Beth Terry's Blog, page 20

This Summer… Go to the Beach but Leave Your Turtleback and Other Plastics at Home

Would you believe there is a company not only producing plastic products for the beach, but actually promoting them using a photo of an ocean wave sweeping one of their plastic gizmos, filled with a disposable plastic cup, towards the sea?

I wasn’t planning on posting a rant today, as I’m leaving in a few hours for my semi-annual silent meditation retreat, but I got all fired up after I and several friends left comments on Turtleback’s Facebook page explaining how plastic pollutes the ocean an...

Give-Away: Cate & Levi Toys and Puppets from Recycled Sweaters

“My belief is that there’s enough material in existence in the world that we could probably freeze all new production effective immediately and just get more creative with what’s already out there.” –Josh Title, owner of the Cate & Levi Collection toy company.

When I heard Josh say those words in his video about his toy company, I just wanted to hug him. But he’s in Canada. So consider this blog post a virtual hug. I don’t have kids, but I’m always on the lookout for great plastic-free toys fo...

Get a Bag and a Receipt: When Social and Environmental Justice Collide

What does the Trayvon Martin murder have to do with sea turtles choking on plastic bags or the toxicity of bisphenol-A? At first glance, not a whole lot. And it’s not the kind of news I would normally write about on My Plastic-Free Life. But listening to the April 17 episode of the American Public Media radio program The Story last week, I suddenly made a surprising connection.

The host of the show, Dick Gordon, interviewed one of his regular contributors, African American high school teacher,...

Wherever You Are, the Plastic Sea Monster Wants You to Join the Lunchbox Action This Week!

There’s still time to win a stainless steel LunchBots lunch container! Last week I promised that if enough people would join me for the Lunchbox Project Earth Day Action, I would don the fake plastic sea monster costume and walk around Crocker Galleria in full getup. Well, it turns out I’m easy, because it only took one person — Deb Baida from Liberated Spaces – to convince me to do it. She even helped me get into my costume, carried my stuff, and took most of the pictures in the slideshow be...

What I Should Have Said to Melissa Harris-Perry: We Are the Albatross

This past Sunday, I had the honor to be a guest on MCNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry show. It was my very first live national appearance, so as you can imagine, I was just a little concerned with getting everything right. As instructed, I put on way more makeup than usual (usual being none at all most days) and was grateful for finally having found plastic-free mascara this year! I got a hair cut (probably the first in over a year), plucked my crazy eyebrows (couldn’t deal with mixing up a batch o...

Watch “Bag It”…Win “Bag It”

It you still haven’t seen the award-winning film Bag It, what are you waiting for? To celebrate Earth Day, I’ll be participating in several screenings with Q&A. And I also want to give you an opportunity to win a free copy of the DVD, so you can show it to all your friends!

Bag It is the award-winning documentary about all things plastic (not just bags!) that combines serious information with lots of humor to wake people up to the growing problem of plastic pollution and plastic toxicity. Jeb...

Earth Day Lunchbox Action

What are you doing this Friday, the Friday before Earth Day? Wherever you are, you’ll need to eat lunch, right? Why not participate in the Lunchbox Project Day of Action? The action is centered in San Francisco, but I am extending it to anyone anywhere who wants join in. What’s more, LunchBots has offered to give away a free LunchBots stainless steel container to a random participant to encourage participation in this unprecendented event. Depending on where you work or live, there are two wa...

Earth Day Lunchbox Action and Give-Away

What are you doing this Friday, the Friday before Earth Day? Wherever you are, you’ll need to eat lunch, right? Why not participate in the Lunchbox Project Day of Action? The action is centered in San Francisco, but I am extending it to anyone anywhere who wants join in. What’s more, LunchBots has offered to give away a free LunchBots stainless steel container to a random participant to encourage participation in this unprecendented event. Depending on where you work or live, there are two wa...

3 Cool Tips for Plastic-Free Gardening

It's spring.  Are you starting a garden?  Right now, the plastic-free garden I planted last year with assistance from Organic Gardening's Eric Hurlock is totally overgrown.  The chard has become a huge bush of pretty white flowers and stalks that are taller than I am.  Most of the rest of the yard and garden are taken over by little yellow flowers (some would call them weeds) and some kind of lily that has spread from its spot by the wall, due to my having dug up the bulbs last year and...

What Do You Think of the Plastic Produce Packaging at Trader Joe’s Nowadays?

Six years ago, Michael and I got a notice that a Trader Joe’s grocery store was going to be opening down the street from our house. This was back before I had woken up to the problems with plastic, and the news thrilled me. I had visions of all the fresh salads I was going to buy on my way to work every day. And then a few months later, I saw a photo of a dead albatross chick filled with plastic, and I started attempting to live plastic-free. By the time the new Trader Joe’s opened, I could n...