The blog formerly known as   Fake Plastic Fish

Category Archives: Interviews And Guest Posts

August 20, 2009

Kayla Bonczek: Starting college and avoiding plastic

I’m still in Hawaii with my family. The following is a guest post from Fake Plastic Fish reader Kayla Bonczek, who is working to reduce the amount of disposable plastic in her life as she starts college. I wish I had been this aware as a teenager!

Hello, Fake Plastic Fishes! My name is Kayla and I am nineteen years old. My interest in environmental sustainability began with a trip to Vermont and an AP environmental science (APES) class taught by my favorite teacher, where I was exposed in both instances to a wide array of environmental issues. I could go on all day about these issues, but for this post, I will try my best to stick to plastics because this is Fake Plastic Fish.

This past summer has been my first one spent in Texas for some time (I went to high school up north, but grew up down here). I was very fortunate to find a job right away at an amazing family-owned business. When I first started working, I was told that employees were allotted two drinks … Read the rest

August 13, 2009

Juniperseed Mercantile Makes Great Plastic-free Products

When I start to feel depressed about the state of the world, I think about you guys, the folks who read this blog, those that I know and those I’ve yet to meet, and I realize how grateful I am to be part of this online community of people trying to make a difference. So I was tickled a month ago when Fake Plastic Fish reader Tiffany, proprietor of the shop Juniperseed Mercantile (formerly Picnic Basket Crafts) emailed me to ask some questions about plastic packaging.

Tiffany is a school teacher by profession and in her “spare time” sells healthy cleaning and skincare products that she makes herself, trying very hard to reduce the amount of plastic packaging. She doesn’t even use plastic tape, and recently posted a Plastic-Free Green Product Packaging Tutorial on her blog, demonstrating exactly how to use paper tape. But she’s stuck when it comes to containers. As she wrote me,

…I can’t seem to get around … Read the rest

July 8, 2009

Plastics Debate Continues with Artist Chris Jordan Weighing In

Yesterday, I mentioned a conversation I had with plastics proponent Greg from Plastics.com and posed several questions for Fake Plastic Fish readers to answer.

Greg has responded to my post with an article on his own blog: “Plastic: What is it good for? Absolutely lots!” (You may have to scroll down the long list of menu items on his site to read the post.)  Greg invites your comments on his blog — comments which members of the plastics industry will read!

Visual artist Chris Jordan, whom you might recognize for his brilliant social & environmental series called “Running The Numbers,” attempted to respond on Greg’s blog, but his comment was too long. So here it is. Feel free to respond, forward, and discuss with friends. Chris raises important issues about all corporations and whether or not they actually respond to consumer demand or are actually in the business of manufacturing the demand they wan… Read the rest

July 7, 2009

Plastic – What is it good for?

This morning, I had a telephone conversation with a plastics industry insider who runs a web site dedicated to supporting plastics professionals. Greg from Plastics.com is a nice guy. Very sincere. And surprisingly, we found many more areas of agreement than probably either of us expected.

I won’t go into the details of the conversation in this post, except to tell you that I expressed to him my major concerns with plastic: non-biodegradable waste from disposable plastic containers and packaging; chemicals that can leach from plastics and the fact that those chemicals are not disclosed to consumers; harm to wildlife, etc. Greg shared with me his views and expressed that he has some of the same environmental concerns that I do. Now we’d like your input.

What do you see as the major problems with plastic?

What uses for plastic (if any) are necessary and beneficial to society?

Would you like to see a world without any plastic at all? Wha… Read the rest

July 1, 2009

Guest Post – No Technology is Truly Green

Before you invest in that new “green” computer or purchase those fun solar deck lights, read this insider’s perspective from Fake Plastic Fish reader Alyssa J. Pasquale and consider whether buying new technology is ever truly green. If you have an idea for a guest post, please contact me and let me know. I’d love to feature more of your ideas here!

I would first like to thank Beth for allowing me to write this guest post. My name is Alyssa and I am a PhD candidate at a very large university in Boston. I work in electrical engineering and have a focus on photonic devices. These are generally nanometer-scale devices that use light to do something cool. Some people in my department work on biological sensors, some on solar cells, some on lasers, and some on LEDs.

I’ve been doing research for a long time (I started as an undergrad) and one thing that’s prevalent in my work is lots and lots of waste. As I told Beth, I find it a… Read the rest

June 29, 2009

Kathleen Egan: Surfing the Plastic Wave

Kathleen Egan — surfer, artist, and environmental activist — heads up SF Surfrider’s Plastics Subcommittee, which is working to end the plague of plastic pollution in our oceans. I first met her last month displaying her Plastic Wave sculpture (made from the collected plastic of 12 friends over two weeks) at Adventure Ecology’s SMART Art competition.

We met again this past Friday and ended up hanging out at San Francisco’s Pier 29-1/2 (where David de Rothschild is building his Plastiki boat from recycled plastic) after an unfortunate collision between a U-Haul trailer and a metal warehouse gate. Sitting and waiting for the repair people to arrive gave us a chance to see a glimpse of the Plastiki in progress, play with a couple of cute dogs, and enjoy the sun while chatting about all things plastic.

Kathleen began surfing in 2001 after moving to San Francisco and having a surfer friend take her under his wing, and … Read the rest

June 26, 2009

Kids Less Plastic: A Guest Post from Deborah Hladecek

Deborah Hladecek is newly committed to reducing plastic in her family’s life. And living in Northern California, she’s practically my neighbor. So I was thrilled when she offered to write a guest post about what she’s been doing about the plastic in her child’s world. Deborah writes the truly awesome Pure Mothers blog. She also participated in the Show Your (Plastic) Trash Challenge this month. It was an eye-opening experience for her. Check out her stash.

When Beth at Fake Plastic Fish asked for more bloggers to write about plastic, I thought, what could I possibly have to say that she hasn’t said already? She’s the plastic-free goddess! Then my toddler clamored and clawed his way on to my lap to see what I was doing on the computer and I realized that I have another perspective – the mommy view. Beth has her cats, and I have another human being using more resources and contributing to my plastic consum… Read the rest

June 18, 2009

The Discovery of a Challenge

The following is a guest post from Fake Plastic Fish reader Diana McLennan who finds that pretending she’s on the show Little House on the Prairie is a fun green motivator. Diana joined the Show Us Your (Plastic) Trash Challenge a few weeks ago.

I’m a single girl in my twenties in Los Angeles, working in what’s essentially the legal department of an entertainment company. The building I work in is actually quite progressive in the “green” arena—they just installed a ginormous field of solar panels–and it was an article in the weekly company newsletter that jumpstarted my current obsession with minimizing my carbon footprint—which, of course, includes avoiding plastic. (Getting the word out DOES make a difference!)

The article was on green issues and mentioned a few blogs -— like No Impact Man —- written by people who weren’t content with just chucking things in the recycling bin like I was: instea… Read the rest

June 10, 2009

I would walk 500 miles: A guest post by Sunny Yukon

The following is a guest post from Fake Plastic Fish reader Sunny Yukon. All I can say is that I wish I were this funny!

Coincidentally I was listening to this song by The Proclaimers yesterday.

By the end of the day I fell down at my door. I was exhausted!

I helped my son with a fundraising activity his scout troup was doing yesterday evening. Roadside clean-up. We were assigned a 3+ kilometre stretch of highway, given orange vests and garbage bags, and told it should be about three hours of work for our group to earn $500. And off we went!

Three hours later, we were a little over 1/2 done. The full-sized pickup we had was filled with bags of trash. The leader said it was the most trash he’d ever seen doing this fundraiser.

There wasa bike with a trashed seat.fast food wrappersnewspaperspaper cupsStyrofoamhubcapsblown tiresgas capsgas cansplastic wrappingbungee cordswireplastic lids from paper cupsstrawsunderwearpop cansbeer bottlesflyer… Read the rest

June 3, 2009

Guest Post – Convenience is a Luxury

The following is a guest post by Linda Anderson, author of the blog, Citizen Green. Linda recently joined the Show Your Plastic Trash Challenge. Here’s her tally. Inspired by Laura Zilverberg’s post, Waste Is A Luxury, Linda explains that convenience is also a luxury.

Thirty years ago I lived in Brazil and experienced the same sort of culture shock that Laura Zilverberg spoke of in her guest post on FPF, May 13. My wake up moment came when our maid was looking for a cleaning rag in the rag bag. Yes we had a maid, it was expected of the affluent. At 25 years old, I did not even know I was affluent. Julia, the maid, found a discarded manʼs shirt in the rag bag. I had put it there to be a rag, but only after I cut the buttons off to save for sewing repairs. I did not cut the threads of the buttons, I cut the fabric so that everywhere there had been a button, there was a little diamond shaped hole. Julia wanted the shirt, with holes, for her father.

She took the s… Read the rest