Welcome
I'm Beth Terry, an accountant living in Greenbelt, MD (by way of the San Francisco Bay Area). In 2007, I unexpectedly found myself an activist, author, and public speaker after learning about the devastating effects of plastic pollution and my own plastic footprint. This site has evolved from a simple blog (formerly known as "Fake Plastic Fish") to a comprehensive resource on plastic-free living. Please explore, join a challenge, ask questions, subscribe. Together, we can change the world.
Read the Book!
Plastic-Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too
is your illustrated, practical guide to living with less plastic, updated with new chapter and foreword by musician Jack Johnson. Click here to learn more.Get Started
Here are my top 100 steps to get started on a plastic-free journey. Choose a few to begin with. Don't try to do it all at once!
- Carry reusable shopping bags.
- Give up bottled water.
- Shop your local farmers market.
- Say no to plastic produce bags.
- Buy from bulk bins as often as possible.
- Cut out sodas, juices, and all other plastic-bottled beverages.
- Buy fresh bread that comes in either paper bags or no bags.
- Return containers for berries, cherry tomatoes, etc. to the farmer's market to be reused.
- Bring your own container for meat and prepared foods.
- Choose milk in returnable glass bottles.
Join the Discussion
- Elyse on Vitamins and herbal supplementsI love the refill idea, we need to start forcing this as an option. Really how many more bottles do we need???? Let's start sending the ones we h
- Nicola on Home vacuum sealingI am interested in vacuum sealing for the puroses of storing fresh caught fish, and for making my own dehydrated backpacking/emergency prep meals (che
- Nicola on Reef friendly sunscreen.... help!I suffer from sun rash as soon as it’s t-shirt weather. From personal experience I highly recommend using a good aloe product, such as Lily of the Des
- KariRose on Plastic SunglassesI just found the most adorable toddler sunglasses in Bamboo for $12 from the company BambinoandCompany on Etsy. There are also wooden adult sunglasses
- M Miller on Looking for plastic free daily pill holderHi, I'm looking for a plastic free option to those daily pill holders you can purchase in the drug store that have 7 compartments with easy to ac
- Judy on Items that stump meMaybe by now you've read why antiperspirant is not good for you and there're so many plastic free options for deodorant (diy too), there are
- Chris on Plastic free large storage binsYou said you didn't want to use cardboard but why not? Most of my Christmas ornaments are in 30 year old cardboard boxes that had been used once
- Beth Wright on Vitamins and herbal supplementsI found a company that makes a "superfood" multivitamin packaged in a paper pouch. https://apsu.life/ The pouches are not reclosable nor com
- Ann Lamb on Semi-plastic free laundry detergentHas anyone else heard of Dizolve? It's concentrated dry detergent sheets. Packaging has varied, from paper boxes to small plastic bag for a la
- David Evans on Breakeven Uses of Reusables vs Single UseHi All, I've had several people ask me the old question... "what's more environmentally friendly? this or that?" There is a lot o
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Take the Challenge!
Do you know your plastic footprint?
Join participants around the world in the "Show Your Plastic Trash" Challenge! No guilt. Just education.
