Beth Terry's Blog, page 17
August 17, 2012
Great Big Plastic-Free, Non-Toxic Deodorant Review
What’s with all these “natural” deodorants in plastic packaging?
Four years ago, I found the perfect plastic-free deodorant solution for me. But after discussing the issue with others, I came to realize that deodorants are not one-size (or smell) fits all. We each have different body chemistries and what works great for me might leave you stinking like a cat litter box and feeling like you’ve been rubbing your pits with poison ivy. Or barbed wire. So, after discovering that my own personal pla...
August 14, 2012
Please Take Action. Refusing Plastic Bags & Foam Is Great. Banning Them Is Better!
Most of us at this point have gotten in the habit of (or are at least working on) bringing our own reusable bags to the grocery store and refusing take-out food in polystyrene foam containers. (You know, that white foamy stuff we all like to call Styrofoam but actually isn’t Styrofoam because Styrofoam is a brand name that doesn’t actually make foodware.) But then we look around us and see plastic bags blowing down the street and polystyrene bits crumbling into the soil.
Our own personal actio...
August 9, 2012
Coloring Hair with Henna: Non-toxic and Almost Plastic-free
I don’t color my hair often, mainly because I’m lazy and don’t want to take the time to do it. But once a year, when it’s time for the annual BlogHer conference estrogen fest, I feel the need to cover my graying temples that make me look older than I feel.
(It’s also the time I get my annual pedicure and clean up my crazy eyebrows with homemade sugar wax.) But hair dyes are pretty toxic — even the “natural” ones — and all come in plastic packaging. For a while, I would go to a salon and use th...
July 31, 2012
What’s Plastic Got to Do with Clean Air?
This Saturday at 3:15pm, I will be signing Plastic-Free books a the vendor booth of Moms Clean Air Force at the BlogHer conference in New York City and donating a portion of the proceeds to that group. If you’ll be at BlogHer, I’d love for you to come by! But you might be wondering what plastic has to do with clean air. In fact, ifI asked you to list the problems with plastic, you might mention toxic chemicals like BPA or phthalates; or the fact that it doesn’t biodegrade; or that animals ing...
July 27, 2012
3-D Printing: Inspiring Creativity or Just Proliferating More Plastic Crap?
Have you guys been following the hoopla about 3-D printers? Those marvelous machines that can make just about anything you want on demand? A year ago, MyPlasticFreeLife.com reader Eleanor K. Sommer contacted me for my opinion about 3-D printers (something I hadn’t even heard of at that point) and was concerned that these machines could be another way to bring more plastic stuff into the world. Plastic crap on demand, right? Well, she’s done a ton more research since then and offers this guest...
July 23, 2012
Time Sensitive: The Safe Chemicals Act Will Be Voted on Finally!
This is a time sensitive post! After sitting in committee since last year, the Safe Chemicals Act is scheduled to be voted on for the first time this Wednesday! Two weeks ago, I wrote about how substitutes for BPA might not be safer than BPA and why we need the Safe Chemicals Act to protect us. Last week I wrote about how endocrine-disrupting chemicals are affecting all of us, no matter how small the dose. This Act is so important because our outdated toxic chemical legislation does not prote...
July 19, 2012
Why Chemicals in Plastics May Have Worse Effects at Lower Doses
Why is there so much debate about whether plastic chemicals like Bisphenol-A (BPA) or phthalates are harmful to humans in the amounts at which we’re exposed to them? And why is it so difficult to pass regulations in the United States to protect us from these chemicals? One reason is that regulators are accustomed to following the age-old adage that “the dose makes the poison.” But on a conference call this morning with theCollaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE), I learned how it is...
July 17, 2012
Starbucks Trash: Behind the Scenes
Last week, I received an email from a new Starbucks employee who was shocked by the amount of waste she sees at the store everyday. Many of us do our individual part by bringing our reusable mugs for coffee, but it turns out that, according to this employee (who wants to remain anonymous to keep her job), the waste goes much deeper. I asked if I could share her rant here with you all. I’m not sure how to get Starbucks to clean up its act, but maybe you guys have some suggestions.
Jul 12 (5 day...
July 13, 2012
Sea Cave/Goat Grave: Art from Plastic Pollution
Pam Longobardi calls her art “Interventions.” She spends many hours gathering up plastic trash from the world’s beaches and bringing it into galleries where it can be positioned, examined, seen. Her current expedition,Drifters Project Kefalonia: The Giant Sea Cave Excavation,was inspired by a heartbreakingly poignant discovery she made last summer in Kefalonia, Greece. The story and photos made me cry today, so I wanted to share them with you. Here it is, in Pam’s own words.
In July 2011, wor...
July 12, 2012
Are BPA-Free Plastic Products, Food Cans, & Register Receipts Safer than Those with BPA in Them?
With all of the concern about Bisphenol-A (BPA), an estrogen-mimicking chemical used in some plastics, most metal food can linings, and most thermal paper receipts, manufacturers are looking for alternative materials to use so they can tout their products as BPA-free. But are the substitutes actually safer than BPA itself? The truth is, we don’t know. As I’ve written before, studies have been done suggesting that some BPA-free products produce the same or greater hormone-disrupting effects as...
