Plastic Challenge: Beth Terry, Week 8
Location:Oakland, California, United States
Name: Beth Terry
Week: 8
Personal Info:
I am the founder of MyPlasticfreeLife.com and have been collecting my plastic and attempting to live as plastic-free as possible since June of 2007.
See my previous years’ tallies at:
/category/beths-weeklymonthly-plastic-tallies/
List of plastic items REFUSED this week. (Yay!)
Bags, take-out food packaging, straws, cups, and all manner of plastic trash. Almost had a plastic-free week, except for a couple of problems…
Total items collected: 3
Total weight: .04 ounces
Items: Recyclable
None
Items: Nonrecyclable
1-2) Plastic window envelopes. One was an oversight — I got a new credit card number and forgot to let an organization know about the change, so they sent me a notice through the mail. The other is from Kaiser Permanente. My health plan has changed to a deductible plan, so I will be receiving a statement through the mail every month. Kaiser does not offer online statements or online billing at this time. I have requested it. Hopefully, Kaiser will join the rest of the 21st Century.
3) Plastic wrapper from 3-D movie glasses. The glasses are returned to be reused (see my post about what happens to 3-D glasses) but the plastic wrapper is trash. I could have avoided this! See below.
What items can I easily replace with plastic free or less plastic alternatives?
I could have avoided the 3-D movie glasses by bringing my own! The problem was that I didn’t know the movie was going to be in 3-D because it was an advance press screening of The Lorax, and I don’t think the invite mentioned it was 3-D. Anyway, read my post about how I usually bring my 3-D glasses back to the theater to reuse: /2010/01/avatar-in-3d-what-about-the-plastic-glasses/
What items are essential and seem to have no plastic-free alternative?
None
Hi Pat. I wrote a post about window envelopes a while back. Some are cellophane (which comes from trees) but most are plastic.
/2009/04/year-2-week-42-results-05-oz-of-plastic/
Unless an envelope states that the envelope is made from glassine or a paper product, I include it in the tally.
So that would also go for windows in boxes and all the many types of wrappers that foods come in. The majority these days will be petroleum-based plastic.
You have opened my eyes to a some things that I didn’t even realize are made of plastic — i.e. window envelopes. I thought that was cellophane. That makes me wonder about a lot of other “cellophane” packaging on granola, nuts, pasta, etc. etc. and on and on. How can we tell whether it is paper or plastic. And what is cellophane, anyway?