Practical information for consumers on going green.
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Friday, July 18, 2003
Avoiding Plastic
Impossible, you say, to avoid plastic in this day and age?
You have a point. Since the mid-1990s, food vendors have increasingly packaged their products in plastic, almost all shoe soles are made of plastic, beer companies are researching the potential market for beer in plastic bottles, and more and more restaurants are offering take-home "boxes" made of styrofoam or molded clear plastic, neither of which is recyclable in many places.
But it is possible, by making a determined effort, to reduce the presence of plastic in your life. Most plastic comes in the form of packaging. Take these simple steps, and you will find yourself less inundated.
1. Reuse your grocery bags. Put a bunch of them in your car and use them until they wear out. The old debate over plastic vs. paper is pointless. It's more important to reduce the number of bags you use per year. Or, best of all, you can buy cloth bags; they're much sturdier than either paper or plastic.
Recycle your paper bags and, if possible, the plastic ones. The city of Boulder has recently begun accepting clean, empty (no receipts!) plastic bags at its Center for Hard to Recycle Materials: http://www.ecocycle.org/charm/index.cfm.
2. Buy shoes with leather uppers and leather soles. Almost all nice shoes had leather soles in the 1980s. Now hardly any do. Van Eli is one brand to try.
3. Buy food in glass containers as often as possible. You can still find some types of salad dressing in glass bottles, though I don't think condiments like ketchup come in glass bottles anymore. Occasionally single-serve soft drinks are packaged in glass bottles.
4. Stop using Saran Wrap. If you need to cover some leftovers, use aluminum foil, which is recyclable in many places. Another option is put that half an onion or tomato in a reusable plastic container or in Pyrex microwavable storage containers, available at Target. Go to http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=br_1_3/602-0647142-2219048?asin=B00005OTWX.
5. Take your own containers to restaurants, frequent restaurants that provide reasonably sized servings (NOT Gordon Biersch--they think that one person will want three pieces of meatloaf), or just leave some food on your plate. It never hurts to point out to the staff that styrofoam and molded plastic are not recycled in most localities, but packaging decisions are mostly made at the corporate level.
6. When you place your orders with online or mail-order retailers, ask them to mail your order in reusable packaging (eggshell cartons, packaging peanuts, etc.). Mail Boxes Etc. will take the peanuts and reuse them. Sometimes they take small pieces of styrofoam or even bubble wrap, if you have enough.
I got rid of the monstrous pieces of bubble wrap that protected my new couch by giving them to the Middle Fish gallery in Boulder. They cut them up and used them to wrap pieces of art. It's not the best solution, because the bubble wrap will still eventually be thrown away, but it does reuse it once.
Why did so many retailers turn to plastic in the 1990s? Well, plastic pellet is a byproduct of the petroleum refining process. The price of plastic pellet must have gone down in that period.
posted by Beth at 3:47 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Wednesday, July 09, 2003
End Indoor Air Pollution
I have discovered a "not-toxic" paint that is manufactured in Arvada, Colorado, not too far from where I live in Broomfield!
My mother-in-law gave me a wooden pot holder that holds four plant pots. I decided to paint it a dark red to go with the brick on the outside of our house.
I went to McGuckin Hardware in Boulder, Colorado, a locally famous hardware store, and asked for their low-VOC paint. VOC refers to volatile organic compounds, which are associated with ethylene glycol (a byproduct of petroleum refining), ammonia, acetone, formaldehyde, crystalline silica, and possibly others. These compounds used to be essential ingredients of paint, but no longer.
What McGucken's carries is a brand of no-VOC paint called Earth Tech. According to the label, this paint will not outgas, thus reducing or ending indoor air pollution. For more information on these less-polluting types of paint, go to this site:
http://eartheasy.com/live_nontoxic_paints.htm
posted by Beth at 8:06 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
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