The blog formerly known as   Fake Plastic Fish

Monthly Archives: May 2010

May 28, 2010

Could California be the First State to Ban Plastic Bags?

Bag Ban action button

11/09/2016 Update: Six years after this post was written, California has FINALLY banned plastic bags across the state!

I’m pissed off. I live in a city, like many others in California, that wants to ban plastic shopping bags, but we can’t. Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, and other California cities are under attack by the plastics industry. None of these cities has been able to put their plastic bag bans into effect because of industry deep pockets that have successfully sued to require each city to conduct an environmental impact report (EIR) showing that banning plastic bags would not have a detrimental impact.

Our cities cannot afford to spend $150,000 to $200,000 each to conduct EIRs. That’s why nothing has come of Oakland’s bag ban or any of the others. My city can’t afford to keep enough cops on the streets (just ask Michael, who got mugged several months ago right across from our hous… Read the rest

May 27, 2010

The Joy of Being a Green Kid

Jordan Howard

November 8, 1988, I sat in the Hawk ‘n’ Dove bar on Capitol Hill drinking beer with my fellow Clean Water Action canvassers and watching the presidential election returns. I was 23 years old.  As the night wore on, and it became apparent that nothing less than a miracle could save Michael Dukakis from losing to George H.W. Bush, a group of loud, big-haired yuppies (it was still the 80’s after all) cheered at the table next to us. One woman in a ruffled dress with big shoulder pads glanced over at our tie-dyed shirts and dismal faces and shouted over the din, “I used to be idealistic like you guys. I voted Democrat and thought I could change the world. But when you get older, you realize that it’s just not practical. You’ll want to keep your money. And then you’ll vote for the conservative guy. You’ll see.”

“Never,” I thought. “I will never become so cynical. I’ll alway… Read the rest

May 25, 2010

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Plastic Thing in the Middle of the Pizza

plastic pizza savers

You know what I’m talking about. It looks like patio furniture for little tiny people. But it’s not.

It’s officially called a package saver, or a pizza lid support, and it’s meant to keep the cheese from sticking to the top of the pizza box, although others might disagree:

_your_face: I thought there was some crazy mechanical trick of pizza, that if you pierced just three slices, it would keep the whole sucker together. The idea that they don’t hold the pizza together at all, and is just a tiny table….makes me want to change my major =[

Raziel66: That’s so sad…. I never realized that’s what they were for.

kahoona: They also stabilize the cheese.

draculacalled: You’re all wrong. They are to restrain the pizza from struggling; as pizzas are shipped live.

energythief: They are also there to provide a surface for the toppings to play cards while the lid is closed and in transit. It’… Read the rest

May 22, 2010

Hey man, got any more red pills?

Neo takes red pill

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

Three years ago, I took the red pill and swore off plastic.

Last year, on my hands and knees sopping up a spilled glass of wine, I found another red pill under the couch and, mistaking it for a vintage M&M, popped it in my mouth.  I haven’t had a drink since.

This February,  a third red pill fell out of a book I was reading, and I swallowed it before I realized what I was doing.  I think you know what happened.  I just can’t look at meat without seeing the living animal it once was.

So, I was just wondering if there were any more red pills I should worry about finding because all this “Wonderland” is getting to be a drag. For example, last night, I was out having drinks and … Read the rest

May 19, 2010

Plastic Lives Forever

Change Ahead sign

Wow. Watch this heartbreaking video about our plastic legacy, set to Queen’s Who Wants To Live Forever. Many of the images will be familiar, but it also contains haunting footage I’d never seen before.   How does this make you feel?

Hide or Take Action?

Watching a video like this makes me want to go back to bed and eat an entire Entenmann’s chocolate fudge cake under the covers, plastic window box and trans fats notwithstanding.  Who cares when we are so screwed?

And then, once again, I realize that I am living in the future instead of the present moment.  We’re not screwed, yet.  We’re all still alive, and there is work to be done.  We can stop when we’re dead.  For now, let’s smell the flowers (because there’s still so much incredible beauty in the world) and get back to the task at hand: loving this planet and each other in the best ways we know how.… Read the rest

May 18, 2010

How To Store Produce Without Plastic

Carrots stored in water

We don’t use plastic to store any of our vegetables or fruits. For example, we store carrots, whole or cut, immersed in containers of water. They will stay crisp in the refrigerator for weeks.  (Make sure to change the water frequently.) Celery works the same way.

The Berkeley Farmers Market has put together a huge list of ways to store produce without plastic.   The market went plastic-free last year and is doing everything it can to encourage customers to not only bring their own bags and containers but to skip the plastic when they get home as well.  The information is listed below.  And here is a printable PDF version of the flyer, HowTo Store Fruits and Vegetables: Tips and tricks to extend the life of your produce without plastic (PDF).

How to Store Vegetables Without Plastic

Always remove any tight bands from your vegetables or at least loosen them to allow them to breath.

Artichokes– place in an airtight container sealed, with li… Read the rest

May 14, 2010

Environmental Film Leads to Anger Eating

Eat All The Things meme

What do you do when you have to sit through a very stressful film about how corporate America is destroying the planet, and the screening takes place in a night club so everyone else has a drink in their hand to take the edge off, and you’re trying to keep it together with a glass of water?  And also? You used up your last prescription bottle of Xanax and don’t plan to get it refilled for various reasons, the least of which is the plastic bottle.

I found myself in that condition Wednesday night, seeing the film Tapped for the 3rd time and feeling just as angry as I did the first time I saw it.  Tapped, which I reviewed last year, is all about the bottled water industry and covers infuriating information most people are unaware of.  Wednesday’s screening was hosted by SF Surfrider, who invited me to come and talk to people about ways to live with less plastic.  So I did that and got into an argument with one of the sponsors (and his brain-splitti… Read the rest

May 14, 2010

Plastic-Free Living Discussion, Part 3

Beth singing karaoke at wedding reception

Responding to more of your plastic-free living comments/questions/suggestions from two weeks ago.  This is fun because it gets me thinking about aspects of plastic-free living that I might not have encountered in my own life.  So here we go…

1)  Cost of Plastic-Free Products. Rebecca is concerned that where she lives, many of the plastic-free options are more expensive than their plastic-wrapped counterparts.  For example, she can buy a 1-lb bag of dried beans for 90 cents when the bulk beans are $1.75 per lb.  And for a family on a very tight budget, those amounts can add up.

Okay, first let me say that each of us can only do what we can do.  If you’re stretched to the max with no padding, you do what you have to.  And when any of us reaches the limit to how far we can actually take our personal plastic-reduction, that’s when advocacy is called for.  That’s when we start having to contact the stores where we shop and the companie… Read the rest

May 11, 2010

Holy chocolate covered almonds, Batman!

glass jar of chocolate covered almonds - almost gone

They’re plastic-free (Whole Foods bulk bin), meat-free, and at the rate I’m eating them, I should be three sizes bigger by this summer. (That jar was full a week ago.)

This is the opposite of conscious eating, I think.

Not beating myself up. My addictions are doing a good enough job of that already.

Just need to breathe.  And maybe have a good cry today, before I do anything else.… Read the rest

May 11, 2010

Natural Flea Killer. Need Help!

Frontline flea prevention

I’ve complained before about how bad the fleas are here in Oakland. And the item in my plastic tally that makes me the saddest are the packages of Frontline flea killer that occasionally show up.  They make me sad not so much because of the plastic packaging but the toxicity of the chemicals inside.

Frontline is made from a combination of fipronil and s-methoprene.

Environmental Impact of Fipronil

According to the National Pesticide Information Center’s fact sheet on fipronil(PDF),

The U.S. EPA has classified fipronil as “Group C – possible human carcinogen,” based on “increases in thyroid follicular cell tumors in both sexes of the rat.” Fipronil is highly toxic to bobwhite quail and pheasants Fipronil is highly to very highly toxic to marine and freshwater fish and freshwater invertebrates, including oysters. Fipronil is highly toxic to honeybees!

That last item is what worries me the most… Read the rest