Plastic free and loving it..

Each month I stop using at least one,  one-use, throwaway, suposedly disposable plastic product and source a biodegradable alternative.

If you want a plastic free life or just cut down on your rubbish read on …

paint brushes

Looking good -

natural wood real bristle metal bits that hold the bristles in place and wrapped in cardboard but ………..

Inquinamento

 

Inquinamento

Originally uploaded by Apneamagazine

Per i contadini della zona è più semplice buttare nel torrente gli involucri in plastica nera (che proteggono le radici delle piante che mettono nei campi) piuttosto che smaltirli secondo la legge… Quando il torrente è in piena li porta in mare e questo è il risultato…
Sicilia .
Foto di Astapersa
www.apneamagazine.com
For the peasants of the zone he is simpler to throw in the torrent the coverings in black plastic (than protect the roots of the plants that put in the fields) rather than smaltir them second the law… When the torrent is in flood , this is the result…
Sicily
www.apneamagazine.com

Uploaded by Apneamagazine on 21 May 07, 4.44AM PST.

A few facts

Click here for the slide show

A Dutch study in the North Sea of fulmar seabirds concluded 95 per cent of the birds had plastic in their stomachs. More than 1600 pieces were found in the stomach of one bird in Belgium.

The United Nations Environment Program says plastic is accountable for the deaths of more than a million seabirds and more than 100,000 marine mammals such as whales, dolphins and seals every year.

Since his first encounter with the gyre in 1997, Moore created the Algalita Marine Research Foundation to help study the problem. Canadian filmmaker Ian Connacher joined Moore last year to film the garbage patch for his documentary, I Am Plastic.

“The most menacing part is those little bits of plastic start looking like food for certain animals, or the filter feeders don’t have any choice, they just pick them up,” noted Connacher.

Perhaps an even bigger problem is hiding beneath the surface of the islands of garbage. Greenpeace reports that about 70 per cent of the plastic that makes it to the ocean sinks to the bottom, where it then smothers marine life on the ocean floor. Dutch scientists have found 600,000 tons of discarded plastic on the bottom of the North Sea alone.

A study by the Japanese geochemist Hideshige Takada and his colleagues at Tokyo University in 2001 found that plastic polymers soak up the resilient poisons such as DDT and polychlorinated biphenyls. The researchers found that non-water-soluble toxic chemicals can be found in plastic in levels as high as a million times their concentration in water. As small pieces of plastic are mistaken for fish eggs and other food by marine life, these toxins end up at the dinner table. But even without the extra toxins, eating plastic is hazardous to health.

see http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/12/are-there-reall.html

poop bags

This is something I really hate …. plastic bags of dog @*%! hanging from the bushes. I can see what the dog owners are  trying to do and thanks for that but why put 100% biodegradable dog waste into plastic bags that takes more than 100 years to degrade? And then throw it into the bushes…or is this just a Huddersfield thing??

Be responsible and environmental; use the biodegradable BioBag dog bags that returns to soil along with their contents within a couple of months.

Or try these from www.topak.co.uk

2 rolls of bags (100) cost £1.65 = vat = packing = £5.90
6p a bag

wooden highlighter pencils

The STABILO GREENlighter proves that luminosity and ecological awareness can go hand in hand.

SHINING EXAMPLE OF SUSTAINABILITY.
The target group
» Pupils, teachers, parents and all office workers.

» All those who prefer a modern, eco-friendly lifestyle.

The pen
» FSC-certified highlighter

» STABILO GREEN – the new product line

» Specially developed pencils, made from 100 % FSC-certified wood. FSC represents strictly controlled, ecologically meaningful and sustainable forest management. STABILO is the first FSC-certified writing instruments manufacturer and hence a pioneer in the industry.

» Ergonomically-shaped triangular highlighter with natural white stripes and environmentally-friendly matt coating.

» 3 neon colors: yellow, green and pink, suitable for a huge variety of paper.

» Thick lead, 5.5mm in diameter, for a broad stroke.

» Glides easily over the page to ensure consistent highlighting.

The STABILO GREENlighter proves that luminosity and ecological awareness can go hand in hand.

 

Find more plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index

Burning Bins

Burning bin

For more on burning plastic check this link

Originally uploaded by Black X List

Burning trash in a 55 gallon drum or in just a pile, often in the backyard, is a common method of solid waste disposal in some rural areas.

Surveys have revealed between 25 and 50 percent of rural residences and farms may do backyard burning.

Materials “burned” range from all household trash including plastics, glass and metal, to a more selective burning of just paper items. However, with today’s wastes, it is very difficult to keep plastics out of even carefully sorted paper-only waste. Envelope windows are usually plastic, as are some inserts in junk mail. Paper packaging often has plastic coatings.

Backyard burning is by definition “uncontrolled” burning and results in very high levels of toxic chemicals emitted in the smoke. Compared to municipal incinerators it takes place at much lower temperatures, with virtually no combustion air control, and with none of the very expensive high-tech pollution filtering apparatus required before the incinerator stack.

Very high levels of toxic chemicals and particulates are present in the smoke from open burning of waste. These may cause acute respiratory and other health problems in those breathing the smoke.

Burning plastics can be especially problematic, with PVC plastic in particular contributing to high emissions of dioxin. Dioxin is a persistent, bioaccumulative toxin which means it isn’t broken down into safer chemicals, and it is concentrated in the food chain. As dioxin in burn barrel smoke drifts away to eventually settle on nearby fields, it can be eaten by cows where it is concentrated in their fat. Some is then excreted with the milk while the rest remains in the animal’s fat. When humans consume dairy products and meat they end up with the long-lived dioxin in their own bodies. The US EPA now considers burn barrels a major source of dioxin. They also consider that current dioxin levels in Americans, due to consumption of dairy and meat, are high enough to add a significant cancer risk, as well as other serious health risks.

Open burning can also be a significant fire risk, with frequent brush, forest, and structure fires attributed to burning which got out of control. Deaths have even resulted from such fires.

A number of national, state, and local organizations are working on educating the public on the risks of backyard burning. The federal government does not currently have laws or regulations addressing this problem. However, numerous states and localities have banned open burning, and the list is growing rapidly.

The problem of open burning may have increased in recent years because the cost of proper disposal of solid waste has risen and is more likely to be charged by weight and to the individual. Recycling and proper waste disposal have also become less convenient in many areas. Therefore, part of the solution to open burning will be improvements in convenience and affordability of local solid waste management systems.

http://www.burnbarrel.org/Background/Background.html

 

Find more plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index

Navotas, Manila

Another great photo, another ruined landscape and lots of plastic bags

Navotas, Manila Originally uploaded by jna876

Guest Speakers

The harvest, on a cold Sunday morning

Originally uploaded by ghb624

While rifling flickr for nasty plastic photos, (see my plastic visual world map for details), I come across people documenting and commenting on the ever increasing amounts of plastic pollution. Blogged from there is this weeks  Guest Speaker

It’s been a while since I’ve done a rant about littering. Seems like that’s reason enough to revisit the subject. If only because I feel better after venting …
When you walk and pick up litter on a daily basis, you start to see patterns or cycles in this miserable business. Sunday morning seems to always result in the largest amount of stuff to be dealt with. Presume that’s because of all those so&so’s who have something like Saturday Night Fever and as a side-effect are prone to leave a trail of trash wherever they go. Perhaps it’s bar hopping, perhaps just cruising here and there to avoid going home, who knows.
Whatever. Anyway, above is a typical assortment of what we come across while walking through our neighborhood and immediate surrounding areas for about an hour, covering a couple miles or so in the process. We do tend to walk a bit farther on Sunday mornings, but that’s not enough to explain the larger quantity of litter. After MUCH observation, the Saturday night after-effect thing is unmistakeable.

Afterthought: When I was first getting religion about this business of fighting litter, the main motivator was wanting to keep the neighborhood from looking trashy. Yes, it was pretty much a bourgeois thing — promoting respectability, responsible behavior and all that. Lately, another and more significant motivator has entered the picture. Specifically, seeing what eventually happens to all this plastic trash. A lot of it ends up going into the waterways, where it may very well snag in the underbrush and be part of the growing visual pollution problem one sees in previously “natural” areas. But a lot of it also keeps on going until it reaches the oceans and moves on the vast ocean currents. One horrendous result is the vast pool of plastic debris which has built up in the north central part of the Pacific. If you haven’t seen news reports on this subject, here’s one primer:
www.ecocycle.org/askeco-cycle/2005/1028.cfm

Uploaded by ghb624 on 20 Jan 08, 11.56AM PST.

The joys of composting

The best way to achieve plastic free bins is to take up composting. No wet squidgy stuff in your bins means no need for bin liners – Ive been doing it for years now.

ALSO no wet squidgy stuff in landfill means no methane. Biodegradable matter put into landfill doesnt rot down properly and instead gives off methane gas an even more dangerous greenhouse gas.

So composting means cutting down on your plastic rubbish creation and reducing your carbon footprint – seems a no brainer to me.

Find more plastic free products compostable with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index

Recycling

check out the national recycling awards – they are coolio