Apply for the Plastics are Forever International Youth Summit

The scary thing about plastics is that they are, indeed, forever. Long after we are dead and gone, our filthy plastic crap—from bottles to bags, food packaging to the bubbles our kids’ toys come in—will still be littering the Earth, floating in the ocean, and killing wildlife. It’s a sick and sad thought, but it’s definitely not news—so why do we keep making unnecessary plastics when there are so many viable alternatives that will break down over time?

It’s a good, valid question—one that many youths will have the chance to mull over and deliberate at the Plastics Are Forever International Youth Summit next March. The summit will take place March 11 through 13 in Long Beach, California. 100 students and teachers will be participating, and youth ages 14 to 18 can enter to win a trip to the summit by submitting their ideas on how to eliminate throw-away plastics and keep them from polluting our oceans, watersheds, and beaches.

Ideas can be based on eliminating plastics from a single community, or reducing them in various areas—especially in the ocean. Participants must be willing to “work hard, have fun, and make a difference” in their communities in order to take part. Teams who attend the summit should consist of 1 to 3 students as well as a teacher, parent, or mentor as a sponsor.

While attending this groundbreaking conference, students and their mentors will have the chance to learn from scientists, media experts, filmmakers, and sustainability pros about how we can reduce or eliminate the plastics in our world’s waters—and how youth can lead the way in this movement. Students will return home equipped with the knowledge and energy to bring these ideas and practices to their own local communities, allowing them to start growing a clean water movement across the nation.

Students will embark on lots of exciting, meaningful projects while at the summit. These may include—but are not limited to—creating public service announcements, discussions with businesspeople and green experts on how to collaborate in making the world greener, and getting media tips from professional actors and media experts to lead public talks and activities. All of these events will be completely hands-on and interactive, helping America’s youth “create real tools of change.”

For more information and to apply, click here. The video here also lists all of the criteria needed to apply.

Help Support Mott's Workers

During the fourth grade, every Friday we had a “Motts Day.” Yet another example of the superficial attempts made by adults to control children through bribery and sweets, it was a day to reward kids who didn’t get written up every week by allowing them to visit the “Motts Machine” and purchase some sugary juice product to reward them for their good behavior—and to let the “bad kids” sit by and watch solemnly while those who had fifty cents enjoyed their drinks.

Of course, those of us who weren’t written up but didn’t have the money for Motts Day didn’t get a reward, either, which made the whole thing pretty pointless in my eyes. The injustices on all of these levels were not lost on little ten-year-old me, who’d already been to her first protest—for my swim teachers’ union, alongside my mother and many other people—though I still didn’t quite understand the dynamics entirely.

Today, injustices surrounding Motts still exist—if not for kids, then for Motts workers themselves. Though the company is still turning many a buck—and why wouldn’t they, with products like Snapple, which I would totally drink myself on an hourly basis if A. I wanted to spend that much money and calories on drinks and packaging and B. if the workers weren’t being treated so badly—they are not sharing the wealth with their employees.

In fact, Motts workers are being threatened with not only paycheck cuts, but also retirement plans. Dr. Pepper Snapple/Motts, I have to ask you—just where does the buck stop? How many luxuries do your Powers That Be require that you have to chop the entire lives and futures of your workers and their families? I’m sure you don’t realize that your workers need that hard-earned money for paying for their food, clothing, homes, and travel to and from your facility, but the reality is that most people live quite a different lifestyle than the one that’s visible from your high-rise windows.

Please write to Dr. Pepper Snapple today and ask them to treat their workers with the dignity and respect they deserve—which includes full pay and pension plans. You can do so at this form here. Please also consider boycotting them as my family and I are doing until they remedy this injustice. Though Snapple is unbelievably sweet, there is nothing sweet about denying families their right to earn a living.

Don’t Claim to Be Green When You’re Red

To preface this, I don’t mean that if you are a Republican you can’t be green—though, obviously, there are more green folks on the left than the right. What I mean is if you profess to have such high eco-friendly standards, you shouldn’t be serving stuff like red meat, bottled water, and bulls*** on your menu. It makes people who do strive to be green see red.

I was reading about a restaurant in St. Louis that professed to be one of the first “green restaurants” in the Midwest. Intrigued, I checked out the menu—only to find that more than half of it contained meat items, as well as bottled water. It even had hotdogs on the menu. Hotdogs, really?

I would think that if a restaurant were truly to “go green,” it would feature alternatives to meat—or none at all. Products made with soy not only taste comparable (if not better), they are more sustainable and ethical to produce and eat. Claiming that your restaurant is green while you promote thousands of gallons of water, land waste, harsh emissions, and animal cruelty just shouldn’t be cutting it this late in the game. Years ago when it was just starting to become “cool” to go green, it might have been acceptable; today we pretty much know better and should be going green not because it’s trendy or because we think it’s the right thing to do, but because we pretty much have to if we want the world we know to continue to exist for our children and theirs.

We can do better. And while I applaud this restaurant’s efforts to recycle, use sustainable containers, and other actions it has taken to reduce its ecological footprint, I still maintain that it is far from enough. All restaurants, stores, and companies should be doing this as a mandatory procedure rather than an optional one. And while I know I can’t dictate how or what people eat, we should be able to pass legislation about the containers used for such foods, the ways those foods are raised and shipped, and so many other issues surrounding our wasteful system. I know that many individual places have started programs that help to eliminate waste—such as bans on plastic bags or Styrofoam containers—and it’s time that the whole nation take a stand together and make these country-wide measures.

I vow today to write my mayor and ask that our city start an initiative to ban plastic bags, just to start. From there, who knows? Please consider joining me in making your community more sustainable as well.

But What About The Dog Poop?

It's the question on every dog owner's mind.  "If I start bringing a reusable tote to the grocery store, what about the dog poop?"  It seems that every dog owner in the country uses plastic grocery bags for poop scooping.  Even the contemplation of seeking an alternative sends many dog owners into a tizzy.  

One wonders, what happened to all the dog poop before plastic grocery bags became the norm?  As it happens, I am old enough to remember the answer: it just kinda sat there.  Gross, right?  Gross.

Cities may have had poop scooping laws on the books, but it wasn't until fairly recently (the last 15-20 years) that they started enforcing these rules.  That timing dovetails nicely with the rise in the use of plastic grocery bags, which crept into the market in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  

It's vitally important to scoop dog poop for more than aesthetic reasons.  (Although don't get me wrong - the aesthetic reasons are pretty powerful.)  Dog poop is responsible for a huge amount of the fecal coliform count in our cities and neighborhoods.  Left unattended, dog poop washes into our water table, fouling our rivers and streams, and even threatening our home gardens.

As a significant health hazard, dog poop really does have to be scooped.  But how else can this be accomplished, without plastic grocery store bags?

1.    Other Plastic Bags
A lot of dog owners complain about having to buy special-purpose dog poop bags.  However, these bags are considerably smaller than grocery store plastic bags, and therefore represent less plastic waste and resources.  Unless you're cleaning up after a giant breed, at least 80% of the grocery store bag is wasted space.  

One down side of throwing away poop wrapped in a plastic bag - whether special purpose or grocery store - is that the poop inside the bag will never decompose.  Protected by its plastic swaddle, that turd - along with billions of others like it - will be enshrined in the landfill forever.

2.    Newspaper
I have seen a lot of sources advocate using sheets of newspaper.  This is apparently how most genteel dog walkers in big cities used to scoop their poop, back in the days before plastic grocery bags.  You can fold it over your hand, then tuck it into a tidy package and drop it in the nearest trash can.

Of course, this presumes that you have a source of newspaper on hand.  But surely supporting your local press is worth it?

3.    An Actual Scooper
I see some people walking dogs while wielding a metal or plastic pooper scooper.  I applaud their attention to detail!  Just bang out the poop when you get home.  Although this does require some kind of outdoor hose for rinsing, so it might not be appropriate for apartment dwellers.

4.    Sustainable Bags
A whole host of special poop bags is being rushed to market.  I know some dog-owning friends who have found a source of poop bags made from corn solids, which are flushable!  Just scoop the poop like you usually do, then drop it in the toilet when you get home.

As a bonus, flushing is how the EPA recommends disposing of dog poop.  When you flush it, it gets processed by the sewage system, which is a far sight better than dropping it in the trash.

Photo credit: Flickr/Michael Patrick

Fun Soap Rocks Make a Great Gift

Recently I came across these super cool bath soaps in the shapes of various gemstones. Called soap rocks, they resemble real gem stones in such a likeness that you might swear they were the real thing. Best of all, most of the soap rocks I’ve read about are either completely or mostly all-natural, without harmful additives you’d normally find in commercial soaps.

Soap rocks are said to not only not break, but also not to melt—which is fabulous if you’re used to such things. Even my awesome Burt’s Bees and Lush Cosmetics soaps that I love and adore so much do break down on me eventually; I always chalked it up to their all-natural ingredients and lack of yucky ingredients that hold them together. Not so, says soap rock makers; natural soaps can still be unbreakable and un-meltable, too. (That doesn’t mean that I’ll be giving up the soaps I love anytime soon, however!)

Most makers of these soaps also do not use animal products or animal testing, either. This is important to many people—including yours truly—since testing on animals is archaic, cruel, and an unreliable way to discern the safety of a product. If it’s been tested on animals, not only do we know that the company has no qualms with sewing the eyes of bunnies and baby kittens shut; we also know that the product probably isn’t safe for us, since it hasn’t necessarily been tested on humans. All the soaps are biodegradable as well. (I hope so; they’re soap!)

Though a bit on the high side at about $10 each, rock soaps not only look really fun to use but they’d also make a really great gift. Think about it—using your best friend’s zodiac sign or favorite gemstone, you can pick out the perfect soap for his or her personality, giving an otherwise basic gift a nice, personal touch. You can also go by each gem’s purported benefits or metaphysical qualities—for example, aventurine for emotional healing or monetary gain, or rose quartz for love and harmony. If your friend is big on crystal healing, soap rocks might be the perfect gift to help him or her visualize—or to even simply bring a smile on.

Soap rocks are also scented, so don’t expect plain glycerin soaps (though I have found some unscented varieties for those with sensitivities or who just don’t want to smell like soap). Some common soap rock ingredients include olive oil, lavender, aloe, chamomile, and mineral earth.

Plastic Bag Push-Back

I recently read an editorial (which I'm not able to find now) which advocated for single-use plastic grocery bags over reusable tote bags.  I have seen a lot of this kind of thing lately, including an entire ad campaign funded by the plastic bag companies.  Guess what?  They think plastic bags are awesome!

There was also a study done which found bacteria including e. coli on reusable tote bags.  Guess what?  Funded by the plastic bag companies.  Guess what else?  They didn't test plastic bags.  Which I bet had e. coli on them.  As does everything, really. 

Have you ever read a study about the germs you find on money?  If that doesn't make you a confirmed germiphobe, I'm not sure what will.

One of the editorial's contentions was that reusable tote bags require more energy to produce than single-use plastic grocery bags.  I don't doubt that this is true.  Among my collection of tote bags I still have several of the first reusable totes I ever bought.  And they're still going strong!  Compared to which, many plastic bags can't even make it home from the grocery store.  (They're not even single-use, for pity's sake!)

I buy the totes they sell at Safeway, which cost a dollar, and are made from recycled plastic bags.  Each tote probably does take more to make (in terms of carbon footprint, raw material, energy, time, etc.) than a plastic bag.  However, by my rough estimate, each tote bag has supplanted about 200 plastic bags a year - and counting!

I'm single and childless, so I have a pretty minimal grocery expenditure.  Nevertheless, I calculate that I used to bring home 20 plastic bags a week.  That includes a lot of double-bagging, for things like 2-liter soda bottles and gallons jars of milk.  (Any more, every plastic bag has to be double-bagged, because the darned things are so flimsy.)

This means that by bringing my own totes, I'm saving 20 plastic bags a week.  80 plastic bags a month.  Almost a thousand plastic bags a year.  

This brings me to the next point the editorial raised: reusable totes aren't recyclable.  That's true.  And I have had two tote bags fail over the last year.  One failed because I stored about 30 pounds of books in it hung up by the handles for two months.  Another failed when the neighbor's extremely large puppy ran over and bit the handles in a fit of puppyish exuberance.  I had to throw those bags away.

But you know what?  Plastic grocery bags aren't recyclable, either.  Sure, you can take them to the grocery store and stuff them into that giant overflowing barrel.  But where do they go from there?  Your city and county don't recycle those bags - otherwise you'd be setting them out with the rest of the recycling.

So we have two possibilities:

1.    The grocery store, at its own expense, packs and ships those bags off to a recycling center somewhere in the country that does accept bags.  (Plastic bags recycle very poorly anyway, but that's a topic for another day.)

2.    Late at night, when no one's watching… the store manager sneaks out and transfers all those bags to the dumpster.

I wonder!  *taps chin thoughtfully*

Photo credit: Flickr/mtsofan

Save The Planet, And Your Teeth!

How long has it been since you replaced your toothbrush?  I'm willing to bet it's been a while.  Consider this your reminder to get a new one!

Most sources recommend changing your toothbrush every three months.  (Frankly, this is just not the kind of thing that's even on my radar as I move through life.  But you know what?  I just set a series of calendar reminders to nudge me to replace my brush!) 

For a family of four, that's sixteen toothbrushes thrown away every year!

Replacing your toothbrush is actually a pretty important deal.  When you brush your teeth, you're removing bacteria, right?  Well guess where those bacteria end up: on your toothbrush.  Even if you rinse it well, it's not like you're autoclaving your toothbrush every night.  After a while the bacterial population builds up such that you're practically making your teeth dirtier just by brushing them.

Gross, right?  I'm sorry.  It had to be said.

If you're not nerdy enough to set a recurring calendar reminder, the good people at Preserve have a toothbrush subscription!  For a mere $13, they will send you a new toothbrush every three months.  And they even include "mail back packs," so that you can send your old toothbrush back for recycling.  How great is that?

You may know Preserve as the company behind the "Gimme 5" campaign.  They collect #5 plastic (yogurt cups and margarine tubs are the most common form of #5 plastic) and recycle it into a variety of products.  Including, obviously, their toothbrush handles!  (The bristles themselves are made from new materials.)

Another eco-friendly option is the Source Eco-Friendly Toothbrush made by RADIUS.  The handle is made from either recycled dollar bills (really!), recycled flax, or recycled wood.  The idea behind the Source toothbrush is that it's never the HANDLE that wears out, so why replace the whole thing?  Instead, you buy one Source handle, and a collection of replacement heads.  

The Source toothbrush is beautiful, and definitely reduces waste over conventional choices.  But it's a little on the pricey side ($6.95 for the handle, and $5.50 for a two pack of replacement heads).  And the replacement head isn't recyclable (not that I can tell) so you're still throwing away a chunk of plastic every three months.

Toothpaste has come a long way, too.  Conventional toothpaste is chock full of additives and mystery ingredients, as well as known irritant and petroleum byproduct SLS.  I have to say up front that I'm sorry, but I just can't handle plain baking soda, even though so many people swear by it.  I can't stand the salty taste, and I worry that it's too abrasive.

After surveying the field, I have finally settled on Tom's of Maine's special "SLS-free" toothpaste.  Oddly enough it's one of the few alternative toothpastes which is mint flavored.  (I demand mint-flavored toothpaste!  A lot of other toothpastes seem to have decided that "as long as we've come this far, let's make it a weird taste, too!")  The minty taste isn't aggressively long-lasting the way conventional toothpastes are, and as a bonus it doesn't foam as much.  I hate foamy toothpaste, it always used to make me gag!

Photo credit: Flickr/hddod

The Greatest Threat to Rare Species: We All Have It

It’s not a machete, a string of poachers with stubbly beards, or a right wing conspiracy that animals and plants do not exist. The Internet itself has been declared the biggest threat to rare species. (And while I’ll note that many people do not have access to it, those of us able to read this post right now obviously do.) Since the invention of the Internet, poachers and animal smugglers across the globe have had better access than ever to selling their “wares,” such as gorilla hands as ashtrays, baby lions as pets, and even wine made from the bones of endangered tigers.

It never fails to amaze me what people do to animals for the sake of status or a feeling of superiority. My mother once told me of a coworker who paid lots of money to go on a “safari” in Africa where she was able to shoot an enclosed giraffe and have it made into a handbag or something for herself. This is gross to me in so many ways. Not only would the woman not have been able to do such a thing on her own in the actual wild (where a lion pride, perhaps waiting for the giraffe, might have made a tasty snack out of her mealy bones), she also disregarded this huge, amazing creature’s life as if it were a thing and not a living being.

This is what’s happening with the poaching and animal trade business. These animals—many of which are in danger of becoming extinct within our lifetimes—are treated as if they are commodities to be bartered and sold, kept as trophies to satisfy some kind of sadistic human mindset that living beings provide a status symbol. A gorilla’s hand looks an awful lot like our own, for good reason—would they similarly mount a child’s hand for an ashtray as well? With such bloodlust, greed, and disregard for life at all fueling these actions, it would certainly not surprise me. I think the horror stories about people kidnapping other people to use them for hunting chases and killing them are not strictly out of fantasy; perhaps there is some truth to them—if not in action, then definitely in the sentiment.

Not surprisingly, countries are also reluctant to enforce stricter laws against the trade over the Internet because they fear launching poor communities into further poverty. The funny thing is, it’s usually poachers, not communities, who benefit from these sales—at least from what I’ve heard—and I sincerely doubt the money is shared. If we want to support these communities, perhaps we can provide education, training, farming aid, and more assistance rather than simply letting so many threatened species die due to someone’s greed. 

The Story of Cosmetics

It’s finally here—the much anticipated, latest video from The Story of Stuff pioneer Annie Leonard, The Story of Cosmetics! In conjunction with the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, The Story of Cosmetics tells the tale of the toxins in our personal care products—from shampoos to sun block to baby products. It also explains the damage that these ingredients cause—not just the health effects like cancer and reproductive problems in the people who use them, but also to the environment and the people who produce them. Like The Story of Stuff, this film is very brief and portrayed in the same entertaining, animated way.

Most products, we learn, contains 12 or more chemicals—less than 20% of which have been tested for safety. The chemicals in many of our products—even the baby ones—can cause asthma, learning disabilities, cancers, and many other health problems. And given that the average man uses 6 personal care products a day—and the average woman doubles that—we’re putting a lot of crap into our bodies. Though the industries that perpetuate the use of these chemicals argue that there are only trace amounts in our products, they all add up together to create damage. As Leonard says, that they are there at all is a problem.

The scary thing is, we are being born with high levels of these toxins—carcinogens, neurotoxins, and other harmful chemicals—in our bodies as babies. Lead, flame retardants, and a truckload of other pollutants are in the bodies of most parents, who pass these chemicals to their children in utero. Most products we have to choose from have some of these harmful chemicals in them—from lead in lipstick to oil in hair care products. In fact, products that are labeled as natural and organic do not have to be, since there is no legal definition for these words in terms of cosmetics. So when we buy things we think are good for us—such as Herbal Essences shampoo, which Leonard explains is full of toxic substances—we’re often really not doing what we think we are. We have to learn to read our product labels to truly understand what is in what we are buying. But even that won’t help us with all of our products.

Though dozens of these ingredients are outlawed in other countries, there are no laws to protect U.S. citizens from the poisons. In fact, the U.S. has only banned 8 chemicals out of over 12,000 ingredients in personal care products since 1938. Though these chemicals are linked to so many dangers, the FDA does not regulate cosmetics, leaving citizens at the mercy of companies and whatever they want to sell to us. As such, we don’t even get to read about what’s in our products, since most ingredients aren’t listed on labels.

Leonard also discusses the harm in hair relaxers, skin whitening products, and other products, as well as how products “pinkwash” their merchandise. The harms of working in nail and hair salons and factories that produce these chemicals are also touched upon. Leonard also provides essential resources and ways to solve the problem—especially in passing laws to mandate safe chemicals in our products. Check out The Story of Cosmetics for the full story—and to take action.

Annie Leonard, "The Story of Stuff"

If you watched the free 20 minute online "Story of Stuff" documentary and thought "That's great, but I wish it was drier, and more packed with an overwhelming volume of information," then this book is for you!  I hate to sound catty, but it's true.   Sadly, this book takes everything that made the documentary great, and does the exact opposite.

Charitably, The Story of Stuff (the book) could be said to be a companion piece to the documentary.  A tome for those who watched the movie and wanted to dispute the facts.  A dense brick of text, thick with footnotes, heavy on policy wonkery and clunky writing.

The genius of the "Story of Stuff" documentary is that it was told in plain English, without a lot of judgment - just the facts.  It was illustrated with an animated style of ink brush figures that are both charming and clean, giving a lot of white space to the screen, which lets you focus on what's being said.  

Here the formula is reversed - the little animated characters are scattered occasionally throughout the text, serving as random bullet points.  They do nothing to break up the text which marches on, paragraph after paragraph, weighing the reader down with one long boring diatribe about how we're ruining the planet.

Leonard's writing style is distinctly a product of her background with NGOs and policymaking organizations.  Here's a sentence I chose by stabbing my finger at random into the book:  

"One of my colleagues there, Rob Weissman, a Harvard-trained lawyer and leading critic of the WTO, used to chide me for my obsession with factories and dumps, urging me to join those fighting the WTO instead of, or more accurately in addition to, working on garbage."

This is postdoc-level writing, and there's nothing wrong with that.  It just came as a surprise after the documentary's plain-spoken, transparent language.  If the documentary is Hemingway, the book is a Congressional memo.

The great thing about the documentary was how simple it made everything.  These are complicated issues, and the real value is in boiling them down to the simplest elements.  We don't need anyone to make them more complicated.  

I found myself wondering what the point of the book was in the first place.  It fails as a companion piece to the documentary, because it's harder to follow, less engaging, and roughly 200% more depressing.  It doesn't offer anything that you can't find in the documentary except three metric tons of facts.  

If it's meant to reach people that the documentary couldn't, it's going to fail at that, too, because people hate to read.  (They especially hate to read big boring sad things.)  A graphic novel would have worked well; this book will not.

I wasn't sure what to expect from a book called The Story of Stuff and frankly, I'm still not.  If you're trying to decide between reading the book or watching the documentary, you should definitely watch the documentary.  It's fantastic, and effective, and can literally change your life.

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