The Plastic Bag Dilemma

If there is one thing that I have abused over and over again, its the plastic bag. Most of the plastic I use comes from plastic grocery bags and sandwich bags. Up until now, It has been second nature for me to use a plastic bag once and then toss it, because after all, thats what its there for. They are one time use items. Most plastic bags are used for no more than a few hours, sometimes even a few minutes, and then just thrown out. And sadly enough almost all plastic bags go straight to landfill, are almost never recycled, and extremely wasteful! Like I had mention in a previous post, most members of modern society have a house full of plastic with the majority of plastic coming from food items that will soon be disposed of within the week, only to be replaced by even more plastic. This is a biiig no-no. I know that I dont want to continue being wasteful and need to take my plastic usage seriously. 

As I have been continuing on my journey to become plastic free, I have found many amazingly easy alternatives to our everyday plastic usage. Yay! They are really sooo simple, anyone can make these changes... So I would like to share with you just a few small, but vital tips on going Plastic- Bag-Free!

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Plastic Problem: Disposable Plastic Bags. Not-eco friendly, non-biodegradable, super wasteful. (nearly 1 trillion a day are thrown out worldwide)
Alternative: Canvas Bags. They are cheap, and can be really nice-looking, too.
Where to buy: Here or at most Health food stores.

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Plastic Problem: Plastic Sandwich Bags. Just like their big brother, they are non-biodegradable and hazard to the environment. These bags are also filled with nasty chemicals that can get into your food.
Alternative: Cheap, reusable, PVC-, BPA-, phthalate-, latex- and lead-free sandwich bags, which means healthy for you and healthy for the planet. High five!
Where to Buy: Here or Here

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Plastic Problem: Food Containers; full of chemicals that leach into food. If the container has any grease or food particles at all, it can damage the material meant to be recycled and contaminate the entire batch of recyclables (meaning not only does the container not get recycled, but everything in the bag is considered useless garbage!)
Alternative: Stainless Steel Air tight containers; leak proof, recyclable, BPA free.
Where to buy: Here

If you have anything that you would like to see an alternative for, leave me a comment and I'll make a special blog post about it!


-Julianne xo

The Story of Bottled Water

Bottled Water cost more than 2,000 X more than tap water! Can you imagine paying 2,000 X more for anything? How about a $10,000 sandwich? Americans buy more than HALF A BILLION BOTTLES OF WATER EVERY WEEK! I love tap water and I don't see anything wrong with its quality or taste. Coincidentally, experts agree with me. And most likely that bottle of water wasn't produced in that picturesque local of rivers and forests printed on the front. (Oh, and did you know that the bottle is recyclable, but the cap in NOT?) Imagine what a difference just giving up plastic bottles could make on our carbon footprint. It's enough to make a girl giddy.

My House is Infested with Plastic! (and yours probably is, too.)

As we walk around our houses on a daily basis, we don't really notice just how many plastic products we have. A toothbrush here, a bottle of OJ there, a stick of deodorant. etc. When its spread around like that it doesn't look like a whole lot. So today I decided I wanted to see in bulk just how many products that contained plastic I truly own. So for your viewing pleasure, I give you 'My Plastic House'!

This is my fridge, and this is what it looks like when I have 'no food.' It is still COMPLETELY full of plastic! Normally I would have even more food with more plastic bags/containers to keep everything fresh. I eat tons of fruits and veggies and so every time I go to the farmer's market or grocery store I come home with anywhere between 10-30 plastic bags. The most distressing part is that pretty soon Im going to have to go shopping again, and probably %90 of what you see here will be tossed by the end of the week... Sad face.

Ok so these are all the plastic items I had lying around my house. These are most of them, but not all. I have all kinds of things like garbage bags, shampoo bottles, tupperware, a toaster, food containers, a dust pan, cleaning supplies, even my juicer is plactic. I personally don't think that I 'consume' a whole lot of 'stuff.' Hell, what other girl do you know that only has ONE shower item? Head&Shoulders baby, lather, rinse and repeat. And I can count the amout of toileties I own on 2 hands, which I have to believe is a lot less than the average person. Even so, just like with my plastic food bags, %80 of this stuff will be thrown away in the next month or less to go sit in some garbage dump or end up floating around the ocean for the rest of eternity, all to just so I can go out shopping again and buy even more plastic products to replace the old ones. YAY! I just love consumerism.

And here is my pantry. Im starting to see a trend that one of the main reasons for my plastic consumption is due to food. Again, more plastic that will soon be tossed away. Unless you have a bulk section at the grocery store, its going to be pretty hard to stay away from plastic all together. But there are small and easy steps that can be taken to dramatically reduce our plastic use when it comes to shopping. And lets not forget one more crucial point, ALL OF OUR ELECTRONICS ARE FROM PLASTIC, TOO!

Seeing all this plastic really helped me understand a few things:

1 - I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, TOO! Not just environmental organizations that are supposed to clean up after all my messes. They can't handle 7 billion messy people all by themselves. 
2 - I used to consider myself to be pretty evironmentally friendly, but in reality, there are a LOT of things that I need to do to reduce my carbon footprint. 
3 - I need to be more conscious of the waste that I am producing and the things that I buy. Because ultimately, what I choose will play a major role in the fate of our beautiful planet. 
4 - I cant expect anyone else to clean up my mess. If I want change and if I want a brighter, cleaner future, its going to have to start with me, not matter how impossible of a task it may see. 

As Nelson Mandela famously said, "It always seems impossible until its done."



-Julianne xo

What's the big f*cking deal?

I live in a household of 2, and we are throwing out an entire bad of garbage a day. That's a lot of garbage! That's also a whole lot of plastic that isn't being recycled. After paying attention to the massive amount of garbage produced by only 2 people, it makes me think about all plastic being tossed by families of 3, 4, 5, or more. No wonder that the earth is literally covered in micro-plastic.

Every year, humans produce nearly 280 million tons of plastic. 280 MILLION TONS!! Its an impossible number for me to wrap my head around. But why stop using plastic you use ask? Well, its not just a question of waste apparently. I did a little research because I had to know just what the risks were. After combing the internet here's what I found...

• Chemicals added to plastics are absorbed by human bodies and have been found to alter hormones or have other potential human health effects.
         • These plastics have also been linked to infertility, diabetes, and even cancer!
• Only 1 to 2% of plastic bags in the USA end up getting recycled, leaving a whollllle lot of plastic free to float around the planet.
• Plastic buried deep in landfills can leach harmful chemicals that spread into groundwater. 
• The average American uses about 500 plastic grocery bags per year.
• Plastic bags are often mistakenly ingested by animals, clogging their intestines which results in death by starvation. Thousands of marine animals and more than 1 million birds die each year as a result of plastic pollution.

These were only a few of the laundry list of reasons why to give plastic the big FU! I highly recommend watching the award-winning film Trashed to really understand the dangers of our high plastic, high waste society.