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Category Archives: Musings

September 15, 2017

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

It’s been a while. I spent all of August in Maryland with my family in the house where I grew up, celebrating birthdays, helping out my dad and brother, learning to love baseball (I even bought a Washington Nationals baseball cap), visiting with plastic-free friends, and driving for twelve hours each way to experience one stunning 2 and a half minute act of nature. If I were still a kid (and who says I’m not?), this would be my report to the class. And I would probably get marked down for procrastinating and turning it in late. What else is new?

Big Almost Plastic-Free Birthday Party

August is a month of birthdays for our family: My sister Ellen and her daughter Abby were both born on the same day of the month. My dad’s birthday is four days later. So my niece Lauren and I organized a big birthday bash for the gang.

But what do you serve to a houseful of people of all different ages (from tykes to Millenials to Octagenarians) and all dif… Read the rest

June 29, 2017

The Beach Doesn’t Care Whose Fault It Is

I’ve been away from blogging and social media for a few months, needing time to recuperate from the onslaught of attention-grabbing, anxiety-inducing posts that had hijacked my “news” feeds. Taking a break to be in silence for a while helps. So do walks along the red dirt trails or the rocky coastline of Moloka’i, Hawaii.

In the end of March, I went on my annual silent meditation retreat to the center of the center of the center. (The retreat center is in the middle of Moloka’i, which is the middle of the Hawaiian Island chain, which is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.) It just so happened that the week of my retreat was the same week as Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii’s first statewide beach cleanup event. And the cleanup event planned for the island of Moloka’i happened to be scheduled on our only day “off” from silent meditation. There’s more serendipity in how I even found out abo… Read the rest

June 1, 2015

Hoarding for the Environment? Zero Waste Experts Bea Johnson and Deb Baida Respond.

Do you have a hard time letting go of things because they might be useful one day? Are you reluctant to give away your old plastic kitchenware for fear that someone else will be harmed by it? Or that they won’t dispose of it properly when they’re done with it? Do you resist tossing things into the recycle bin because you know the truth about what happens to most of our plastic recycling, and it’s not pretty? Do you feel compelled to bring home items left on the street even if you have no immediate use for them?

Are you turning your own home into a landfill?

These are questions many environmentalists deal with. Ever since June of 2007 when I put a bag under my kitchen table and vowed to acquire no new plastic, I’ve been collecting my plastic waste. And one day, a friend of mine looked at my boxes of years of collected plastic and said, “You know Beth, they have a word for this behavior, and it starts with an H.”

But I have an … Read the rest

April 16, 2014

Is Saving Money a Good Reason to Go Plastic-Free?

When I give talks, one question people frequently ask is whether it costs more money to go plastic-free. My answer: a few things cost more initially, but in general, I save money living this way. In fact, I was thinking about adding a whole section to my plastic-free presentation about ways to save money. But I haven’t done it because I got to thinking… is that actually a good strategy? Or could it backfire? I’ll explain what I mean later in this post. I’d love to get your feedback. But first, yes, there really are ways to save money. Here are just a few…

Plastic-Free Ways to Save Money

A really good quality water bottle made from stainless steel or glass might be a bit pricey, but I save money in the long run because bottled water actually costs more per gallon than gasoline! A 32-pack of Aquafina is $35 today on Amazon, which means I would make back the cost of a Klean Kanteen water bottle in about a month if … Read the rest

September 14, 2013

Celebrating the Sun

Aloha. I’m writing this post high above the Pacific Ocean on my way to Hawaii. I’m thinking about how I’m increasing my carbon footprint this month with so much travelling. And I’m also thinking about the carbon footprint of Burning Man. This will be my final Burning Man post for the year, and hopefully it will be a good one. (I didn’t go to bed last night, so we’ll see what comes through my index finger as I Swype the screen on my Android phone.)

Burning Man is all about burning carbon. During the week, people erect beautiful wooden sculptures that they’ve spent all year constructing…

only to burn them a few days later. … Read the rest

September 7, 2013

When is Plastic NOT Moop?

This will be my penultimate Burning Man post for the year. I think. (I have one more in mind, but who knows if I’ll get a burning desire to say even more after that? Or less?)

I have a discussion question for you, but first, a little background and lots of pictures. (I don’t think there is any nudity in these photos, but let me know if you see some and I’ll remove it. This blog is rated PG even if my life isn’t always.)

Reducing our plastic footprint was the theme of the Earth Guardians camp this year. Toward that end, we had Annie’s plastic footprint sculpture…

I gave two talks on plastic-free living on and off the playa…

Karima from the Plastic Pollution Coalition was there, taking pictures and working on quantifying Burning Man’s plastic footprint.

So was my friend Tracey whom I camped with last year and who had worked very hard to deplastify her business.

Several people came up to me during the week who … Read the rest

December 19, 2012

The End of the World is Coming and I’m Still not Buying New Plastic

Of course, I don’t really believe that the world is going to end this Friday. That would be too easy. The damage we are doing to life on planet Earth is a slower process and one that has the potential to cause much more prolonged suffering. And as I sit here typing sentences and then deleting them, typing and deleting, trying to figure out how to express what I’m feeling, I’m unsure if a post like this is even appropriate. But here goes.

I’m depressed.

A lot of really terrible things have been happening lately. Every other day brings news of robberies and muggings and even shootings — both random and targeted — in my Oakland, CA neighborhood so that I’m often too afraid to leave the house. And with the horrific news on Friday of the mass killings of little children in Connecticut, a terrible thought crosses my mind: What’s the point?

What is the point of continuing to advocate for enviro… Read the rest

November 1, 2012

Confession of an Anti-Plastic Activist Caught Red-Handed With a BPA-Lined Can

I just got back from a week on the East Coast doing book promos and visiting family, and all I got was this stupid Facebook photo…

Two days ago, my sister Ellen posted that photo and caption and tagged me. It would have been funny, if it weren’t my Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup can. My first reaction was utter embarrassment (for being caught eating out of a can lined with BPA or some other mystery chemical and even more, for eating Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup in the first place), and I asked her to untag me. Instead, she posted a comment: Just kidding! That’s my soup.

But it wasn’t her soup, it was mine. Granted, I didn’t buy it — I found it in a cupboard in my dad’s house — but still… how can I go around advising people to avoid BPA-lined cans if I can’t always resist them myself? So, after untagging myself and then feeling all weird and guilty, I suddenly re… Read the rest

May 10, 2012

What Can Environmentalists Learn from Bad Kitties?

I’m back from my meditation retreat, where one of the common admonishments is “Don’t push the river.” What does that mean? To me, it’s about being in the flow and not exerting more effort than necessary to live peacefully and mindfully in the present moment. After all, the river’s gonna flow whether you push it or not, right? Recently, I’ve discovered that it’s often not necessary to dam the river either. I’ve learned both of these lessons from my cat. And now I’m wondering how we can apply them to environmental activism work.

Bad Kitty / Good Kitty

Arya is sweet and cuddly and naughty beyond belief. I love her mightily, and until recently, have fought with her every single morning for the past two years. She climbs on my desk, and I shoo her off. She crawls under my desk and gets tangled up in the electrical cords, so I shoo her out. Then she’s up on the desk a… Read the rest

My Plastic-Free Life

Think we can't live without plastic? Think again. In 2007 I committed to stop buying any new plastic & I've almost succeeded! Won't you join me? Let's see what plastic-free looks like today… for the health of our bodies, our oceans, our planet. ~Beth Terry