Plastic Challenge: Beth Terry, Week 17
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.