The blog formerly known as   Fake Plastic Fish

Category Archives: Issues Plastic Bags

July 30, 2008

Calling Californians – Please take a minute to support plastic bag legislation!

Hi all. Last week, I got an email from Californians Against Waste urging me to send a letter in support of AB 2058, the California bill to protect the environment from plastic bag pollution. I wrote and faxed my letter last week and didn’t even think of forwarding the request here. Duh! Here’s a copy of the letter I sent, which is partially copied from the sample that CAW sent me.

This afternoon, I received an email from my friend Benn at Chicobags urging bloggers to spread the word. So this is me doing just that! Here’s the letter from Benn. Please follow the links to either send your own letter or use the form on the Heal The Bay web site provided. It will only take a few minutes. This is important legislation and necessary, since the plastic bag industry has taken legal action against towns like Oakland and Fairfax that have tried to pass their own bag bans.

Action Alert: Please consider sharing this important plastic bag news with othe… Read the rest

July 25, 2008

Blue Sky Cleaners – Non-toxic and Plastic-free?

Nowadays, I stick to buying clothes that can be washed at home rather than dry cleaned. Dry cleaning is expensive and environmentally harmful. But I do still have several items of clothing, as well as some wool blankets, that cannot be machine laundered at home, and for those I need a good outside cleaner.

In the past, I have taken clothes to the dry cleaner down the street, not thinking about much more than the fact that I didn’t want any plastic bag covering my clothes. The cleaner would comply with my request, and I’d do an extra bit by returning my used hangers to them. This takes care of the waste problem, but not the more serious problem of the toxic chemicals used in the cleaning process itself.

Thanks to Big Green Purse, I’ve learned a lot about dry cleaning recently. Which is great because I was almost taken in by the “green cleaner” down the street. Rockridge Royal Cleaners on College Ave has posters in its windows … Read the rest

May 28, 2008

16-year old discovers plastic-eating microbe: Is this the answer to our plastic problem?

Last week, Daniel Burd, a 16-year old Canadian student, won the top prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa for his discovery of microbes that will break down polyethylene bags. This article in The Star explains his procedure and how he was able to isolate the specific microbes that will break down the plastic. So far, his microbes have achieved a 43% degradation of the plastic after 6 weeks. Burd theorizes that in 6 more weeks, the plastic would be completely gone, although he has yet to prove that.

First, I want to congratulate Daniel for his hard work on behalf of the environment and for possibly achieving what so far adult scientists have not been able to. Amazing. Being able to biodegrade plastics without the use of toxic heavy metal additives (as are used in oxo-degradable plastics) could be a useful tool in cleaning up the plastic mess we have already created.

But does this mean that plastic bags are now off the hook and that plastic packag… Read the rest

May 8, 2008

Let me be your guinea pig, please!

Seriously, if you have created something that you think will help us reduce waste and won’t just add to the mountains of garbage, plastic or otherwise, littering our world, send it my way to try out. But don’t send any plastic packaging or I’m liable to ship it right back to ya. I received two nifty items in the last few weeks, both packaged sans plastic and both very cool.

The first was from Bibi Rogers, who has created a company called 4U2ReUSE. Bibi has sent me several emails explaining how important this project is to her and her vision for a healthier planet. While out on a kayaking trip with her son, they came upon a beach littered with plastic bags, the sight of which profoundly affected her. She wanted to do something to solve the problem. Experience told her that carrying reusable bags was the best choice, but often people forget to bring them. What if they had a cute carrier to store their old plastic bags in so they could reuse the… Read the rest

April 8, 2008

National Geographic – Could you be a little greener?

National Geographic publishes the Green Guide, a wonderful source for information on environmentally-friendly living. I’ve consulted the Green Guide often for information from PVC to PFCs. And National Geographic publishes articles on environmental issues, such as “Oceans Awash With Microscopic Plastic, Scientists Say“.

So it was particularly disturbing for me to receive an email from Fake Plastic Fish reader Ashley Christenson yesterday telling me about the plastic “polybag” that the National Geographic magazine comes wrapped in. Ashley wrote a letter to National Geographic and gave me permission to reproduce it, as well as National Geographic’s response here:

March 17, 2008 Dear National Geographic,

I always enjoy receiving the National Geographic magazine in the mail. I find it informative and it has raised my awareness about many important issues. I was glad to see you report on the m… Read the rest

February 25, 2008

Bag Monsters afoot…

Have you seen the plastic Bag Monster? I see it all over the place. Blowing down the street, clogging the gutter, floating in Lake Merritt, and even hiding in my own kitchen. I shot this quick footage of a Bag Monster battle taking place on the steps of SF City Hall last November:

But seriously. I’ve written about plastic bags before, and I think that most folks reading this blog already have strong opinions about them. But recently, I’ve come across some stories on the web that sum up the problems of plastic bags eloquently and comprehensively, and I’d like to share them with you, as well as a story of a guy who’s out busting the bag monster in a way that’s humorous and attention-getting.

The first story is Plastic Bags Are Killing Us from Salon.com. It was forwarded to me by Green Mary, a woman I plan to write more about later. This article starts near my home with a description of a group fishing plastic bags out of Lake Merr… Read the rest

January 31, 2008

A Bittersweet Symphony called D2W

Back in September, I wrote about the plastic AT&T Yellow Pages bag that showed up on my doorstep unsolicited. Here’s the update. I called the Yellow Pages, found out to whom I should write, and sent this letter (PDF file).

Not long afterwards, I actually received a telephone call from Jim Troup, the head of environmental issues for AT&T Yellow Pages. We had a long conversation about plastic bags, Yellow Pages recycling, and different types of degradable bags the company has tried. He told me he is researching alternatives to the plastic bags, and that they actually did an experiment up in Redding, California, with a bag made of a plastic called D2W. He called this plastic “chemo-degradable” rather than “bio-degradable” and said that AT&T was still looking for something fully biodegradable and would let me know when they’d made a decision.

Weeks went by, and I forgot about D2W plastic, until … Read the rest

January 29, 2008

Oakland Bag Ban + Send a note to Zip Car!

Here are my friend Nancy, a poor seagull, and I at the Oakland plastic bag ban press conference on the steps of City Hall this morning. (I’ve got to do something about my hair soon! I’m starting to look like one of the Partridge Family boys.) It was a beautiful, sunny day: a reprieve from all the rain we’ve been having.

I thought ABC 7’s coverage of the press conference was disappointing.  They really seem to focus on the plastics industry’s arguments against the ban rather than on promoters’ arguments for it. And reusable bags barely get mentioned at all. Oh well.

On the bright side, businesses such as Whole Foods and City Car Share had representatives who spoke in favor of the ban today. Whole Foods, as you’ve probably already heard, is set to eliminate plastic bags in all of its stores by Earth Day this year.

And City Car Share has begun including reusable bags in all of its cars as a service to members. Wh… Read the rest

December 20, 2007

Evert Fresh Update

In my November 7 post about Evert Fresh bags, I expressed my frustration that people seeking to go plastic-free were buying these bags, believing that the bags were not made from petroleum-based plastic. I explained that this mistaken belief came from misleading or missing information on various web sites.

I’m now happy to report that after many emails and phone calls to these companies, at least three web sites have been updated with the correct information. Greenfeet was the first to fix their listing on Amazon.com, rewording the description to state that the “bags are made from a low-density polyethylene plastic (#4) impregnated with a natural clay based mineral that absorbs ethylene.” Now, it appears that while Greenfeet still sells the bags on its own site, it is no longer selling them through Amazon.com.

Amazon seller 877MYJUICER also changed the product description to say that the “bags are made from low-d… Read the rest

December 6, 2007

I’m tired of all these *$%^# plastic bags!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s confession time again. I am sick and tired of washing out plastic bags. To get them really clean, you have to scrub and rinse all four sides. And then they take forever to dry, even with this handy Bag-e-Wash plastic bag dryer.

The thing is, in my August 28 post, I said one of the Fake Plastic Fish guidelines was to “reuse existing plastic as many times as possible before throwing it away or recycling it.”

And to make matters worse, in my September 17 post, I bragged about how “some of my best friends are plastic bags,” discussing all the handy things that we can do with them instead of tossing them out for recycling. That was the infamous “tea party” post.

And while I still don’t believe that plastic bags are evil, I can’t say they’re my best friends anymore either. I procrastinate washing them out because it’s tedious work (and uses a lot of water, too), and then I end up with a si… Read the rest