Traveling Plastic-Free by Rebecca Mayer

OK, so I admit: traveling plastic-free has turned out not to always be my forte.  In fact, I returned from six months of travel through third-world countries to discover that I was so severely dehydrated that the doctor wanted to immediately hook me up to an i.v.

The choice between consuming potentially toxic local water in India and Cambodia and purchasing countless plastic water bottles was too much for me.  I ended up drinking less and less, torn between a desire for health and plastic guilt.

As it happens, I am not alone.  Plastic-free goddess Beth Terry  experiences plastic travel-guilt as well!  Read her musings about how what started with one Cheeto snuck from one bag turned into an orgy of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos madness!

Here are Beth’s Plastic-Free Travel Tips:

1.  Bring Your Own Reusable Beverage Container — Even on a Plane!

2. Bring Your Own Snacks.

3.  Bring Your Own Utensils.

4.  Refuse the Mini-Bar.

5.  Bring Your Own Personal Care Products.

6.  Reuse Your Ziploc Bag.

7.  Don’t Forget Your Headphones.

8.  Bring Your Own Pillow or Neck Rest.

9.  Collect Recyclables to Bring Home.

Want some more tips?  Check out the following related blog posts:

• How to Travel Plastic -Free  Extremists: Make your own tooth powder!
• Plastic Manners A plastic-wrapped apple – will the packaging madness on airlines never end?!

Please share with Bag It…What are YOUR plastic-free Travel Tips?

 

 

Clean Air and Water Bottles – by Rebecca Mayer

We’ve posted countless times about the impact of bottled water on our own health and the health of our planet, but this week Judith A. Ross brings us a new reason to stop sipping from disposable bottles: clean air.

It’s all connected, people, as I’m sure you know.

I’ve been attending dharma talks this week given by a former Tibetan monk, and even the earliest traditions had this figured out.  What we do in one part of the earth affects the people living on the other side.

And when we purchase and dispose of plastic water bottles, we are contributing to thousands of tons of air pollution from the shipping alone.  Here are the stats from the article Why Does Banning Plastic Help Us Breathe?:

In 2006, the equivalent of 2 billion half-liter bottles of water were shipped to U.S. ports, creating thousands of tons of global warming pollution and other air pollution. In New York City alone, the transportation of bottled water from western Europe released an estimated 3,800 tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere. In California, 18 million gallons of bottled water were shipped in from Fiji in 2006, producing about 2,500 tons of global warming pollution.

So even if you are not a Tibetan monk, it’s useful to think about how each action you take sets of a chain of ripples, affecting yourself, yes, but also your surroundings.

Let us know:  what other ways do you notice small actions having tremendous implications?  (These can be positive, too!)

What Do You Mistake for Food? – by Rebecca Mayer

Studies show that the effects of plastic pollution become most personal and actionable when we see their effects on wildlife – sea creatures strangled by ocean debris and albatrosses dying from ingesting small particles, mistaking them for food.

Here’s another angle: what goes inside your own stomach, what you mistake for food.

For over a year, since Bag It hit its first theater, we’ve been encouraging you to purchase less packaged food and prepare more meals with fresh ingredients.  Turns out, not only do you save packaging this way, you also save your own digestive system from carcinogens and gasoline by-products.

Cory Rennell gives us Three Shocking Ways Packaged Foods Are Contaminated on the Huffington Post.  The whole article is eye-opening, and a wonderful inducement to say no to the packaged cookies and canned chili on your next visit to the grocery store.

As Rennell points out, Most ingredients in packaged foods are not whole foods — meaning that they contain only a part of the original food. Chemicals are often used to extract these partial-food ingredients, and these compounds leave residues in the food.

For your next meal, choose whole foods, in their fresh, natural state.

According to Rennell, If your food doesn’t spoil, it’s not fresh — and chances are part of it is not even food.

Choose food.  And save the seals and birds.

Report Lays Out Process for Addressing Plastic Pollution both Locally and Globally – by Rebecca Mayer

In the most remote places on Earth with few or no humans present… one can find substantial quantities of plastic debris.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock/Stephane Bidouze

That is the bad news.  But according to a new international report, constructive solutions to the problem of plastic can be found.

According to Lisa Kaas Boyle in her article Help for a Plastic Planet, “the report clearly identifies the problem so it can be the focus of solutions: the problem is plastic.”

Basically, the production of plastic is increasing each year by about 9%.  According to the report: Since most plastic items will not biodegrade in the environment it seems inevitable that quantities of debris will increase over time.  

The report’s international contributors have come to a conclusion: Plastic pollution must be addressed on a global scale.  What a person does in one country affects the lives and health of a person across the globe.  Our interconnectedness has this downside, but we can turn it into an upside by supporting worldwide awareness and the implementation of change on a regional basis.

The formula for change is suggested as follows:

1.  Identify a specific source of marine debris.

2.  Bring key users and producers together to find a solution, either by decreasing production or a better system for “end of life material”.

3.  Ask how to best implement and incentivise the process.

4.  Monitor and measure success!

This 4-step Process can easily be implemented at your home or within your community!

Happy Earth Day! by Rebecca Mayer

Dear Earth:

Thank you for the solid, sunbaked steps I take down the dirt path to the coconut stand. The way the palm leaves rustle in the breeze as I lie, belly first, on the river dock. Flying fish, silver-streaked, dance: lift and disappear, lift and vanish.

The cat digs through the dried-grass roof of the thatched hut, searching for gecko. The gecko shrieks its outlandish chorus as I slip slowly into the river, floating, gazing at a sky that never stays still, cloud-dance, blushing and alternately strutting its stuff.

The old fishing junkers stay on their side of the bridge today; the oil sheen barely collects on the banks; I turn away from the styrofoam packets and old cups that collect between the lotus roots; today, the sun-warmed river, wind, sky are untouched.

Kampot, Cambodia -April 22, 2012

This Earth Day, why not take a moment to write a little letter to your part of the planet, like I did? Ask your child or child’s class to do the same. We’ll be happy to choose several, and publish them!

And how to celebrate further?  Check out this list of ideas. Our favorite? Cook an earth-friendly meal, with local, organic ingredients.  Experiment with vegetarian options.  Invite friends over, and decorate your table with recycled decorations that you make together.

Happy Earth Day to you from Bag It!

Getting Personal – by Rebecca Mayer

In the spirit of changing things up, this post is more personal.

In Southeast Asia, where I’ve been studying and teaching yoga for 5 months, feet and knees are the most personal things.  So you keep them covered and hidden from view.

In the US, where I will now be heading, it is quickly approaching summer, and feet will be out in full view.  As a yoga teacher, it would be nice to have a pedicure.

I’ve skipped using nail polish for some time now. (This is purely because I have high ideals and not because a pedicure in Telluride, Colorado, costs at least a day’s salary.)

There are just so many things wrong with the whole concept of toenail painting – covering a part of your body with hazardous chemicals, letting pedicurists breathe in the fumes as they kneel over your feet, spending precious time and money on the whole nonsense…

Yes, this is a bit of a rant – thank you for the indulgence. But, I have to say, sometimes my naked toenails feel…judged.  Next to all the bright, perfect toenails, I mean. Sometimes, in a culture of perfection, the standard is to accept toxicity rather than to breathe.

I hope I am not giving the impression of being holier-than-thou, especially if you are someone, like my mother, who enjoys the occasional pedicure. To clear things up, let me just say (I am sorry Suzan and Bag It team!) that I have been drinking from toxic plastic water bottles for the last five months.

Ironically, in our more industrialized countries, we do have the choice to opt out from many harmful practices. Like drinking from plastic water bottles. Like using toxic nail varnish.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics reports the following: On Tuesday, California’s Department of Toxic Substances revealed that a variety of nail polishes contain high levels of hazardous chemicals despite product labels claiming otherwise. These chemicals, dibutyl phthalate and toluene, have been linked to birth defects, asthma and other chronic health conditions.

Take action now, and tell Congress we want to know what is in our products. And then make it personal. Breathe easier. Take advantage of your right and privilege to opt out.

Go Team Bag It! by Rebecca Mayer

This week is a heartwarming one for plastic bag banning supporters. Go team!

Check them out: Aspen, Colorado third graders posted their amazingly articulate and well-researched reasons for going re-usable in this week’s edition of The Aspen Times.

Try something like this in your county: Santa Barbara Libraries will be hosting screenings of Bag It for their spring Green @ Your Library Program.  We love screenings because the awareness spreads from a small viewing group at first, to a larger and larger network of family, friends, coworkers, acquaintances…soon Total World Domination (insert scary laugh here.)

Take a Tour or Lead One Yourself: In Hawaii, a Harvard graduate student leads tours on the Hawaiian island of Midway Atoll, where albatross remains reveal multicolored shards of plastic, featured in the film. Read more here.

What other exciting news can we celebrate from your area? Let us know!