The blog formerly known as   Fake Plastic Fish

Category Archives: Businesses & Organizations

August 27, 2013

Plastic-Free Burning Man – The List, Part 1

I only had two hours sleep last night after driving 12 hours, but I want to post these pictures and give you the list of ways I’m de-plastifying my Burn this year.

I’m staying with the Earth Guardians… which is part of the Burning Man infrastructure tasked with making the event as green as possible.

If you’re on the playa, stop by and say hi, leave me a message in the little notebook attached to my tent, or come to one of my workshops, either Wednesday at 1 or Saturday at 2.

Here’s the outside view of my little home on the playa:

Tent

The tent is a Springbar Traveler 5, which is made of heavy duty cotton canvas. I put it up this morning with the help of an expert named Kearce. But it was me who pounded all 18 twelve-inch steel stakes into the hard playa.

Here are the pros and cons of a Springbar tent. Pros:

*Mostly heavy duty cotton instead of synthetic material. *Super strong, stable, and durable. According to comments online from Burners,… Read the rest

August 19, 2013

It’s the Burning Man Plastic Footprint Project!

Last year was my first trip to Black Rock City and the annual Burning Man festival of art, fire, and radical creativity, as well as dust storms, cracked feet, and dry, bloody boogers.  I can’t wait to go back. This year, I’ll be part of the Earth Guardians’ Plastic Footprint project — combining art and education about plastic-free living.  Today, I’ll tell you about the art and associated workshops we have planned. Tomorrow, I’ll share all the new plastic-free solutions I’ve discovered for Burning Man this year. I’ve been researching my head off.  Really, my brain hurts right now.

Plastic Footprint Project — At Burning Man and Incline Village

SCROLL DOWN the page for the list of our Plastic-Free Workshops and events next week.  But first, the art…

Annie Clark, an artist and art teacher in Nevada’s Washoe County School District, contacted me this past spring after … Read the rest

June 29, 2013

So many cool, plastic-free innovations; so little time and blog space

I attended the Plastic Pollution Coalition’s Think Beyond Plastics Competition conference two weeks ago and have been trying to find the time to sit down and write about it ever since! There were so many cool plastic-free innovators and activists there, I barely know where to begin. If you will recall from my previous post, the competition sought to reward and support creative start-up entrepreneurs working to be part of the plastic pollution solution.  Such as…

Pulpworks

Pulpworks was one of the grand prize winners. The company wants to replace the frustration of the plastic blister pack with a more eco-friendly option made entirely from recycled paper.  Instead of this…

wouldn’t it be nice if, in situations where packaging is necessary, that packaging was made from compostable, 100% post-consumer waste paper?

 

As you can see, there isn’t even any glue in this package.  Just paper pulp and cardboard.… Read the rest

April 8, 2013

Plastic-Free Diapers – Change Them, Donate Them

Since I’m not a mom myself, I rely on the wisdom of other parents who are working to reduce plastic in their families’ lives. Cloth diapering is one way to cut down on the amount of plastic contacting your baby’s skin and ending up in landfills or incinerators. Here are a couple of guest posts: one is about a cloth diaper event coming up this month, and the other is about a project to donate cloth diapers to families in need.

The Great Cloth Diaper Change

by Janice Roodsari of Momma Words

Have you heard about the Great Cloth Diaper Change? All around the world people are learning about how using simple, reusable, cloth diapers can make a BIG impact on a family’s finances, environmental waste and pollution, as well as the health of your baby. To help spread the word about the benefits of cloth diapering, an event called The Great Cloth Diaper Change was dreamed up and the Real Diaper Association turned this dream into a reality.

The … Read the rest

March 15, 2013

Invite me to come visit

You may have noticed I haven’t been blogging super regularly. That’s because I’ve been traveling around giving talks on plastic-free living in lots of cool places and meeting some amazing people.

Last week, I got together with Danielle Richardet (of the blog It Starts With Me), who cleans up plastic trash on her local beach with her kids and worked on getting smoking banned at the beach, and Bonnie Monteleone (of The Plastic Ocean Project), who has taken several trips out to the Pacific Garbage Patch to see ocean plastic pollution for herself.  The three of us gave a couple of joint presentations on plastic in the ocean and ways to reduce plastic in our homes and on our planet.  I discovered that presenting with other people, especially local people, is way more fun AND way more effective than simply doing it myself.

We talked to folks at the library in Greensboro, NC:

And we talked to folks at UNCW in Wilmington, NC:

The video from… Read the rest

February 26, 2013

Turtleback Listens! Company to Make Product That Degrades in Sea Water.

Hey, remember my rant last spring about the plastic Turtleback cup holder meant to be used at the beach? And how I thought it was so ironic to name a product for a sea animal that is routinely harmed by ocean plastic pollution? A bunch of green bloggers created quite a stir on Turtleback’s Facebook page back then, and after initially being taken aback by it all, the owner, Ryan Housley, listened.  In fact, he had an open mind from the very start.

Switching to Biodegradable Material

Yesterday, Ryan emailed me a link to the company’s new Kickstarter campaign. The campaign is to fund the development of Turtleback 2.0, a version made from biodegradable plastic (Mirel), a plant-based plastic that is certified to not only biodegrade on land but also in sea water. In fact, it is the only bio-plastic certified to break down in the ocean, as far as I know, and it has also been tested by the folks at the Algalita Marine Research Institute, whose mission… Read the rest

December 11, 2012

What Will It Take To Solve the Plastic Pollution Problem?

I had lunch today with Pam Marcus, the founder of Lifefactory, a company that makes reusable glass water bottles and baby bottles.   She is also one of the organizers of the Plastic Pollution Coalition’s “Think Beyond Plastic Innovation Competition.”  There is a $50,000 prize at stake for the best idea for reducing plastic pollution, whether it’s the invention of a new material or a technology or a process or… whatever.  And I got to thinking… what will it really take for us to reverse this mess we have gotten ourselves into?

Look, it’s all well and good for us to reduce the amount of plastic we personally use in our daily lives.  And that has been my project for my own life, and this blog, and my talks, and my book for over 5 years.  But are our personal actions enough to stem the tide of new plastic that is being dumped onto the earth every day?  Are they even enough to keep each of us safe from toxic chemicals… Read the rest

October 2, 2012

The Reuse Alliance Wants You to Talk Like a Pirate

I realize  Talk Like a Pirate Day is over for 2012, but there’s a certain piraty expression that’s good all year round:  Arrr!  According to the official website, it means “variously, ‘yes,’ ‘I agree,’ ‘I’m happy,’ ‘I’m enjoying this beer,’ ‘My team is going to win it all,’ ‘I saw that television show, it sucked!’ and ‘That was a clever remark you or I just made.'”  But that definition fails to mention that Arrr! also sounds like “R,” the first letter of a string of very important words… words with which the Reuse Alliance would like us to become intimate and in particular, the “R” that comes before “Recycle”:  Reuse.

What is the Reuse Alliance?

“Reuse” encompasses a whole lot more “R”s, which I plan to have fun with in this post.  But… Read the rest

August 23, 2012

My Plastic-Free Burning Man Adventure

I’m a virgin.  A Burning Man virgin.  Ever since I learned about the annual tribal celebration of fire and self-expression back in the mid 90’s, I have wanted to go and hang out in the Black Rock Desert and express myself.   But I’ve never had a friend who wanted to go with me, until recently, when I met Tracey TieF through this very blog.  And that’s appropriate because this year when I go, I’m going to be thinking of ways to do it as Plastic-Free as possible.  And what’s more, I’ll be teaching a Plastic-Free class through the Play(a)Skool!

Carrying Water

At Burning Man, participants are required to bring their own water to the playa, which is a very hot and dry place, with temperatures reaching into the hundreds and chances of dust storms (which I hear we will be having this year.)  You can imagine, there are a lot of plastic water containers at this event.  Many people will bring reusable plastic jugs,… Read the rest

May 31, 2012

Pitch Me Your Green Product, but Skip the Greenwash. Here’s How.

My email in-box is forever filling up with product pitches from various PR reps who want me to review their latest offerings on this blog.   While I love reviewing things like plastic-free chewing gum, plastic-free lip balm, or compostable cleaning cloths, more often than not, the pitches I receive are either irrelevant to my topic–I’m not going to review an organic shampoo in a plastic bottle, even if the producer hand-picked the ingredients from her own backyard herb garden and reduced her carbon footprint by mixing them up using a pedal-powered generator–or don’t contain enough information to capture my interest.  Several years ago, I wrote up a detailed Advertising/Review policy, but it doesn’t seem to help much.  And in conversations (read: rants) among other green bloggers, I’ve discovered I’m not alone.  So I decided to write a letter to “green” companies to let them… Read the rest