The WIP Article - Refuse, Renew and Precycle this World Oceans Day

I am deeply honored to be part of this article on The WIP.

http://thewip.net/contributors/2011/06/refuse_renew_and_precycle_this.html

Women are the power that changes the world.

I honor all the amazing women in my life by being the person I am.

To the Year 31

Yesterday was my 31st birthday (yay for me). For my birthday celebration I am going to the beach this weekend to enjoy the unseasonably warm 80-gree weather in Monterey, California.

I will also be doing my beach clean up for the plastic I acquired during the month of January. Here is my report card for the month:

Unavoidable plastic:
- 6 plastic envelope windows
- 5 medication bottles

Unintended plastic (tried not to get it but got it anyway) :
- 2 bar straws
- one salad dressing container (two pieces)

At 15 minutes per item, that is 3.75 hours total. Not sure which beach I am going to yet...

I also discovered last month that almost all ORGANIC produce in grocery stores has stupid plastic stickers on them so they can make sure to charge you more for the organic product. (Might I add that regular pesticide-y produce has no stickers.)

I am immensely grateful to everyone who has shared with me their efforts to reduce their plastic consumption. Being able to inspire action in others is worth any amount of unavoidable plastic and Makana is completely worth the beach clean-up.

There's No Such thing as a Fast Lunch (or Dinner)

For those who know me, I work a lot.

I love my job and I spend a lot of extra time working to make my projects the best they can be. This sometimes means I don't take lunch or I work through dinner, only to realize I am starving when the angry beast in my abdomen awakens. (It is awakening now, btw.)

Yesterday there was a late lecture at work. I had intended to go home early, get some food and rest and then come back for the lecture. Of course, I ended up staying late and went foraging just 20 minutes before the lecture started.

I went to the grocery store up the block and started looking for something fast and plastic free. I wandered around for a few minutes trying to think of what might work. I found a loaf of Palermo extra sourdough bread (yum!) in a paper bag. But woman shall not live by bread alone (but I could probably if I had to). I thought some fruit would so well, but all of the fruit - including the organic fruit - had plastic stickers on it. I thought I could find some nuts - everything including the aluminum cans and glass jars had plastic lids. I knew cheese was hopeless. I struck out with lunch meat too.

I resigned myself to bread, but I wanted something to drink. There were NO cold drinks (or single serve drinks) in glass bottles!

So I had bread for dinner - about a third of the loaf.

It was filling and made a good conversation piece when I walked into the auditorium. Maybe not the best in terms of meeting my nutritional needs however.

9 Days

So I made it 9 days into the new year before ending up with some unavoidable plastic.

I was out to dinner with friends and ordered my usually glass of water with no straw. (I know the folks at the restaurant pretty well and this is my usual.) I decided to get some sangria (yum!) and I assumed that they would also make it with no straw. I assumed wrong :(

I got my beautiful glass of sangria with two hideous bar straws! I couldn't send it back because they would have just thrown the straws away. So I kept them to become part of my year-end art piece. That is also 30 minutes of beach clean up - 15 minutes for each piece. (I am happy to do the beach clean up but I should have been more vigilant).

Now it is not an entire loss. As my roommate pointed out, because I asked for water with no straw the other 6 people at the table got water with no straw. So the net straw usage for the table was -4 (if you are keeping score).

Out with the Old

One of my first tasks for this year is to use up all the plastic-packaged items I already own. (As I stated in my Plastics Commitment, I have already consumed these and I will use them and keep the plastic for my year-end art project.)

I am finishing up loaves of bread, cheese, crackers, etc. But this may be my last chance to truly enjoy some of these items. It has been a bear to find cheese that is not packaged in plastic. And to be clear, I eat a lot of cheese (not as much as some - you know who you are). I thought I would be able to go to a specialty cheese counter and have them cut me pieces off a wheel, but most places I have been have their wheels wrapped in plastic. This just seems ridiculous to me.

Does anyone know of some place where I can buy cheese that is plastic-free?

Another issue that I have to deal with tomorrow is trying to find plastic-free toilet paper.

This may seem like one of those "well, duh" moments, but the PAPER is pretty much always packaged in PLASTIC! I know Whole Foods sells individual rolls that are only wrapped in paper but let's face it - one roll at a time does not work. I may be able to find someplace to buy toilet paper in bulk, but this is something I have to investigate more fully.

2011: Year sans Plastic

Plastics Commitment
I, Sarah-Mae Nelson, pledge to stop purchasing stupid plastic. Understanding that plastic is an innovation that has made life healthier and less expensive for many people, I want to show that it is not always a good thing but it is not a “bad” thing either.

Since plastic is meant to last forever, single use plastic is an oxymoron. I do not want to use single-use plastic. I understand that some single-use plastic may be inescapable. If I cannot escape it, I will atone for its purchase by…
• contacting product manufacturers and asking them to seek alternatives
• spending 15 minutes doing clean-up for each item I cannot avoid
• keeping all plastic that I cannot avoid and creating a visual representation of my plastic consumption at the end of the year
• blogging about my experiences during this plastic-free year

I will continue to use the plastic that I already own (have already consumed). It lasts forever and for the most part can only be down-cycled. If plastic that I already own can no longer be used, I will keep it to include in the end of year visual representation.

I want to be healthier and this means eliminating bisphenol-a (BPA) from my body. I can only do this through eliminating BPA-contaminated food. I have a family history of thyroid problems and BPA has proven to be a major endocrine disruptor (among other things).

I want to conserve animals and the oceans and this means reducing marine debris. A huge component of marine debris is single use plastic.

I want to educate people that while single use plastic should be generally eliminated from consumer products, not all of it is “bad.” The value of health and life is greater than the moral refusal of a plastic water bottle to a dehydrated person.

Statement of Purpose
I want to show people this can be done and is easier than they think. It is just about choices.

Things I Have Thought About
Since I decided to do this (a little more than two months ago) I have been contemplating all the places that plastic touches my life. Here are a few I have considered and made action plans for…

• BPA lined cans
• Food in plastic bags
• What about bread? Do I make my own?
• What about cheese? Can I buy it at a deli?
• Food with plastic windows
• Single use items
• Glass bottles with plastic caps
• Cat food cans
• Cat litter bags
• Garbage bags
• What do you do if something is gifted to you?
• What about eating out at restaurants?
• Medication bottles
• Medications with bubble packs vs. bottles (non-recyclable vs. recyclable)
• Tooth brush heads
• Reuse items
• Clothing
• Energy bar and candy bar wrappers
• Deodorant
• Cleaning supplies
• What about bio-degradable plastics?
• What about work-related items?
• Tape?
• Shoes?
• Dating?
• Car repair
• Oil
• Gasoline
• Credit cards?
• Medical Emergencies
• Band-aids
• Sunscreen
• Chapstick
• Makeup
• Lotion/moisturizer

Stuff I Hope to Do (or Write About)
• Get my community involved - I need support to make this a success
• Keep running list of direct actions others can take
• Talk about how the costs are not visible, how can we make it visible
• Show others a place to start. I didn’t start here.
• Keep a running list of inescapable items
• Discussions about alternatives
• What makes sense, what doesn’t make sense
• Send and share letters to companies about plastic packaging
• Create a volunteer shift plastics challenge
• Write about Makana (the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Laysan albatross)

Did you throw that away?

I am fortunate to live in Calfornia, we have a decent recycling program here in Silicon Valley. We have two cans for garbage collection--one for the garbage and one for recycling.

For most of us, we have thrown away (in the garbage) all kinds of things that could have been recycled. Soup cans, mayo jars, cardboard, paper, all kinds of glass, aluminum foil, plastic of so many kinds. Where do these go you ask? Landfill...ugg, landfill. That means that things I put in the garbage 30 years ago are still there. I cannot change the past, but I can make the choice to improve the future.


I am at the point that when I am out, say having a burrito from my favorite mexican food place, I take the foil they wrap it in home and put it in the recycle bin. When I eat in the resturant they serve it on reuseable plates...which is fabulous, but they give you a plastic cup and plastic utensils. Yikes! I usually ask the person I am ordering with, why they do it that way. The response most of the time is "I don't know, it's just what they tell me to do." I then speak with great respect to them and tell them about the garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean, which contains largely plastic utensils and plastic bottle caps. They look at me with big eyes and say, "Whoa, that's awful." I then ask them to please tell management--if they are not available at the time--that I, a repeat customer, would like them to make a different choice, a choice for their future as well as mine for a better planet.


I admit, it feels very overwhelming at times, but then I remember that every choice I make, every piece of plastic, or a cat food can that I personally put into recycling, reduces what is going into landfill and reuses that material in a recycled product.

If you and I then choose products made of recycled materials, we are making a difference.