Beth Terry's Blog, page 14

The Beauty of Picking up Plastic

Dr. Marcus Eriksen of 5 Gyres, an organization dedicated to researching ocean plastic pollution, has said, “If you want to clean the gyre, clean your beach.” He meant it literally, since “if we stop adding more plastic to the ocean, in time the gyres will kick out the plastic pollution they currently hold.” But I choose to think of the statement metaphorically. Spending a morning cleaning plastic from a beach or river bank or roadway doesn’t just remove a fraction of plastic trash from the en...

Win a Plastic-Free Book! Take the Quiz & Make a Pledge

Happy Earth Day everyone. It’s been a busy weekend, what with the plastic sea monster out and about. I spent several evenings at home braiding plastic bags into a new doo. What do you think? At San Francisco’s Earth Day Festival on 4/20 (probably around 4:20pm), a somewhat wobbly-looking guy with an equally impressive head of hair stared at me for several minutes, then held out a funny kind of cigarette and said very earnestly, “YOU can smoke this.” Really? Is that how I come across these day...

Tips for Creating Zero Waste, Plastic-Free Events

Whenever I give my plastic-free presentation, I’m interested to see what the hosting organization will do to ensure the event itself is as plastic-free as possible. I try to give tips beforehand so I don’t walk in on a table full of plastic cups (which has happened more than once, ironically.) But lately, I’ve discovered some really ingenious ideas, some of which I wouldn’t have thought of myself. Some are about reducing plastic, and some are about reducing waste in general. So I thought I wo...

Plastic-Free Diapers – Change Them, Donate Them

Since I’m not a mom myself, I rely on the wisdom of other parents who are working to reduce plastic in their families’ lives. Cloth diapering is one way to cut down on the amount of plastic contacting your baby’s skin and ending up in landfills or incinerators. Here are a couple of guest posts: one is about a cloth diaper event coming up this month, and the other is about a project to donate cloth diapers to families in need.

The Great Cloth Diaper Change

by Janice Roodsari of Momma Words

Have y...

Meet Ericka, My New Intern!

For nearly 6 years, My Plastic-Free Life has been a one-woman show. Wait. That’s not right. This blog would not exist and would have no purpose and probably no content without all of you. But what I mean is that in terms of actual blogging, responding to emails and blog comments and forum posts and challenge participants, keeping up with social media, scheduling interviews and talks, and doing all of the other work involved in keeping this ship afloat, it’s just been me. And I still have to d...

Invite me to come visit

You may have noticed I haven’t been blogging super regularly. That’s because I’ve been traveling around giving talks on plastic-free living in lots of cool places and meeting some amazing people. Check out my new Calendar of Events to find out if/when I might be coming to your town. And if your area is not on the schedule, then contact me and let’s schedule something!

Give a Talk with Me

Are you reducing plastic in your own life? Do you have information about resources and strategies where you...

Turtleback Listens! Company to Make Product That Degrades in Sea Water.

Hey, remember my rant last spring about the plastic Turtleback cup holder meant to be used at the beach? And how I thought it was so ironic to name a product for a sea animal that is routinely harmed by ocean plastic pollution? A bunch of green bloggers created quite a stir on Turtleback’s Facebook pageback then, and after initially being taken aback by it all, the owner, Ryan Housley, listened. In fact, he had an open mind from the very start.

Switching to Biodegradable Material

Yesterday, Rya...

Giving Up Plastic for Lent

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email fromGabriel Lamug-Nanawa (Gabby), a Jesuit priest in Cambodia, who has a proposal for churches in his local area to promote Plastic-Free Lent this year. Last year, Gabby went on a plastic fast for Lent and found the experience to be not only good for the planet but an important part of his spiritual practice as well. I asked him to describe his experience from last year and his proposal this year. Here is Gabby in his own words.

Every Friday, the prie...

Beware the Reusable Bag Monster

When Yerdle, a new sharing website, asked me to provide one of the tips for its 7 Step Stuff Diet, a project to reduce clutter, I immediately thought of the huge pile of reusable bags cluttering my house. Now, we’ve all heard of the Bag Monster — that scary mountain of disposable plastic bags that accumulate in cupboards and closets–or worse, blow down the streets and into waterways and threaten wildlife.

I tried on the ChicoBag Bag Monster costume at SF Green Festival in 2009.

But have you enc...

Dear Virgin America, I Love You, But Not Your Plastic Bottles

Dear Richard Branson & David Cush,

This letter serves two purposes. First, to express my sincere gratitude for all you have done to make Virgin America the only airline I can fly without crying the whole time, and second, to ask you to address the issue of plastics on your flights. First, the good stuff.

I’m a nervous flyer. On takeoff, I’ve been known to cut off the circulation in my partner’s hand from gripping it so tightly. And years ago, I had flight attendants offering me free alcohol eve...