since Thanksgiving and finally got around to doing something with it. We also had some cabbage that was getting old, so I Googled "pumpkin cabbage recipe," not really expecting to find much, and ended up with this fun meal called
The original recipe calls for ground beef. I opted for ground turkey instead and brought my own container with me to the butcher counter at Whole Foods, where they didn't bat an eye when I handed it to them. And yes, this container is plastic Tupperware, which I already had. I'd like to find something made of stainless steel for buying meat but haven't gotten around to looking for an alternative.
The beauty of this recipe is that you can use pretty much any grain, vegetables, and meat or beans that you want.
More kitty plastic this week. I gave up on the hypoallergenic food from the vet, which actually made them both sick, and fed them boiled chicken, white rice, and pumpkin this week. More on that in a future post. I also purchased a bottle of 
My kitties have been conspiring to increase my weekly plastic waste. I know that's what they're talking about when they're curled up together pretending to sleep. Soots decided to get diarrhea and start pooping outside his litter box so that in desperation, I'd go out and buy new litter, medicine, and food, all in plastic bags. Such a bad kitty!
Oh joy! I've been waiting for the week when my plastic waste would finally fit easily in my own two hands, and this was that week. Don't get me wrong. We still have plastic in this house that we're using up, and the tally will go up again. But it's nice to savor small victories.


I was planning to write about DIY hair care products this week. But so far, my experiments have been less than successful. Take, for example, the sugar water hairspray, exhibit left. Here's the recipe:
So I did try the measure that I mentioned in my post: putting a cup of sugar in the cabinet under the sink to attract them away from my countertops and food cupboards. And guess what. It's working! The ants are all over the sugar under the sink (where I can't see them and they can't hurt anything) and almost completely gone from everywhere else. I guess once the rains have stopped for good, I'll start moving the sugar towards the back door and try to lead them back outside. Or maybe they'll just go on their own. We'll see.
Okay, so I learned this lesson a second time this week with my kitties. They are not allowed into our bedroom at night because they chase and bite and wrestle on top of our heads. (Why it is necessary for the wrestling to happen on our heads, we do not know.) So every morning, there are kitties outside the bedroom door scratching and mewing and oh so excited for us to come out and be with them, or at least give them food. And every morning, when I open the door, these kitties rush past me into the room and under the bed, where I spend many minutes trying to coax them out.