Wednesday, October 24, 2018

What to do with all those old plastic toys your kids don't want anymore?

One company has found a use for old plastic toys. Ecobirdy is turning old toys into sustainable kids' furniture. Sure it's still plastic, but it's getting a second life as sturdy and chic furniture, which might be less likely to end up in a landfill or in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

According to Ecobirdy, 80 percent of plastic toys end up in landfills, waste incinerators, and oceans. 90 percent of toys are made from plastic and have only a 6 month lifespan. By 2050, oceans are expected to contain more plastic than fish by weight, and the entire plastics industry will consume 20% of total oil production and 15% of the annual carbon budget.



Find out more here: Ecobirdy Upcycled for the Future



Monday, March 26, 2018

Plastic waste is a time management issue

On weeks when I'm really busy and have too much to do, I definitely use more plastic. On a normal week I do most of my cooking using whole foods -- like rice and beans purchased in the bulk bins at the grocery store, meat and cheese from the butcher and cheese store in my own glass containers, vegetables that I buy at a farmer's market or get loose at the grocery store.

Not only do I not have time to go to multiple places when I'm busy, but also I don't have time to cook from scratch. On those weeks when too much is going on or I have too many tasks to complete, I buy more packaged food and pre-cooked items, helpfully called "grab and go" from the grocery store. Most of those items come packaged in plastic. Or I pick up take out for a quick evening meal, which usually comes in plastic. (Some restaurants are starting to use post-consumer cardboard for food packaging.)

I really enjoy cooking though I know that not everyone does. I mourn the weeks that I can't spend part of my time creating wholesome meals for myself and my family. As a certified professional organizer®, I try to leave gaps in my schedule for cooking and for unexpected challenges that normally come up in a week. Even so, some weeks just get away from me. Those are the weeks that I notice that I'm picking up sushi in plastic boxes or a pre-cooked chicken in a domed plastic container.

In 1982, physician Larry Dossey coined the term "time sickness," which refers to the belief that people have that there is never enough time. Thirty-five years later we're still struggling with this concept. Try as we might, the world seems like it's speeding up and our lifestyles reflect that. I believe that our reliance on plastic is part of that. Yes, it's a lightweight and cheap way of packaging foods. But why do we need so much food packaging? I believe it's because we aren't able to slow down enough to create food from scratch. Sold to us as "convenience foods," packaged and prepared food are consumed by our society in ever greater quantities.

When we consciously choose to slow down and re-prioritize, we can make a different choice about plastic and food. We can choose to make it a priority to prepare more farm to table food that didn't pass through a plastic bag on its way to our kitchen. We can hop on the Slow Food bandwagon and buy high quality, locally sourced ingredients as often as possible. And we can participate in the magic and mystery of creating the food that nourishes us the way our ancestors did.

Friday, March 9, 2018

Break up with plastic

Break up with plastic video

 It’s great to see younger people becoming the models for what rest of us could be doing. There are a couple of problems with this video, namely that if you put a bamboo and boar’s bristle toothbrush in a plastic bag in the landfill, you are no better off than putting a plastic toothbrush in a landfill.  But it definitely has the right idea: How can we reduce the use of plastic in our lives?