Location:Tualatin, Oregon, United States

Name: Margaret

Week: 26

Personal Info:

Margaret’s personal blog:

List of plastic items REFUSED this week. (Yay!)
Need to start keeping a list…

Total items collected: 24

Total weight: 14.1 ounces

Items: Recyclable
Curbside recyclable

Cookie dough tub
Pop bottle – bought along the drive from Clarkston to Odessa – we had to leave way too early in the morning.

Other recyclable

Lid to cookie dough tub
2 plastic bags from new pair of shoes
Lid to moisturizer bottle

Items: Nonrecyclable
Torn nylons
Ribbon from a Christmas present – other than a few pieces of tape, this is the only plastic I received! Most items were in reused/reusable gift bags with reused/reusable tissue paper.
2 candy wrappers from the airport (traveling back from my parents’)
2 shoe stretcher-thingies from a new pair of shoes
Potato chip bag – from lunch at a sandwich shop in the grand ol’ town of Odessa, Washington
1 ring seal and 2 underlid seals from 2 supplement bottles
Moisturizer bottle
Flip flops – I have officially declared these dead. I wore them for a week hiking around a retreat in Mexico, and they’re now cracked and worn almost paper thin. I might potentially consider wearing them to walk to the mailbox, but I wouldn’t wear them any further, they’d just snap and fall off my feet.
Seal from travel deodorant
Fork from the deli in my work building
Broken rubber band
Seal and wrapper from the Christmas tofurkey
Lint roller sheet

What items can I easily replace with plastic free or less plastic alternatives?

What items would I be willing to give up if a plastic free alternative doesn’t exist?
I have another plane trip this weekend – I will plan carefully to not have to pay packaged food at the airport.

What items are essential and seem to have no plastic-free alternative?

What lifestyle change(s) might be necessary to reduce my plastic consumption?

What one plastic item am I willing to give up or replace this week?

What other conclusions, if any, can I draw?
See analysis and thoughts here:

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