The blog formerly known as   Fake Plastic Fish

Category Archives: Animals

September 8, 2009

Male Chicks Macerated for Our Eggs — But We CAN Take Action!

Do your eggs come from a certified humane producer? Please read this article anyway because it may apply to you, too.

This post is not about plastic. And the information I’m going to share is gruesome, alarming, and heartbreaking. I’ve been sitting with this knowledge all weekend but didn’t want to write a post until I had more information and ideas for action that we can take. Please read on if you care about the welfare of farm animals, and especially if you enjoy eating eggs.

A Shocking Revelation

Last Thursday, Michael forwarded me an article and video about a practice that seems so cruel it takes my breath away. The article, “Video Shows Price of Cheap Eggs: Chicks Ground Up Alive” describes a video posted on YouTube by the group Mercy for Animals revealing some pretty inhumane conditions at a facility that hatches chicks for egg producers. The video, Undercover Investigation at Hy-Line Hatchery, shows chicks… Read the rest

August 9, 2007

Woman drinks wine, unwittingly threatens endangered animals

I love wine. I really do. And I’ve drunk a fair amount of it during the weeks since I started my plastic project. But it wasn’t until I read this article a couple of days ago that it occurred to me that some of the wine corks I’ve pulled have been made of plastic! And those plastic corks didn’t even make it into my weekly tallies. Good lord, was I drunk or something??? How could I have missed them?

Fortunately, I like to save my wine stoppers, so I was able to pull out my collection and count them up. For the record, there are 31 cork stoppers and 11 plastic stoppers: 26% plastic!

So why are plastic corks, in addition to all the usual plastic problems, threatening endangered animals? Because they compete with natural Mediterranean cork forests, which not only provide humans with stoppers for their various libations, but also provide unique habitat for some of the world’s more unusual creatures, such as the Iberian Imperial … Read the rest

July 27, 2007

What’s Wrong with Plastic, Anyway?

Why avoid plastic?  I originally wrote this post in July 2007, just one month into my plastic-free experiment.  It’s now May 2015, and in the past 8 years, I have learned a lot more about plastic — where it comes from and what problems are associated with it.  Here, then, is an updated summary of why I am still living plastic-free after all these years.

1) Plastic from fossil fuels

According to the U.S. Energy Energy Information Administration, “plastics are made from liquid petroleum gases (LPG), natural gas liquids (NGL), and natural gas. LPG are by-products of petroleum refining, and NGL are removed from natural gas before it enters transmission pipelines.”  In 2010, about 191 million barrels of LPG and NGL and 412 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of natural gas were used in the United States to make plastic products.

And as we know, oil and gas are non-renewable resources, which means that if we don’t find alternatives… Read the rest

June 20, 2007

Why I Quit Using Plastic

Inspired by EnviroWoman’s blog, “Living Plastic Free In 2007” [which has now been discontinued], and by the mountains of plastic waste that I lug into San Francisco to my friend Red’s recycling bin (since Oakland has very limited plastic recycling), and since I have too much free time on my hands while recovering from surgery, I’ve decided to take on my own plastic project. I’m especially motivated by the following heartbreaking photo and article:

This is what happens to much of the plastic that we throw away each day. It ends up inside sea birds and fish and kills them. And makes sensitive chicks like me cry. Plastic Ocean

But I am not making a vow to give up all plastic this year or any year. My project will be a bit different from some of the more extreme “resolution” blogs out there. Instead, I’m looking at this as more of a learning experience… for me and for anyone who cares to follow… Read the rest