On to plastic Pangea.
Ever since we saw the movie Bag It at Glastonbury…
2010 NR 1h 19m DVD – With a humorous tone, Suzan Beraza’s documentary follows average guy Jeb Berrier as he embarks on a personal quest to figure out where plastic bags come from, why they’re so ubiquitous and where they end up after they’re thrown away.
…we, especially me, have taken the plastics-free packaging approach to heart.
You’re already likely aware of the usual things to avoid and so we do.
But all those “the consumer must…”, “the municipalities must…” dictums miss the systemic source of the problem.
The problem begins up the food chain and beyond that at the lack of taxation and carbon control of the petroleum industry which feeds the drive to cheaper and more plastic packaging for EVERYTHING>
An unravelling Needs policy work and broad multi part solutions.
That said, I tried on my own….
One very successful one involves reverting to the traditional shaving brush, cup and bar of shaving soap instead of aerosol shaving cream containers.
It gets about 50 times more shaves per refill (bar) than a traditional aerosol and it does not add plastic/tin shaving cream containers to the waste stream.
Not to mention it also costs about 40 time less.
I think I remember my father using one of these.Also, my next step is to get one of those old double edge razors instead of the plastic infused ones.
Then to avoid wasting a plastic tub for every yogurt container, I decided to make it at home (in reuseable containers) with milk coming in returnable glass bottles from Hornstra Farm in Norwell. A noble calling but time consuming and eventually I could not find a safe way to dispose of the excess whey safely.
Back to the drawing boards.
Then I decided to buy bulk (at Whole Foods) using reuseable containers. That works for nuts, flour, sugar, beans, coffee, oatmeal, dried fruits and many more such.
It all worked well for a while.
I weighed my containers before hand and labelled them with tare weight, TW.
Then the cashier would subtract the tare and charge for the goods and all was fine.
Until Whole Foods informed me that the State Health department FORBIDS people bringing and using their own containers.
Contamination concerns.
Then I pursued the State Health department who said they follow the guidelines of a consortium of state health departments based in Indiana. This consortium meets annually at a full for conference.
I was about to pursue them in full lobbyist mode… but, Then I said “..hold up. DO I want this as my job?”
And put it all on the back burner.
So many systems to alter to save the planet and our children’s lives.
Here's What I Found 