Saturday May 17th, 2008
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Plastic-free Week Begins... and Ends
Posted by Belinda Miller on July 11, 2007 - 8:47am.
I was totally inspired by the Leave No Plastic Behind art installation here in Portland, wherein the artists tried to abstain from buying single-use plastics for three months, and then made art out of any plastic they accumulated anyway. I decided to try to go a week without buying plastic. I know that even though we’re careful, our family uses a lot of plastic daily, and so much of it can’t be recycled, but I wanted to see just how much our lives would be affected if I started paying attention to every plastic window, bag, or jar. Here’s how it went:
Day 1 – Plastic Free Week started with an unpleasant wake up call. A hearty WHACK and thunk as the newspaper hit our picture window and fell to the porch. I walked out to retrieve it and of course it was… wrapped in plastic.
Georgia and I went to Trader Joe’s. I got my three paper bags out of the trunk I expected to reuse, walked in the store and stopped dead in my tracks.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” said Georgia, visibly alarmed by my swooning.
“Well, remember how we were going to try to not buy any plastic for a week? Everything here is wrapped in plastic!”
I almost caved right away, but then thought I would just try to see how far I could take it. We do survive on soy milk, and even though it has a plastic spout on it, and surely some sort of plastic coating the tetra pak, I got two containers. One quart of cow milk, three cans of cat food, and a bottle of wine (turns out the “foil” on the wine was plastic too). I moved fast so Georgia wouldn’t ask for too much, though she was chanting, "Plastic, plastic, plastic!" through the aisles. I wasn’t able to buy bread, paper towels, nuts, cheese, TEA! The box of tea is wrapped in plastic, and the tea bags inside are enshrined in a plastic pillowcase. I’m guessing it’s so the tea goodness doesn’t escape and so it doesn’t get wet. Tea is my only caffeine intake, and I almost made an exception. But I can get bulk tea, even if it’s more of a pain. I can go to the bakery for bread. It’s only Day One and I don’t think I can go a whole week.
Hova’s allergy medicine came today, two plastic bottles (recyclable) in a plastic mailing envelope (not recyclable).
Day 2 – One way to deal with difficulty is to retreat. So I didn’t go into any stores today, even though we need food. I need to go without my little “helper.” However, I did have a meeting with the fabulous Melinda, Head Mama of Earth Mama Angel Baby — and walked away with two bottles of lotion, lots of jars of tea, and two tubes of lip balm. Georgia gave me a funny little look while graciously receiving the heavenly Angel Baby Lotion, and when we got in the car she said, “Mommy… plastic!” It didn’t even occur to me, but she remembered. I told her it was OK, because they were gifts and we didn’t have to turn down gifts. (They are also recyclable, and the company is very environmentally conscious).
Day 3 – When I told Hova we didn’t have any bread for toast because it’s Plastic Free Week he quipped, “You mean FOOD free week?” I revised my grocery list and went to three stores instead of one, without Georgia. Is it worth saving one petroleum product while using another to drive all over town? I realize the cereal I was going to buy has a plastic bag inside. Is it OK if I pretend I don’t know there’s plastic inside? Can I revise my mission to buying only recyclable plastic, or plastic I will definitely reuse, or plastic that isn’t visible? I decided to just stick with the plan: no plastic. So no yogurt today. I was able to get lots of produce at New Seasons. Long ago I stopped putting my fruits and veggies into plastic bags, I just pile them into the cart and line them up on the conveyor belt at the check out. It’s a habit that I don’t even notice anymore. But if you buy berries, they cover the paper container with a plastic bag, closed with a rubber band, so the berries don’t spill. And I ordered at the meat counter before I noticed they use little plastic napkins to grab the meat, which they then include with your paper-wrapped pork, beef, or fish. I’ve seen it a hundred times, but never noticed it. I’m not about to say to the jocular fellows behind the counter, “Please use your bare hands to handle my meat.” And I’m sure it would be against some food handler law anyway. So I did get some food, and one plastic bag on my berries (which I can reuse), and several unusable plastic meat napkins (which I can’t), but no plastic I chose myself!
I drove to two bakeries, neither one had whole grain bread, and nothing organic. I opted for a crusty sourdough, delicious but of dubious nutritional quality.
Day 4 — Hova and Georgia took the MAX train to the zoo, and I stayed home (that retreat thing again). If we don’t use the car can I buy a loaf of bread in a plastic bag? Bargaining, bargaining… When Hova and Georgia got home I asked, “Did you bring any plastic into our lives today?”
Hova said, “Nope! Oh wait — we got a cookie.”
Georgia’s favorite cookies are the zoo-special animal-shaped, frosted cookies, wrapped in plastic.
“I’ll never get to have a cookie again…” she said, with much drama and sad resignation.
We assured her that she could have a cookie, and that we were just doing an experiment to see how much plastic we use, and if there’s a way to use less.
She still seemed worried. What will this crazy mom think up next?
Day 5 — We’re hungry, we need band aids, I’m starting to get depressed, it’s clear the experiment must end. I make a trip to TJ's where I shop greedily, though guiltily — Pay no attention to the plastic window in front of the lasagna noodles!
The Wrap — OK, I know Plastic Free Week was just an experiment of my own design, but somehow I feel like a failure. I expected it to be hard, but to realize there was just no way I could survive a week was like a slick, wet plastic grocery bag slapping me in the face. But, I learned some things. I can buy bulk tea and reuse the plastic bag I had to use to get it (some places even allow you to get a tare weight of your own container). I can reuse a lot of what I get, like bread bags for cat litter duty. Not buying sandwich bread or deli turkey at the grocery store means I’d have to make a lot more trips in the car, which doesn’t make sense financially, or environmentally. It was good to notice every plastic thing that feels so unnecessary, but there’s no way this family can cut it out significantly, let alone completely. Hova already washes the plastic baggies to reuse, and I tend to keep all of the yogurt containers for some unforeseeable, hopeful future “project” (I fear I’ll end up one of those packrat people because of environmental guilt). If I could reuse everything, I’d feel better, but that’s not gonna happen. Unless I can somehow make Georgia’s future prom dress?
I have to say I'm impressed by your commitment.
Our lives would have to change a whole lot for our society to go without the use of plastic. The fact it would be a change for the better in many instances, especially for the environment will not hold much weight when it comes down to the decision makers.
Just take the concert to fight climate change initiated by Al Gore, which generated more than 1,000 tons of garbage. Looks like the concert ended up doing more harm than good! One estimate says that it would take the planting of 100,000 trees to offset the carbon emissions released during the 24 hour event!
While I'm sure the organisers' commitment to save the planet is genuine, the very process of putting on such a vast event, with more than 150 performers jetting around the world to appear in concerts from Tokyo to Hamburg, is an exercise in futility at best. The extravaganza will generate a huge fuel bill, acres of garbage, and thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions.
It leaves us all with the feeling,"What can we do?" I guess that question just needs to be asked over and over and over, and we need to act according to the answer as best we can. There's not a one of us that's going to solve the problem. It's a team effort.
Christy
Mother Earth's Farm
Where good things come from for the body and soil.
I read your previous blog where you mentioned that you were going to try this. It made me want to try it but, unlike you, I have no willpower. I couldn't think of ANYTHING really that we buy that doesn't include plastic. :( So I didn't try it. I've found other ways (easy ones) to reduce my impact like line drying clothes and recycling just about everything, using Freecycle.org and not running my dishwasher during the hottest time of the day. Oh and thanks for the great idea of carless Tuesday! We do that now. My husband walks to work and if I need to go somewhere I throw the kids in the double stroller and we're off.
Sarah
God gave us this world. Let's take care of it.
I don't fault the Live Earth people, the world cannot just stand still. And I don't think it's an excercise in futility, the message does need to get out, and it will not get out if we use only crunchy, fringe, alternative means. Progress does come at a price, sadly. But the people who heard the message for the first time, just because they wanted to go see Sting or Bono and not because they gave a rat's patootie about global warming, might take it to heart. Surely some will. Sometimes it takes a crude, galvanizing effort to get a message out. I celebrate green hipness, if green becomes the status quo because it's a status symbol at least we have a better foundation for future messages. If we fault every effort we stand still, we stagnate in fear of making a wrong move, but moving usually includes a lot of false steps, then you learn from them, then you move again. It's s-l-o-w going. I don't mean to get all soap-boxy! And I think we're probably saying the same thing anyway! Thanks for the kudos!
I have to say that after you shared your intentions with the community, I was inspired to go through it as well. Unfortunately, I backed down the second day. I basically couldn't purchase ... well, anything! There's not much that we can do though, but keep suggesting and protesting for better eco packaging. Maybe if a good amount of people gather and start boycotting once or twice a month we can send out a message.
Walmart supposedly established a packaging rating system, allegedly they will eventually deny business to companies that are lowest in ranking. Of course they're being rated on how eco friendly they package their products. But who knows. meh.
More power to you Belinda for trying to go without plastic. I bet it can be done but one would have to sacrifice quite a bit and that is just too hard for us to do especially if we aren't prepared for it. You have inspired me to try to at least cut down even more on the plastic that enters my home. Thank you!
I think it was great for you to give this sort of experiment a try because, as you have said, it raises awareness and that's such an important place to begin! Congrats on raising awareness, your own and your readers' as well.
In BC, where I used to live and where, hopefully, I will live again soon, the recycling has evolved and advanced to the place where yoghurt containers, hard plastic "clamshells" and even pizza boxes are now put out with the other recyclables in the blue boxes for pickup. (The pizza boxes now come with a liner that goes in the garbage and the box gets recycled and it really works! It started because so many people were putting pizza boxes out for recycling anyhow.) More and more plastic gets reused in that corner of the cosmos; there is even a place that makes decking out of recycled plastics. And there are deposits on every single reusable beverage container, from pop 'torpedoes' to water bottles to beer cans, so if you put them out for recycling, some ambitious soul will retrieve them for the deposit.
Here in Washington, it's not as 'evolved'. My recycling bins in the complex where we live don't even include *glass* bottles in their "allowable" and there are *no* bottle deposits of any description. The amount of waste generated is horrific! I take my own shopping bags and, whenver possible, I don't put produce into plastic at the store but you are so right about wrappers we can't control. I held onto the plastic trays that my produce came in from TJ's, in the hope that I will find a way to reuse them because, as you noticed, not much of the food is unwrapped in that particular emporium. I also went to a farmers' market over the weekend, and plan to go again; I don't think I brought home any containers I didn't want.
What kills me, aside from the aforementioned lack of recycling facilities here, is the tendancy now for things to be more "wrapped up" than they used to be, perhaps because of some phobia about someone else touching our eatables. (Funny when you think about it, because factories aren't exactly sterile and let's face it, if you didn't pull it off the tree or out of the ground your own self, somebody else has touched your eatables.) Things are double wrapped, individually wrapped and, more and more, single use or individually portioned stuff is popping up all over the place.
I guess all we can do is to live as consciously as we can because I do believe that every single thing we do, large or small, makes a difference.
I had a conversation with my dear pal, Emily. She was telling me about a book (I'll have to find out more), the premise is that YOU are not going to save the world. But if you do YOUR thing in a conscious, focused way, you will be making a difference in your life, which makes a difference to every life. It's a kind of frustrating notion, but of course, true. I can only do what I can do, and hope that by doing it (and writing about it, in this case), it does make a difference. By the way, I appreciate all the encouragement. I thougth someone might blast me for being a quitter!
To steal a phrase from public health, I try to remind myself that the most important thing here is harm reduction: Even if we can't be perfectly ecologically pure about our purchases, cutting our plastic (or gas) consumption by even a quarter or a half is a huge step towards saving our environment. I hadn't thought of reusing bread (or fruit/vegetable) bags for kitty litter, for one, so I'm excited to start doing that. (And FYI re projects, yogurt cups make excellent paint containers.)
The one thing I wish would be legislated is more prominent marking on products of whether they're packaged in recyclable plastic or not. I have a hard enough time comparison shopping for price, and I never think to spend time scouring packages for those little plastic numbers before buying, let alone trying to remember which ones are curbside recyclable where I live. (NYC - I think it's just 1 and 2.)
But back in *my* day, when my enterprising sister and I had a paper route, we used to deliver the papers wrapped with string or rubber bands. The whole all-plastic-all-the-time thing really disturbs me. We use the empty bags for dog-poop patrol jut because they come with the paper -- if we didn't get the paper, we'd probably use those biodegradable poop bags (http://www.composters.com/docs/biobag.html).
Of course, the easiest solution is to skip home delivery and just read the damn paper online...
Interesting blog about living plastic free for a year is at
plasticfree.blogspot.com.
Just when you think no one is paying attention your grocery store does something eco-friendly that makes you take notice. Hooray!
I just got this in one of my Google Alerts:
New Organic packages all clothing in biodegradable bags made from corn.
Yes, the technology is out there and the world as a whole is gradually becoming aware of the need to find alternatives.
Christy
Mother Earth's Farm
Where good things come from for the body and soil.
Thought you might be interested:
Thanks for the great write up in your blog and for taking note of the
recent change to paper napkins in the Meat Department. Your five day
journey of living without plastics is very inspiring, and a fun read to
boot.
New Seasons Market is always looking for new ways to reduce, reuse and
recycle. In fact, many of our stores are implementing Green Team
programs to help increase recycling and reduce waste. Our Arbor Lodge
store piloted the program and went from having two dumpsters to just
one. Cutting in half the waste the store produces.
All the small steps we make together will add up to huge leaps and
bounds in sustaining our environment for generations to come. We
appreciate your dedication to the environment and always feel free to
let us know how your recycling efforts are going.
Best regards,
Daniel
Daniel Garcia
Customer Advocate
New Seasons Market