Archive for December, 2010

Announcement: Fake Plastic Fish becomes My Plastic-Free Life

Fake Plastic Fish is an awesome blog name. But sometimes awesome things have to change. I’ll explain why in a second. But the important thing is that before the end of the year, fakeplasticfish.com will become myplasticfreelife.com. Change Your Bookmarks, Feeds, Subscriptions, Links: The site URL is scheduled to change tomorrow (12/31) around 12pm Pacific Time.  [...]

Read the full post.

Collect Your Plastic. Change Your Life.

Danielle Richardet is a Fake Plastic Fish reader and writer of the blog It Starts With Me, on which she chronicles her project cleaning up the beach near her home in North Carolina.  A couple of months ago, she and her family took the Fake Plastic Fish Show Your Plastic Trash Challenge, and took their [...]

Read the full post.

Wanna Hang Out With Me?

Invite me to your party. I’ll be the one who heads straight into your kitchen, opens the cupboard, and takes out a glass to use instead of plastic. I’ll rummage through your drawers for reusable silverware. Or I’ll take out the little bamboo set I carry in my purse. Your guests will find me charming. [...]

Read the full post.

Washing Our Hands of BPA this Winter

Bisphenol-A (BPA) is not just a worrisome chemical in hard plastic water bottles, baby bottles, and sippy cups.  Almost all canned foods are full of the stuff.  And our biggest source of exposure could be the thermal paper cash register receipts we handle every time we shop,  especially during the holiday season.  The fact is [...]

Read the full post.

Did you miss TEDxGreatPacificGarbagePatch? Watch it all now!

Finally!  The videos from the TEDx conference in L.A. last month have been posted.   Here is my talk on living la vida sin plástico, as well as links to/descriptions of all the speakers and performers that day.  Learn how plastic affects people  across the globe, animals on land and sea, and what individuals, businesses, and [...]

Read the full post.

Recycled Cardboard Christmas Tree

Last week, I got an email from Cascades Boutique generously asking if they could send me a 100% FSC-certified recycled cardboard Christmas tree.  Of course they hoped I would review it on my blog. Well, I’m not really a Christmas tree kind of person. My feelings towards the holiday haven’t changed that much since my [...]

Read the full post.

How Green Are Your Charitable Gift Cards? And How Much Money Actually Goes to the Charity?

In my post on green holiday gift giving last month, I mentioned donations to nonprofits. Several commenters suggested charitable gift cards, so I decided to look into them.  Giving directly to an organization that you know your giftee supports can be a great idea, but if you’re not sure in what way your recipient is [...]

Read the full post.

November 2010 Plastic Waste Tally

1.6 oz Plastic Waste [1.6 oz new/0 oz acquired prior to June 2007] November brought new clothes (see below), a TEDx presentation, and all kinds of nutty experiments that I’ll be writing about in December. It also means 2010 is almost over. I had hoped to keep my plastic waste under 2 pounds this year [...]

Read the full post.

Letter from Will Terry, a “normal guy and not some tree-hugging freak”

Last Friday night, my brother Will and I were hanging out on the phone discussing our book-writing aspirations: his dream of writing children’s books (He’s already a fantastic illustrator of books that other people write.  See the end of this post for an amazing demo) and mine of creating a plastic-free book to inspire or at [...]

Read the full post.