The blog formerly known as   Fake Plastic Fish

Category Archives: Businesses & Organizations

January 20, 2010

Green Moving Boxes Made from… Plastic?

As you know, I avoid buying plastic products.  Plastics contribute to the degradation of the world’s oceans, harm wildlife, and threaten human health.  But in certain situations, I think that durable plastics can actually be the better alternative to biodegradable materials like cardboard.  No, I didn’t suddenly take a job lobbying for the American Chemistry Council.  Rather, I was contacted by Spencer Brown of Rent-a-Green Box, … Read the rest

January 7, 2010

Plastic-Free Birthday

It’s my birthday! So how will I celebrate?

Well, first with a birthday lunch at work. Group lunches at the office are always challenging because of the packaging associated with take-out food. But fortunately, there’s a new lunch place in San Francisco I’ve been dying to try: Mixt Greens.

Mixt Greens is certified green under the Bay Area Green Business program. Their food is organic. Their packaging is compostable. And even the restaurant itself is constructed to green standards.

Next? We’ll see . Karaoke this weekend? A movie? A walk on the beach? I haven’t decided yet. Hoping to get together with Ruchi, aka Arduous, and hang out some.

I think I probably won’t blog again until next week. So cheers. Thanks for all your support. And keep away from plastic this weekend. :-)… Read the rest

December 17, 2009

No Impact Man Ch 6 – 8: Plastic-Free Cheese, Saving Money, Living in the Dark

As always, the questions raised in my No Impact Man book posts are relevant to everyone whether they have read the book or not. Please join the discussion.

Two days ago I asked: Why are that the majority of Fake Plastic Fish readers female (according to Quantcast)? Reader “underbelly” responded with a theory of gender roles that are still promoted by the culture:

To me, the green-o-sphere seems to be dominated by people in charge of the domestic realm. And since gender disparity still overwhelmingly exists in things like parenting, cleaning, cooking, buying household items, etc., guess who reads more about non-toxic cookware?

[…]

Sure, [eco-men] out there, but as long as little girls help mommy cook during Thanksgiving while little boys watch football with daddy, there will always be this disparity.

Colin Beavan, the No Impact Man, happens to be one of those eco-men who defies gender stereotypes. In Chapter 6 of the book, he… Read the rest

November 30, 2009

Notes on a Plastic-Free, Shopping-Free Holiday

Have you ever had so much fun that you completely forgot to take pictures? That’s what happens when the day is all about great food, friends, and silly games. Our friends Red & Jen (that’s them on the left) hosted a Thanksgiving potluck, and you know what? I didn’t see a lick of plastic. Okay, maybe I just wasn’t looking for it. Because sometimes I just have to turn off my “Fake Plastic Fish” brain and turn on my “connecting with others and forgetting about judgments” brain. I kinda wish that part of my gray matter would light up more often.

So here are a few notes with only a few pictures (which were actually taken by Jen and sent to me the next day!)

Thanksgiving

1) Michael and I got up early Thanksgiving morning and cooked butternut squash pie with a gluten-free pecan crust, baked yams (w/ butter, brown sugar, & lemon juice), and Autumn Harvest Salad with Persimmons. I got a little frantic time-wise… Read the rest

November 16, 2009

How to Survive the Green Festival

The Green Festival… this weekend was my third and probably best experience attending. I’ve read negative reviews of the Green Festival from green bloggers bemoaning that the vendor floor is so consumption-oriented and there is still so much plastic packaging and plastic products. Those comments may be valid. But you know what? The experience of The Green Festival is what you make of it. Here are some tips:

1) Meet up with your friends — the folks who create the products that you do love. I hung out with Jay from Life Without Plastic, the company that sells the airtight stainless containers I reviewed a year ago, on Friday afternoon and toured the vendor floor with him for a bit. He had just spent the previous days at the Green Business Conference and his enthusiasm was contagious.

2) Be a little outrageous. It’s the Green Festival. It’s your chance to sparkle. Walking past the ChicoBag table with Jay, I spotted a huge … Read the rest

October 29, 2009

350 Day on the Beach. Where in the World is Beth?

350.org has released this fantastic video showing actions all over the world that took place on October 24.

So where was I?

The best-laid plans sometimes go awry when unknown locations and strange parking fee machines are involved. By the time I got to the beach in Santa Monica for the 350 Day Blogger Beach Cleanup, the event had already begun. Not to miss out, filmmaker Jan Vozenilek and I ran across the sand as fast as we could toward what we thought was our group. (Click images to see larger size on 350.org website.)

We arrived huffing and panting to a beautiful sand sculpture on Santa Monica Beach, only to realize we were at the wrong event! Who cares? This group was fabulous.

So I hung out on the beach for a while with Jan (who just returned from filming dead albatross chicks on Midway with photographer Chris Jordan) and enthusiastic plastic pollution activist Sarah Kornfeld,

took pictures of my own boobs (in a “Plastic Is Washed Up” T-shirt),… Read the rest

October 28, 2009

Fantastic Letter from PolarSolar to Fake Plastic Fish

While I was away this weekend, I received this email from a San Francisco company that installs solar water heaters:

from Joseph Wright to Beth Terry date Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 5:05 PM subject Thanks and Question

Hi Beth,

I wanted to write to let you know what a hero you are of mine and I want to thank you for the positive influence that you have on the lives of others and the environment…I also have a question…I am a fellow Bay Area native and I operate a sustainable water heating business — after reading your recent blog post I have decided to eliminate PVC from our materials list (obviously very common plumbing material) and we will never look back… I have reposted your entry on our blog and was wondering if you would prefer some other way for us to refer to your information. I hope that all is well and I look forward to more of your inspiring ideas and calls to action…

http://polarsolar.com/blog/

Highest Regards,

Joe

Joe Wright… Read the rest

October 21, 2009

Warm Plastic-Free Quilt Handmade Just In Time For Winter

Monday was rainy and cold. It sure was nice to have my new T-shirt quilt handmade by Fake Plastic Fish reader Colette Carrabba, who blogs at Carrabba’s World.

But let me backtrack a little.

Remember when I wrote about how the stuff on and around my desk was overwhelming me? A lot of you left some really great suggestions for ways to get organized. One of the most helpful came from Erika Barcott who wrote a whole post in response on her blog Redshirt Knitting and recommended the book, It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff, by Peter Walsh. He recommends going through your stuff and keeping only 50% of it. He says that if things are important to us, we ought to treat them that way. Hoarding stuff away in drawers and boxes to be dealt with later only makes us feel overwhelmed in the present. While I don’t agree with his admonition to throw the rest away (we all know there is no such thing as “away”) I did… Read the rest

October 16, 2009

Hey Wal-Mart! I See Glaring Omissions in Your New Sustainability Index

Dear Wal-Mart,

Let me apologize in advance for any sarcasm you might detect in this letter. It’s late, and I’ve been losing sleep for about two years, basically working for free to wake people up to the environmental crises we face. So you can imagine that I’m a little bit cranky. And maybe just a little bit jaded by big box companies that profess to be going green, when “Big Box” seems to be the antithesis of green.

Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart. You are big and muscly. And now you want to use your muscle to demand sustainable practices from your vendors. You have created a brand new Sustainability Index (PDF), despite the fact that many third party standards already exist.

But what are the standards you are pushing? And who gets to decide what they should be?

Your new Sustainability Index… oh, sorry.  It’s not Wal-Mart’s Sustainability Index.  It belongs to the world.  According to Rand Waddoups,… Read the rest