The blog formerly known as   Fake Plastic Fish

Monthly Archives: June 2018

June 30, 2018

Plastic-Free July is Bigger Than Ever This Year!

Ever since Western Australian Rebecca Prince Ruiz started Plastic-Free July with a small group of locals back in 2011, the movement has gone global over 2 million people in 159 different countries working to reduce their use of plastic products for an entire month, and, hopefully, learning new habits they can continue during the rest of the year.

I learned about Plastic-Free July in 2013 and in 2014 brought Plastic-Free July to the Ecology Center in Berkeley, where it has become a regular part of that organization’s annual programming.  (See the Ecology Center’s schedule of Plastic-Free July 2018 events here.)

In 2016, Rebecca won a Churchill Fellowship to travel the world learning about solutions to the plastic pollution problem.  I was thrilled to meet up with her in California and co-present a workshop on alternatives to plastic to an International group of kids at the POPS (Plastic Ocean Pollution Solutions) Summit that year.… Read the rest

June 3, 2018

Solid Plastic-Free Shower Gel and Body Wash? What Do You Think?

Lush solid shower gel

Last month, I received an email from Carmen Drahl, senior correspondent for Chemical & Engineering News, wanting to know if I had heard about the new solid body wash products from Lush and Bomb Cosmetics, and if so, what I thought about them.  To be honest, I thought she was just talking about bars of soap.  What’s so new about that?  But no.  Actually, just as I learned that liquid soap and solid soap have different chemistries, so too do soap and shower gel.  And as Carmen explained to me the difference between soap and shower gel, I started to get excited… Not for myself, but for my sister and others of her ilk.

A Plastic-Free Solution for the Soap Haters?

… Read the rest