The blog formerly known as   Fake Plastic Fish

Category Archives: Musings

September 3, 2010

Inspired By Madonna

Once upon a time, I was obsessed with Madonna.

Okay, bear with me.  At first glance, this post will seem to have nothing to do with plastic or the environment or anything I normally write about on this blog.  But read on.  Connections will be made.  Oh yes, they will be made.

So anyway, I was obsessed with Madonna.  My close friends will tell you that that is an utter understatement. Back in the 90’s, I discovered eBay and ended up spending an embarrassing amount of money on every Madonna magazine I could get my hands on.  The picture on the left represents only a small fraction of my stash — what was left after I finally sold most of it back on eBay years later.  (Today, the only thing that remains is an unopened Sex book and this photo.)

I also went through a phase of making insane Madonna art. It’s all online, but I doubt you’ll find it. And believe me, you really, really wouldn’t want to anyway.

Here’s the thing:  I wa… Read the rest

July 9, 2010

Fake Plastic Fish on the road

Hi everybody.  Writing this post sucks.  But then, so do a lot of things in life.

I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be leaving tomorrow for a 2-week trip and may not blog much while I’m gone.   As many of you know, my parents have lived part-time in Hawaii for several years, and I’ve written about visiting them (and the plastic in Hawaii) more than once.

01/21/2008: Plastic in Paradise

01/23/2008:  Some Things About Hawaii That Have Little To Do With Plastic

01/16/2009:  Cutting Waste While Traveling: It’s Not So Hard

01/19/2009: Aloha! Plastic Tally from Hawaii and Visiting Sea Turtle Beach

08/18/2009:  Visiting a Plastic Paradise

Tomorrow, I leave to visit  my parents’ condo in Waikiki for the very last time.   My dad’s there now, selling all their furniture on Craigslist and cleaning up.  I’m going to help him finish.  My mom is with my sister in Maryland.  And my sister is just trying to hold … Read the rest

June 29, 2010

Too Many Choices: Unhappy for Us and the Planet

Will seventy-five choices of shampoo make us happier or simply less satisfied with the product we do choose and more likely to junk up the planet as we sample the offerings? Take a look at the following photo and consider its ramifications.

How do we end up with shelf after shelf of individual sample sized shampoos and lotions and deodorants and toothpastes and shave gels and conditioners and sunscreens, all in their little plastic bottles and tubes? Is it about having too much choice? Or is it really the illusion of choice?

The Spaghetti Sauce Talk

In his famous spaghetti sauce TED talk, Malcolm Gladwell extolls the achievement of Howard Moskowitz who helped Prego, the spaghetti sauce company, realize that there was not just one perfect spaghetti sauce type to aspire to but that consumers wanted to be able to choose what kind of sauce they felt like eating. Basically smooth vs. chunky. Now, thanks to his work, you can go to the grocery store and choos… Read the rest

June 21, 2010

A Day in the Life of a Plastic-Free Blogger

Ever wonder what it would be like to be Beth Terry for a day? Or any one of a number of other green bloggers? Well, now’s your opportunity to find out because a bunch of us have all decided to write about one day in our lives. Could be fascinating. Could be as tedious as watching pants dry on a wooden drying rack. My contribution is a rundown of last Thursday, which I chose because Thursdays are typical work days, and I knew I’d have 8 hours at my accounting job wherein I would not have to detail every action.

Feeding Kitties

I wake up at 9am with Soots standing on my chest, staring at me expectantly. It’s funny. I wait as long as I can, until he starts batting my face and nibbling my chin, to get up. This is our daily ritual. Soots and Arya expect to be fed as soon as I get out of bed. Any deviation is a betrayal. Unfortunately, they find themselves betrayed almost every morning as I putter around, putting my tea kettle on or maybe checking to see if a… Read the rest

June 9, 2010

Can a Fake Plastic Breakfast Cure a Panic Attack?

Um… probably not. But this kind can…

“The world is going to end and I’ll never get my book written in time to save it!” That was the crazy thought I had last night at 1am while riding home on BART. Suddenly, my heart raced, breathing quickened, stomach churned, and I started to sweat. I tried taking slow, deep breaths, but that didn’t help. I scrunched down in my seat, afraid my fellow passengers would think I was crazy or wasted, or that BART police were going to come through and toss me off the train for being inebriated. Which I wasn’t.

Why am I telling you this? Because sometimes all the news about plastic pollution and research and blogging and worrying about writing the Fake Plastic Fish book can throw me into my head, where I get trapped into spiraling negative thoughts. And when that happens the only thing to do is concentrate on the physical moment, breathe, ride it out, and when I get a chance, eat.

This … Read the rest

April 22, 2010

It’s Earth Day. So Why Hate… Anything?

I woke up this morning and automatically reached for my cell phone to check my email.  And then I remembered: It’s Earth Day!  I should be taking it slow.  Meditating.  Stepping outside for a breath of air.  Taking a walk in sunshine.  Appreciating the Earth instead of being glued to technology once again.  And then I remembered something else:

My cell phone IS the Earth.  That’s where all its parts came from… the metal, both toxic and non, and even the plastic.  Yes, all that plastic I’ve collected and stored in boxes under my dining room table? It’s part of the Earth too.

This week, I was happy to be included in Sarah Newman’s list of Ten Anti-Plastic Heroes on the Huffington Post. But really, I’m not anti-plastic. I’m pro-living beings. Plastic is not destroying the Earth. The Earth will be around long after we and all the other living creatures have ceased to exist. And the plastic will have bec… Read the rest

March 26, 2010

Green: Are Some Shades More Selfish Than Others?

I’ve been called “dark green” by some of the nicest people. I think what they mean is that because I refuse to buy new plastic and insist that manufacturers should disclose the ingredients in their products, I am somehow more virtuous than most. But you know what? I don’t buy it. I don’t believe there is a spectrum of greenness, but rather that we all have unique priorities. And whereas I might think plastic is the scourge of the earth, others might be more interested in cutting energy consumption or saving water or making sure their kids are consuming healthy foods.

So earlier this month, when the Market Place radio program aired a segment called “Buying green, but not for the planet,” I had to take issue with the implication that unless the reasons for our behavior changes are entirely altruistic, we are somehow selfish.

From the show:

ANDREA GARDNER: First, I have a confession. When I buy environment… Read the rest

February 4, 2010

Disagreeing on Green Values: Why Michael Thinks I’m Ned Flanders

A few weeks ago, my husband Michael forwarded me the NY Times article, “Therapists Report Increase in Green Disputes“:

As awareness of environmental concerns has grown, therapists say they are seeing a rise in bickering between couples and family members over the extent to which they should change their lives to save the planet.

In households across the country, green lines are being drawn between those who insist on wild salmon and those who buy farmed, those who calculate their carbon footprint and those who remain indifferent to greenhouse gases.

Wondering if Michael was trying to tell me something by forwarding that article,  I cornered him one Sunday afternoon while he was minding his own business and quizzed him on his feelings about my plastic-free ways and whether or not he felt I judged him. Here are just a few snippets of our half hour conversation.

[This video uses YouTube’s new Closed Captioning feature.]

Micha… Read the rest

January 25, 2010

8 Reasons Why Personal Changes Matter

The following is a transcript of my talk at Green Sangha’s Rethinking Plastics Conference on Saturday. I wish all of you could have been there.  We had speakers on ocean plastic pollution, the chemistry of plastics, the truth about bio-plastics, sustainable activism, extended producer responsibility, cradle to cradle design, and finally my segment on personal actions.  To those who were there on Saturday, this “transcript” will be a little bit different from what you actually heard because I’ve had time to polish it up a bit.

From Personal Journey to Systemic Change

First, I want to show you a video that explains who I am and what I am doing about plastic in my life…

So, do my personal changes make a difference? … Read the rest

December 23, 2009

What’s Clogging Up Your Life? A Story of Unwatched Videos & Other Stuff

The Hours is one of my favorite movies of all time. My first time seeing it in the theater created such a profound reaction in me that I wept uncontrollably through the entire film. I was still so emotional afterwards, I had to hide in the bathroom stall before facing the world. When people asked me if The Hours was a good movie, I couldn’t even answer. I didn’t know if it was objectively good or merely spoke to me. Spoke? More like reached in and tore my guts out. The second time I saw it, I had almost the same reaction. So when the film came out on DVD, I bought it immediately.

A few nights ago, I thought I would watch The Hours again. I pulled it off the shelf and realized that from the time I purchased it around 2003, I had watched it exactly nonce (which is once minus one.) Zero times. It was still in the plastic packaging! As I pulled off the wrapper, I thought about the idea of possessions, owning things that we put aside and never look at again. I looked … Read the rest