Back in September, I attended my monthly meeting with the Environmentally Conscious Organizers which is a special interest group with the National Association of Professional Organizers. Our guest speaker was Beth Terry, who is the author of “My Plastic Free Life.” In 2007, Beth began an experiment to see if she could live without plastic and began blogging her experience after seeing a picture of a sea bird carcass whose belly was full of plastic.
She explained how recycling is a business and if there is no market for certain plastics they add them to our landfills or ship them to China just as our e-waste gets shipped to Africa. The best thing we can do is put very little into our recycling buckets as well as our landfill cans.
Most of us at the meeting had heard about the large amount of plastic floating in our ocean. According to Greenpeace.org “The trash vortex is an area the size of Texas in the North Pacific in which an estimated six kilos of plastic for every kilo of natural plankton, along with other slow degrading garbage, swirls slowly around like a clock, choked with dead fish, marine mammals, and birds who get snared. Some plastics in the gyre will not break down in the lifetimes of the grandchildren of the people who threw them away.”
You may be asking, “What does this have to do with organizing?” Well, this knowledge allows us the chance to train our clients on the many ways we can live in an environmentally conscious home.
Here are some tips from Beth’s list of 99 ways to live a plastic free life from her plastic free living guide.
1. Carry reusable shopping bags
Say no to plastic produce bags. If you have a car, keep your grocery bags in it and remember to bring them into the store with you! And one more thing: reusable bags are not just for groceries! Carry them for all your purchases, from electronics to clothing.
2. Give up bottled water
Not only does it come in a plastic bottle, but tremendous resources are used to extract, bottle, and ship it. And many brands of bottled water are simply filtered tap water. Instead, carry a stainless steel travel mug or water bottle at all times for coffee and other beverages while out and about.
3. Choose reusable glass or stainless steel containers for leftovers
We save nearly all glass jars and bottles for purchasing bulk foods and for storing leftovers in the refrigerator or even the freezer. When we run out of jars, we store leftovers in bowls with saucers on top instead of plastic wrap. Bowls with saucers are great for stacking as well.
For more information on how to live a plastic free life, go to www.myplasticfreelife.com
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This is great to know and share! Thanks for posting.
Hi Danielle,
This is one of those issues I became aware of back in the 70’s and 80’s. All of the folks I hung around with took precautions not to buy or use ANY plastic what-so-ever. Skip over to 2013. We buy a boat. We are told not to use glass on a boat, because we’ll be rocking and rolling out on the seas, and we’ll have broken glass everywhere. Therefore, we buy melamine dinner ware, Lock n Lock plastic containers to keep bugs out of our grains, etc., plastic baggies to freeze our leftovers, etc. It’s a plastic hater’s nightmare. I even wrote about it on someone’s blog…from a woman who never used plastic, to the plastic queen of the seas!!! Yet, it seems the other boaters I’ve talked with say the same thing. I would love some feedback on what are some alternatives for this. We can’t have paper products aboard, because it draws bugs…and you REALLY don’t want bugs on a boat. They eventually take over. So, any feedback would be helpful for those of us sailors who would like to cut back on the plastic. Thanks!
Thanks for writing Diane & Annette. Diane go to this website myplasticfreelife.com click on the plastic free guide. You will find a long list of alternatives to plastic and glass. Including stainless steel containers from https://www.sanctusmundo.com/. I’m so thrilled that you are taking this seriously. Our sea life thanks you. Best of luck to you!