28 February 2011

Plastic-Free February Wrap-Up

It's the last day of February so just a quick re-cap of what the Rodale.com Plastic-Free February was all about:

1. No buying or acquiring new plastic.

2: No cooking with plastic or storing food in plastic.

3: Minimize all other plastic use.

Like most guerrilla environmentalists, I'm pretty conscious of what I use from moment-to-moment and one of my frustrations is always the ubiquitrocity (I made that up:) of plastics. It's hard to get away from them in modern life. I don't grow all my food, so it's even more difficult, though I plan my major shopping trips in the city and Whole Foods where I have a few more choices. Plenty of packaging and plastics there though. Even the produce department offers plastic bags - not a good thing. So in the spirit of improving the conscientious lifestyle, here are three things we'll do very soon:

   1.  Make some lightweight washable produce bags to take to the store. I'll repurpose a white voile curtain I have in the fabric stash.

   2.  Buy a roll of butcher paper to freeze whole fresh produce and make sure all the meats we buy are packaged in paper. Gratefully, Whole Foods does this at their meat and fish counters.

   3.  Use exclusively glass jars in the refrigerator and wax paper for counter wrap. Because I won't have the above-mentioned produce bags to re-purpose.

That's a bit of tweaking that will get more of that plastic out of my life. Whatever else, like bottle tops, vitamin storage, and curious plastic bits and baubles, could turn into a work of art along the lines of Louise Nevelson's famous assemblages of cast-off woods that evolved into huge space dividers. Marvelous things!

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Nevelson :

Nevelson is known for her abstract expressionist “crates” grouped together to form a new creation. She used found objects or everyday discarded things in her assemblies, one of which was three stories high: "When you put together things that other people have thrown out, you’re really bringing them to life – a spiritual life that surpasses the life for which they were originally created."


Same can work for the endless stream of plastics. Time, creativity, imagination, and an eye for composition, and voila!, something to paint in a unifying color and hang on the wall. Could work.

And because I know I'll never be able to keep all those plastic bags from coming home with me, here are some links to help do something usable and creative with the miserable things once they're in your possession:

http://www.frugal-cafe.com/fashion-cheap-chic/articles/threadbanger-recycling-plastic-bags.html
http://greenupgrader.com/3953/bag-another-day-the-best-ways-to-reuse-plastic-bags/
http://www.homesteadweaver.com/plasticbagrugs.htm

And here are more links, including clever ways to use the endless stream of plastic bottle caps:

http://www.chasinggreen.org/article/type-5-plastic-bottle-caps-put-good-use/

Thanks to everyone for sharing your creative ideas!

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Temps:

1 comment:

Linda Hoye said...

Hey Dani

I have been trying to minimize my plastic use for a while now. I can't believe how hard it is because it seems to be everywhere! Just being conscious is the first step! Thank you for keeping us on track.

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