Back from my retreat and so grateful that I have a beautiful place to go and supportive people to be with for a few days to recharge. More on that tomorrow. I’m still in retreat mode, so this post will be brief.

I mentioned that the plastic this week would be a doozy, and I wasn’t kidding. I went through drawers and cupboards searching for unnecessary plastic packaging to add to this week’s tally. Next Sunday will be the 6-month anniversary of Fake Plastic Fish, and I’d like to start out as cleanly as I can for the next 6 months. So here we go:

Non-recyclable items used this week but purchased before the plastic project began:

• Plastic from a blister pack of emery boards. Discovered during the great cosmetics purge ^[1] last week.
• Plastic from a nail buffer file blister pack. See above.
• Plastic from an eye liner blister pack. Above, again.
• Plastic from a lip color blister pack. Again, the purge, above.
• 2 Kleenex pocket packs. These are the last of the pocket packs of Kleenex.
• 1 Safeway Select paper napkins plastic package. No more paper napkins for us. It’s cloth from here on out.
• 13 Invisalign ^[2] aligners. Wow. I really thought I’d already found and tallied all of these. You know, Invisalign seems like such a wonderful way to straighten teeth without having to wear unattractive metal braces, until you think about all the plastic waste involved. Each set of aligners is discarded after two weeks. I wore them for about three years. That’s 78 sets of plastic aligners, plus the plastic packaging they are encased in. Worth it? I’d be a hypocrite to condemn them now after I’ve already reaped the benefits from them. I’ll just say that these days I’d have reason to reconsider such a choice.
• 8 Invisalign blister packages. See above.
• 1 large plastic drycleaner-type bag that was covering a tablecloth.
• 1 vinyl (I think) tablecloth package from a Crate and Barrel table cloth. It feels like vinyl. I can’t be sure. There’s no plastic number imprinted on it.
• 1 plastic package from a pair of bike shorts I never opened. I’ve had these sitting in the drawer in the original plastic packaging for years, ever since 2001 when I gave up on riding a bike. Maybe (if my friend Sharon will help me) I’ll get a bike and start riding again.
• 1 ancient vinyl (I think) sweater bag. This thing is probably at least 20 years old and has the cracks to prove it.
• 1 foam bag from a computer part.
• 35 miscellaneous plastic bags from random computer and video cables and other things I found throughout the house. I gathered this packaging up before I left for my retreat, and now I don’t remember specifically what held what. But it doesn’t matter. Suffice it to say, there was still A LOT of plastic packaging in our home. And there probably still is, actually.

So that’s all the old stuff. Now for the new plastic waste.

• 10 Refresh Endura single-use eye drop containers (#4 plastic). Yes, these have moved from the old plastic waste section to the new. I’ve used up all the eye drops I bought before starting this project and have brought a whole new batch into the house. As I’ve said before, they’re a medical necessity for an eye condition that I have. The nice thing about this purchase was that even though the containers are plastic and the cardboard boxes are shrink-wrapped in plastic, the company I order from, Hocks.com ^[3], was very nice about honoring my request for no plastic packaging materials in the shipping box.

  I was very specific in the note I sent them: “Please do not use any plastic packaging or fillers. I do not want bubble wrap, styrofoam peanuts, plastic air pillows, or any other type of plastic packaging in the box. Thanks!” The package arrived as requested, with my note highlighted in yellow on the packing slip and a hand-written note: “Okey Dokey Only Paper” and a smiley face. Whoever took care of this order in the warehouse was someone I’d be happy to do business with again!

  I wish I could find an alternative to all these plastic eye drop containers. But right now, I just can’t. Especially with winter coming and the dry air from heat systems. This weekend at the retreat, in fact, I found myself getting up in the night for a second round of eye drops after waking up to some excruciating cornea pain. As long as this condition continues (which I’ve had since February of 2002) I’ll never be entirely plastic-free.

• plastic shrink wrap from a box of Refresh Endura eye drops. See above.
• 1 wrapper from a block of Cabot Private Stock classic Vermont cheddar.

So that’s the plastic for the week. Thanks to everyone who left such nice comments on Michael’s post while I was away. Tomorrow, I plan to write a few things about discoveries made at the retreat. And this week, I hope to complete the Frequently Asked Questions post I mentioned a few days ago and also a summary (with pictures of course) of all the plastic I’ve collected to date. And there will be a few other useful posts that even I don’t know about yet. Stay tuned!