Location:Los Angeles, California, United States

Name: Christina S.

Week: 4

Personal Info:

I work full-time as a public health nutritionist. Married with a 3-year-old child. We share a household with my father-in-law. I enjoy cooking, reading, running, traveling, and spending time with my family.

Christina S.’s personal blog:

List of plastic items REFUSED this week. (Yay!)
Individually wrapped rice crackers, plastic utensils, and cup at work potluck

Total items collected: 21

Total weight: 0.418

Items: Recyclable
Dishwasher detergent bottle
Prescription medication bottle

Items: Nonrecyclable
Meatballs bag
Graham crackers bag
Pecans bag
Baby carrots bag
Chocolate chips bag
2 produce bags that I reused until they got holes
Cap from glass milk bottle
Cereal bag
Seal from a jar of pickles
3 Produce stickers (the fruit from my organic CSA had stickers!)
Newspaper bag
Bag that enclosed my order of dishwasher detergent
Packing tape from toilet paper that was delivered last week (should have been on last week’s list)
3 envelope windows

What items can I easily replace with plastic free or less plastic alternatives?
Dishwasher detergent, but I still have one more big plastic jug of it to go through before I start using the powder that I bought.

What items would I be willing to give up if a plastic free alternative doesn’t exist?

What items are essential and seem to have no plastic-free alternative?
Prescription medication
Occasional plastic showing up in my CSA box: stickers, bags, clamshell packaging

What lifestyle change(s) might be necessary to reduce my plastic consumption?

What one plastic item am I willing to give up or replace this week?
I wrote to the LA Times requesting that my paper be delivered without the plastic bag, and for them to consider alternatives to plastic bags as the default for home deliveries. We’ll see what happens next week.

What other conclusions, if any, can I draw?