Location:Oakland, California, United States

Name: Beth Terry

Week: 16

Personal Info:

I am the founder of MyPlasticfreeLife.com and have been collecting my plastic and attempting to live as plastic-free as possible since June of 2007.

See my previous years’ tallies at:
/category/beths-weeklymonthly-plastic-tallies/

List of plastic items REFUSED this week. (Yay!)

1) Plastic shopping bags – bring my own

2) Plastic cups and bottles — bring my own travel mug

3) Plastic produce bags — bring my own cloth bags and also buy produce “naked”

4) Plastic utensils — Ate my crepe at the farmers market last Sunday with my fingers because I forgot to bring my own utensil set

5) Plastic take-out containers — bring my own stainless steel ones

6) Plastic produce stickers — shopped at the farmers market where there are no stickers on the produce

7) Plastic tofu wrap — brought my own container for bulk tofu from Hodo Soy at the Temescal farmers market

Total items collected: 1 new / 2 purchased prior to June 2007

Total weight: .1 oz new / .2 oz purchased prior to June 2007

Items: Recyclable
1) 1 bottle caps from old glass soy sauce bottle bought over 5 years ago that we have been refilling from bulk soy sauce. I finally recycled the bottle this week because the narrow neck makes it too difficult to clean out. Caps-n-Cups will accept all plastic caps, no matter what kind of plastic, to downcycle into secondary products. CapsCanDo will accept most plastic caps.

Items: Nonrecyclable
2) Plastic pour spout inside soy sauce bottle lid

3) Tiny plastic condiment cup I ended up with accidentally from Souley Vegan restaurant in Oakland. The rest of the meal came with durable foodware, utensils, glasses. Why oh why give us a disposable plastic condiment cup??? And as you can see, I forgot to bring it home with me, so this image I downloaded from the web will have to stand in for it. The weight, obviously, is an estimate.

What items can I easily replace with plastic free or less plastic alternatives?
I could be even more vigilant about requesting no plastic at restaurants when ordering my meal. But honestly, this one was a surprise because I didn’t even realize there would be a condiment with it in the first place.