Environment, Organics, Fair Trade & Recycling at Big Green Purse

My County Finally Did It! What About Yours? Our New Plastic Bag "Tax."

Last week, the County Council for Montgomery County, MD, where I live, finally voted to start charging consumers a nickel for each plastic or paper single-use bag they take at the check-out counter.

The new environmental law, which goes into effect January 1, 2012, is designed to help get rid of the billions of horrible, nasty, throwaway bags that waste resources, clog waterways, and kill wildlife.

Throwaway bags are one of those inventions that never should have seen the light of day. According to Pati Robinson from The Cleaner Earth Project, in 2010 consumers worldwide used over 1
trillion throwaway plastic bags. Because the bags don’t biodegrade, they cause serious environmental problems. When they get loose, they end up polluting rivers, streams and oceans, where animals
mistake them for food and die. In fact, scientists have found that fish living in the Pacific Ocean eat more plastic than plankton! Wildlife also die when they get tangled in plastic and can’t break free.

Plus, plastic bags waste oil. An estimated 12 million barrels of oil are required to make the nearly 100 billion single use plastic bags used every year in the U.S. alone, says Cleaner Earth.

Then there’s the fright factor. Plastic bags are downright ugly when they get caught in trees or blow along the highway like synthetic tumbleweed.

For years, municipalities the world over mounted campaigns to educate people about the harm plastic bags cause while trying to motivate consumers to use reusable bags, to no avail. Then someone smart hit on the idea to charge shoppers for every plastic bag they used.

Today, cities that require retailers to charge as little as a nickel for each bag a consumer takes are finding plastic bag use plummeting. In nearby Washington, D.C., disposable plastic bags used to make up 47% of the trash found in the Anacostia river basin. The Anacostia River feeds right into the Potomac, which feeds into the Chesapeake Bay, which feeds into the Atlantic Ocean. Conceivably, a bag thrown on the sidewalk in D.C. could end up in a sea gull’s belly in no time at all.

In January 2010, a nickel fee was placed on single-use plastic bags. In just six months, bag use decreased by 65%, reducing the total number of bags per month to 3.3 million, down from 22.5 million per month prior to the fee, reported the Washington Post.

Now, a nickel is not a lot of money. It’s just five pennies. Pretty much anyone who has bought enough stuff to need a bag can afford to pay for it.

Yet human nature being what it is, people seem to hate paying “extra” for something they used to get for free. I’ve stood in line at a cash register in D.C. and watched people fill their arms to
overflowing with their purchases rather then cough up a measly five cents to put it in a bag.

Stupid?

Here's Your Chance to Learn About the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

There is so much plastic pollution in the oceans it's created "islands" the size of Texas. Small pieces of plastic are killing tiny birds and huge whales. And plastic is polluting people, too. Babies and pregnant women are particularly susceptible.

You can learn more about the threats plastic pose and what you can do to protect yourself, your community, and wildlife,

10 No-Brainer Ways to Use Water Wisely. Plus, a Bonus...

As I pointed out previously, we're drinking the same water Cleopatra drank.

That's another way of saying, the world just doesn't make more water. What's here is what's always been here. And it's what's always going to be here, even though there are more and more people using the limited water we have. Which is why we have to figure out how to make every drop of H2O count.  In honor of Blog Action Day's focus on water, here are 10 No Brainer Ways to Use Water Wisely.

1) Give up bottled water. How many reasons do you need? Toxic plastic is used to contain bottled water. Bottled water generates mountains of trash. Making bottled water and moving it around the globe wastes enormous amounts of energy. Bottled water may not be as safe to drink as tap water.  Here's the real kicker: bottling water wastes water. Two gallons of water are wasted for every gallon bottled. Stupid, no?

2) Give up the idea that you have to drink water all the time. Where did that notion come from, that somehow, your outfit isn't complete without a bottle of water by your side? I've gotten along just fine drinking from drinking fountains and -- believe it or not -- going for a couple of hours at a time without drinking water. Try it. You won't die.

Clothing: What's Eco, and What's Not

What does it take to manufacture, sell, and dispose of clothing? You might be surprised. The clothing industry is one of the most environmentally intensive in the world. If it's made from cotton, it's been doused with as much as 22.5% of the pesticides applied to agricultural crops worldwide. If it's made from a synthetic fiber, its source is actually coal or oil. As much as we might prefer to wear fig leaves, when we have to wear fabrics, what should we choose? 

The Green Moms Carnival tackles the clothing conundrum this month. Most of us bemoan how difficult it is to figure out how to buy environmentally-friendly fashions in the first place.

Mary of In Women We Trust regrets how few organic fabrics are designed for the boardroom instead of the beach, and points out the valuable role that the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) play in ensuring that textiles are produced organically.

Amber at Strocel.com compares polyester and acrylic, two synthetics made from fossil fuels, and comes down on the side of buying less clothing over all, and natural fibers over synthetics. "Reducing consumption pretty much always comes out ahead," she notes.

Anna at Green Talk provides a comprehensive analysis of the use of recycled plastic bottles in clothing, as well as other textiles. A big concern is that textiles made from recycled plastic emit the chemical antimony, which has been linked to a wide variety of health problems in laboratory animals. Anna also reports that demand for plastic bottles that can be recycled into textiles has risen so much that some manufacturers are using brand new plastic bottles, rather than recycled ones. Talk about the law of unintended consequences! 

Linda at Citizen Green points out several benefits to using recycled plastic, like the fact that "30% less energy is needed to down cycle the bottles into shirts than is needed to make them out of virgin plastic." So what's the worry? Plastic is still plastic, and will take hundreds of years to biodegrade.

Sarah of Practically Green provides a great set of tips if you're shopping vintage. "Don't keep it if you will NEVER be that size again," she suggests -- good advice whether you're buying old or new. You'll also love her pictures of the vintage clothes she's snagged over the years, from a snazzy leopard clutch she lined with red leather (see photo, right) to her dad's v-necked, cashmere sweater.

Keep reading. There's more!

Plastic Activist Shifts $1114 to Green Goods

Beth Terry is best known for taking a stand against plastic over at her inspired blog Fake Plastic Fish. But living plastic-free is not the only way this Bay Area accountant and activist makes a difference. She's shifted her spending to organic produce and natural products like toothpaste and laundry powder, too. She bought a bicycle instead of a car, and gives gifts like fair trade organic chocolate.

 

Beth took the One in a Million Challenge last year, as you can see from her balance sheet below. But the spending shifts she's made weren't temporary. They're a way of life that I hope will inspire you to do the same!

 

Total ................................................................. $1114.59 

   

    **NOTE:  "None of this includes cash spent at the Farmer’s Market or elsewhere. These are just credit card expenditures." Wondering how Beth made these shifts and avoided plastic? She bought laundry powder in a recyclable carboard box, rather than liquid laundry detergent in a plastic jug. She uses cotton mesh baggies to collect produce, rather than plastic bags. She also buys milk in a cardboard carton rather than a plastic bottle. (BTW, ACV stands for apple cider vinegar. TJ stands for Trader Joe's, though Beth has recently shifted to Tom's because the aluminum toothpaste tube is recyclable. In the last year, Beth also shifted from detergent powder to Laundry Tree soap nuts.)

 

 

Feeling inspired? Please join Beth and the almost 5,000 other consumers who have already taken the One in a Million Challenge! It's easy -- Fill out this balance sheet, keeping track of the shifts you make over time until you have shifted $1,000. Then send us your sheet, along with a picture so we can add your lovely face to our growing wall of One in a Million members. We'll feature you in Big Green Purse, so you can help inspire others - though we hope you'll urge your friends and family to take the challenge, too.

 

Environmental S.O.S. For Water-Soluble, Biodegradable Bottle Caps

OK, all you entrepreneurs, scientists, techno-twits, and geeks - let alone captains of industry who are looking for a way to make an honest-to-goodness difference. Take another look at these photos of baby birds that are dying because they're eating plastic bottle caps.

Yes, we need to phase out plastic bottles, and the sooner the better.

But in the meantime, can't all you wizards come up with a bottle cap that will protect its contents securely but once discarded, degrade in a very short period of time?

You've gotta be able to do it. Talk to the folks at Frito-Lay, who have figured out how to package their snack packs in plant-based, biodegradable bags. In fact, why don't we urge Frito's parent company, Pepsi, to take the lead?  Start here.

The Environmental Tragedy of Plastic

It's easy to overlook the environmental impact of plastic when it's so convenient to just throw it away. But as these photos by photographer Chris Johnson shows, there's no "away." A lot of what we think we've safely disposed of ends up in a huge, toxic "garbage patch" swirling millions of miles away in the Pacific Ocean. The plastic is mistaken for food by adult birds who unwittingly feed it to their babies -- and kill them.

We're spending way too much time debating "whether" we should rid our culture of plastics.

We should. 

Now.

NOTE: These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. Says Chris Johnson, "On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

"To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way.

"These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent."

Take a look at the rest of Chris' photos, then take stock of how much plastic you use. Do you see how many bottle caps are in the birds' stomachs? If you're still drinking water, soda and juice from plastic bottles, isn't it time, at the very least, to switch to reusable water bottles and drinks in cans? Get more suggestions to live life plastic-free at FakePlasticFish.