You are currently browsing Plastic Manners’s articles.
Two weeks left of our fundraising campaign for our feature-length documentary: From the Waste Up- Life Without Plastic. We are at just under $6000, and I am still crossing my fingers to get to $10 000, which would buy us just enough editing time. Here are the top ten reasons why I think this movie is worthwhile.
1. The story needs to be told. There are very few of us in the entire world living life without plastic.
2. Our film will inspire others to get involved.
3. Watching 7 families navigate our plastic world will show others how to. And I think people need to learn.
4. It is funny. You will not leave depressed, rather entertained. None of us can do this without having a little fun.
5. No bar graphs will be shown. While you will learn facts, this movie is about people.
6. Future generations will have a historical record of a time when people had to go out of their way to avoid disposable plastics. We hope that they will think our times were ludicrous.
7. The topics of consumerism, waste, and convenience are endlessly interesting. Not to mention the concept of going without.
8. No pie charts will be shown either. But blackberry pie is a significant lesson in the story.
9. The 20 some-odd people featured in the film have put themselves ‘out there’ for others’ benefit. Their efforts should not be…wasted.
10. Disposable plastics clearly need to go the way of the dinosaur.
There are many other reasons, but if you agree with any of the above, perhaps help make From the Waste Up happen with a small donation.
See what plastic-free guru Beth Terry says: http://myplasticfreelife.com/2013/05/from-the-waste-up-a-movie-about-learning-to-live-plastic-free/
Watch the trailer and donate here: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/from-the-waste-up-life-without-plastic–2/x/2938522
Thanks for reading.
Somehow this plastic scrubber made it past the no plastic sign on our driveway. First, I don’t like how it feels on my hands and, second, it sucks and I just wanted to say that. That little cactus root scrubber has survived for 2 years of intense outdoor kitchen living. Its still going strong but what’s good is that I don’t care if a piece of root falls off the brush. We live in the forest where there are many root friends for it to party with. The ugly(!) plastic scrubber is on its third week and clearly already crumbling its gross green plastic bits into our earth.
As I am somewhat obsessed with analyzing waste, I snapped this picture of my mom´s building´s trash bin. My focus was actually on the overflowingness of it all as well as the junked plastic toy; I don´t know why, but it fascinates me. Today when I looked at the shot again, something caught my eye. There they are again! I last saw them ascending an escalator and now they are on their way to the dump. Those STUPID YELLOW BAGS from my last post make another appearance. They read: “Crazy days”. Indeed.
Information storm comingatcha. Because when you sit and breast feed for hours you have a lot of time to think.
Now. First things first. Eee! Are there any of you out there who have been reading since day one? What I didn’t tell you is that we have also been filming since day one. We have three years worth of footage on life without plastic, including, last year I challenged six families to quit too and filmed their stories. Our documentary From the Waste Up- Life Without Plastic, is now in post production. You can view the trailer here:
http://igg.me/at/fromthewasteup/x/2938522
That is the link to our fundraising page. We are hoping to cover editing costs to make a full-length film that will educate, inspire, and entertain. Since launching the trailer, I have already received comments from people saying they would like to give up plastic too (but need help). Our film will help. Now imagine how many more we could convert with a full film?
Do you perchance have a few dollars to help in exchange for, at minimum, a good story? Or maybe you can share the fundraising link? Any small donation buys more editing time. With the Midway documentary coming out next year, to get our film out there too would be great timing. Otherwise I will chip away at it by myself and we will see the film when the cows finally come home.
Now, speaking of fundraising. I noticed this maybe (?) well-meaning campaign out there to do a feasibility study on some contraption to clean plastic out of the oceans. It has received $68 000 dollars so far. That is, $68 000 just for the feasibility study. In the words of plastic free guru Manuel Maqueda:
“These gyre cleanup machines, devices and foundations that emerge periodically are not going to happen. However they are likely to get lots of media attention –and distract from the real solutions. These more or less sophisticated delusions and fantasies of massive offshore cleanups testify to how misunderstood our plastic pollution problem is, and how disconnected we are from nature in general, and from our oceans in particular. What about stopping plastic pollution at the source? Wouldn’t that be a better use of our ingenuity, time and money? It also happens to be quite doable too.”
I’m not throwing anyone under the bus, but it shows me that people, in desperation, will throw money at a bandaid solution. But are they willing to examine their own role in creating the problem, and furthermore their part in curbing it? Our trailer has been viewed over 1000 times, with so far just 15 funders (one of them being me). Just saying.
My mom came home yesterday carrying ten paper bags, her purse also overflowing. She was exasperated. “Taina I finally get it! I was paralyzed at the store and had an awakening. Everything is in plastic and I couldn’t buy anything except bread.” Indeed she had bought ten loaves of bread I suppose to fill her need for groceries. The trailer finally moved her!
My last plea for donations is that if you’ve read my blog a few times, perhaps laughed, maybe got an idea, feel you are slightly better off or whatever it may be, and think that others would also benefit from sitting back and watching a flick on the subject, then spare a buck or two? I figure if everyone who reads this post, generally about 300 on a good day, donated 20 dollars each, we would reach our goal in just over three days. I promise you won’t remember the $20, but you will remember the story.
Back to my mom. I’ve been staying at her place for a few weeks, and been staring at and contemplating this plastic bag on a coat hanger…as I sit and breast feed for hours. It’s stuffed with some kind of clothing so that the plastic is stretched. Filmy and wrinkly like. I know I’ve said this before, but a plastic bag is so utterly foreign to me now. I have no idea what it is like to use those things, why on earth you would need them, and I wouldn’t be caught dead carrying one. Plus they stink. Creepy creepy material that plastic. With a little distance it all becomes so clear. You just have to give it some space.
[Note- by the time you read this the bag will likely have been promptly removed by a sheepish mother.]
This store was having a sale so for the event they had these particularly visible yellow plastic bags. I was standing waiting by the exit escalator (dying to get out) and watched the steady stream of bags ascend- like the store was pumping out these walking advertisements on an assembly line. And the dummies on the line with exes for eyes exited the premises and filled the city with these yellow markers of consumerism! Presumably sending more troops in to spend money on plastic wrapped goods and plastic bags, and to replenish the assembly line. What’s kind of funny in a not so funny way is that the people had to pay for each one of those bags too! I felt bad, whilst simultaneously judging the hell out of these poor unsuspecting people. Because I had a baby rather than a camera in hand, here is my depiction of the horrific scene.
What o what could it be?! Stay tuned for an exciting announcement.
Despite my subscription to slow and enjoyable, I wanted a small glimpse of ‘C’onvenience with a drive through coffee on the go. My Puck Flastic mug was lying on the floor of the truck looking grimy. Heck, I’ll cheat and just get a plastic lined cup but without the lid.
The drive through is busy. There are many cars ahead of me but whatever. I’ve already committed.
I get to the booth and make my request. The robotic voice from the box replies that she cannot give me a coffee without a lid.
Why not?
“Because it’s dangerous.”
Wha? I’ve handled hot coffee before. If I spill it I will only have myself to blame.
“I have to give you a lid”
I will not buy a coffee with the lid.
“I can meet you in the alley and give you the coffee without the lid.”
That makes no sense. Forget it. I’m not getting the coffee.
“Fine.”
Box goes silent but I can almost hear her eyeballs rolling in their sockets. Swish swish.
To add insult to injury I now have to sit in the drive through corral as I am pinned by the cars ahead and behind. And then! I watch as the driver before me hands her his reusable mug, which she returns. All this safely without a lid! Good for him though. He enjoys his first sip of coffee while I sit there stewing.
Serves me right. I’m a dummy for trying to stray and they are simply shmucks.
Two small things to write about.
The first are microplastics, something I only recently had the mind space to think about. I say this because the world of plastic is a lot to take in. The vast number of problems and pitfalls, and then how to begin eliminating them from every facet of your life. Enough to fill a brain space and drive you bonkers.
Going on year 4 I’ve finally started to deal with clothing. Because 1) I said I would, 2) wearing plastic seems off when natural materials feel smell and look better, 3) my drooly new human sucks on my clothing when I hold him, and 4) because poly materials shed mini mini threads of plastic into our waters via laundry water. Someone recently told me that >1900 micro threads are released with each load of laundry.
Gross you say, but so what?! Well, do you eat e.g. shellfish? The little buggers filter feed and hence suck up all the micro bits around them. Then we eat them and said bits. It’s not just laundry bits of course, but other microplastics from various other sources. Mega gross, which is one reason I avoid shellfish. This my friends breaks my heart because the seas’ bounty is of utmost value to our stupid species.
“What, why don’t you like upcycling Taina?!” We’ll it’s all fine and dandy but don’t view it as the ultimate solution. Take fleece made of plastic bottles. It all ends up in the sea, you see. But you don’t, ’cause they’re so small.
I mentioned the other small thing already. It is my 3 month old son-love-of-my-life. People always warned me plastic free would be difficult with a wee one. So far, it is not. I’m not perfect but what I can say is that simple works. All these crazy baby products, accessories, gidgets and gadgets totally unnecessary! They are just marketed to us up the ying yang before the guy even comes out of there. I almost succumbed myself walking into a baby store and had to check myself. No, he does not need the poly-everything cutesy owl hangy thing, when he is just as entertained by a homemade jellyfish mobile made of wool and sticks, which used to have whales until the dogs ate half of it, and which still didn’t seem to lose its entertainment value. Because I don’t want my son to eventually call me a bunk enviromom, I did recently splurge on an organic teddy made of cotton and wool. No noxious contents and the wool retains the smell of home hence soothing the baby.
You’d be surprised how many “organic” or “all natural” stuffies are filled with plastic. Just read the labels carefully. While most gifts we’ve received have been well researched, we did get one dog stuffed with…NURDLES!! Ie pre production plastic pellets that litter every beach out there. Horror. There is nothing cute or cuddly about plastic.
I was recently interviewed by a woman from the Globe and Mail (will post the article on Twitter and FB later this week). She asked me one particular question that has stuck with me. That was, “How do you feel when you do acquire plastic?”
My answer was “desperation”, because knowing what I do, ‘away’ has been forever taken away. Before, the alleyway was the place the magic dude came to cart my plastic crap to some magical place and make it also disappear from my mind. Fascinating to think that all it takes is that simple ‘away’ concept to justify so much consumption and waste.
We had ordered some building materials for our half-house some time ago. Horror descended over me as, what looked like the possible delivery, ascended the driveway. Everything was stretch wrapped like a million times to the point you could barely see the truck. We had never encountered this before, so how was I to know, but now I had to my name an associated 40 lbs of stretch wrap…for what…oh a mere thousand years!! I wanted to close my eyes and make the whole moving, shimmering, mound disappear. Alas, it did not, and at the top of the hill the burly driver had no idea why I just stood there speechless.
I repeat: what the heck do you do when there is no away? Nino eventually put the wrap somewhere and I have not seen it since. Best case its life was extended slightly in some other application, but the material is not gone, from this planet, nor my mind. Desperation, check.
—
*The next time we ordered wood we made sure to specify no wrap. It worked and seemed so simple with the benefit of learned anticipation.
I was at a music festival last weekend and one of the coffee booths had a great sign. “We serve your coffee topless.” Now mind you my baby has stolen my brain, but I ran over all excited to get a picture and talk to the people.
Me v naively: “Great sign. Why no tops?”
Woman: “We just like the sign.”
Me still not getting it: “But is it like a waste reduction motivation or a money thing?”
Onlooker putting lid on coffee: “I think it’s just a gimmick.”
Woman: “Can I get you something?”
I wandered off with a feeling that I just wasn’t on the same page. It wasn’t till several hours later that I got the joke. Topless. Right. What an idiot.
It’s easy to get totally mind wrapped in your own version of reality. I already learned that lesson a number of times this past few years. But man, when all you want to see is good.
If you have been paying attention to the plastic world, you will have undoubtedly seen the images of the plastic-filled albatrosses of Midway Island. If you haven’t, here is a small peek at the horror, courtesy of photographer Chris Jordan:
Filled with and starved by pen caps, lighters, and toxic doo dads of all shapes and sizes, these feathered victims have become the silent spokes-spirits for our anti-plastics campaigns. Unmoving, yet they have moved countless of people into rethinking their disposable habits. I know that no matter how long I talk at presentations, these are the images that count.
Now as I write this from the middle of the forest, and only have 9% left on my computer battery, I need to ask you something important. The Midway Film Project is a documentary about these birds, plastic, and the problem with our throw-away culture. One that the world needs to see. If the pictures are worth more than a thousand words, think about a full film!
The Midway Film Project needs funding if it is to get to the masses. Please give what you can, knowing that your money will be well spent. Heck, go the distance, and take one plastic-wrapped item that you would have bought today, forego it if just this one time, and donate that money to the film.
The link to the trailer and piggy bank: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/midwayfilm/join-the-midway-film-project
And please share far and wide. Time is a tickin’. For the film fundraiser, us, my computer battery, and most importantly the albatrosses and other creatures. 4% left. Just enough time to donate myself.
Recent Comments