The blog formerly known as   Fake Plastic Fish

Category Archives: Other Blogs

July 12, 2010

Did you give this reusable bag to Beth Terry?

Yesterday, my dad and I had brunch with Beth Terry, the motivational speaker who bought the domain bethterry.com before I even knew you could do such a thing. We comment on each others’ blogs occasionally and make our readers think we’re talking to ourselves. She happened to be leaving Oahu the day after I arrived, so we met up in the morning for brunch at Dukes in Waikiki and exchanged gifts.

I gave her a GlassDharma glass drinking straw, and she gave me a copy of her book, 101 Ways to Make Your Life Easier, and a reusable bag with a funny story. Apparently, Beth was in the airport a while back, and a woman noticed the name on her luggage tag. Excited, the woman dug in her own luggage and handed Beth a reusable bag, thanking her for her work around plastic pollution. Or something like that. Beth says she thinks she told her that she wasn’t me but would see that I got the bag if she ever met up with me.

Well, she did. So if you are the woman from the airport,… Read the rest

November 10, 2009

Three Trashy Women

I’ve been meeting just the trashiest people in the last couple of weeks. Um… trashy in a good way.

Trashy Beachkeeper

I met Sara Bayles after the Blogger Beach Cleanup on October 24. You know, the one I missed. Sara’s blog, The Daily Ocean, tracks her goal of collecting trash on the beach in Santa Monica, CA for 365 days. She’s currently completed Day 72 and already collected 336.13 pounds of trash ALL BY HERSELF. And get this: she only collects trash for 20 minutes each day. That’s a lot to collect in a very short amount of time.

Sara is a ceramics teacher and told me that while always wanted to participate in an organized beach cleanup, she routinely found herself working and was never able to make it to one of them. So when she moved close to the beach this February, she took it upon herself to create her own beach cleanup program and invite others in the community to join her. So far, the community has collected an additional… Read the rest

October 21, 2009

Warm Plastic-Free Quilt Handmade Just In Time For Winter

Monday was rainy and cold. It sure was nice to have my new T-shirt quilt handmade by Fake Plastic Fish reader Colette Carrabba, who blogs at Carrabba’s World.

But let me backtrack a little.

Remember when I wrote about how the stuff on and around my desk was overwhelming me? A lot of you left some really great suggestions for ways to get organized. One of the most helpful came from Erika Barcott who wrote a whole post in response on her blog Redshirt Knitting and recommended the book, It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff, by Peter Walsh. He recommends going through your stuff and keeping only 50% of it. He says that if things are important to us, we ought to treat them that way. Hoarding stuff away in drawers and boxes to be dealt with later only makes us feel overwhelmed in the present. While I don’t agree with his admonition to throw the rest away (we all know there is no such thing as “away”) I did… Read the rest

April 8, 2009

Future Weather – My Interview with an Eco-Conscious Filmmaker

Thanks to Green L.A. Girl Siel for pointing out a Philadelphia filmmaker who wants to change the way movies are made.

Jenny Deller wrote the script for the film, Future Weather, a drama centered around a teenage girl who is not only worried about the future of the planet but also the changes taking place within her own family. In an email to me, Jenny wrote:

Essentially, Future Weather is a story about leaving home and facing change, a rite of passage that I think will be necessary for our society to confront the uncertainty of a changing planet. Part of my desire to tell this story came from my own anxiety about global warming and questions I had about procreation in the 21st century — how do you bring children into such a compromised and potentially dire situation?

What attracted me to this project, even more than the theme of the film itself, was Jenny’s blog and her concern with conducting a movie shoot (scheduled for this summer) as greenly… Read the rest

February 10, 2009

What the Fark?

This Monday, I was happy to be the subject of an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer by Green Space columnist Sandy Bauers and quite pleased with her article, “She wants to say 2 words: No Plastics” (PDF), and follow up blog post, “Purging the Plastics.” I was especially honored to be interviewed by Bauers because she “gets it.” Green Space is her column about how to reduce your carbon footprint in everyday life. It appears every other Monday in Health & Science. I stumbled upon Sandy’s year-end article, “Doing The Little Things That Will Save The World,” and was particularly delighted that her #1 and #2 steps were plastic-related: Shop with reusable bags and Drink tap water.

Well, the thrill of the article lasted through this morning when I got an email from Michael telling me that Sandy’s piece had made the front page of Fark.com. Now, I had never heard of Fark until this morning,… Read the rest

December 19, 2008

Voices of the Plastic-Free Blogosphere, Part 3

Here is the next segment in a series of posts on bloggers joining the plastic-free movement. These folks have taken the challenge to reduce plastic in their lives and blog about their efforts. The first two posts can be found here:

Voices of the Plastic-Free Blogosphere, Part 1 Voices of the Plastic-Free Blogosphere, Part 2

Plastic-Free Bloggers (blogs primarily dealing with plastic)

PlasticLess NYC. Juli Borst is a classical singer and founding member of the Take Back The Filter campaign, and now she’s begun an awesome new blog. Since starting PlasticLess NYC in the middle of November, she’s already written 23 posts, tallying her plastic waste and covering a wide range of topics. I’m thinking maybe I can retire soon.

Juli first started following environmental blogs after joining The Compact in late 2006. Giving up buying new things led to giving up buying a lot of plastic, and blogs like EnviroWoman and Fake Plastic Fish, … Read the rest

November 10, 2008

Voices of the Plastic-Free Blogosphere, Part 2

Two weeks ago, I spotlighted eight bloggers who have taken the challenge to reduce plastic in their lives and have been blogging about it. Here are the next eight voices helping to spread the word through the blogosphere. Thanks to blogger Greeen Sheeep, the newest Posse member, for the above image. Enjoy.

Plastic-Free Bloggers (blogs primarily dealing with plastic)

Bring Your Own. Anna Cummins is a plastic-free warrior. Not only has she visited the North Pacific Gyre on the oceanographic research vessel Alguita with her fiance Dr. Marcus Eriksen and Captain Charles Moore’s team, she also travels the country speaking out about the issue of plastics in the marine environment and is planning a bike tour from Vancouver to Mexico to spread the word. She sent me the following image which illustrates the central point of this blog: our fish are filling up with plastic. If we don’t change our ways, fake plastic ones may be all we have left!… Read the rest

October 28, 2008

Voices of the Plastic-Free Blogosphere, Part 1

Today, Enviroblog’s Lisa Frack begins a week-long experiment to live completely plastic-free. I was happy to meet with her while she was visiting Oakland last week and give her a few pointers. But don’t let me be the only one. Check out her blog and give her your best tips!

Two weeks ago, I called for more plastic-free bloggers, and many of you responded. So many, in fact, that it would be an injustice to try and cram everyone into the same post. So this week, we’ll hear from the first 8 bloggers who contacted me. Next week, I’ll post Part 2. And hopefully, as more people join the Plastic-Free Bloggers and Plastic-Free Posse, these posts can become a regular feature.

Imagine the change we can make throughout the blogosphere if more people take on the challenge of reducing their plastic consumption and reporting their results online. We’re creating a plastic-free meme that hopefully will ripple out into the consciousness… Read the rest