Month: February 2019

plastic free life? weighing your commitments

ok…i know. toothbrushes are good for oral health, but not so good for the ocean. but what are we to do if we go plastic free here? the only alternatives seem to involve pig hair bristles. even if i didn’t live with a vegetarian, i might worry about my complicity with factory farming if i were to buy such brushes

and then there are claims by some manufacturers that the bristles are biodegradable nylon or bamboo. can you believe such claims? no, says a 2015 blog post

it turns out that, as argued by alexis shotwell, trying to achieve purity is not a good goal. i’m going to fail going plastic free, but that will force me to weigh my different ethical commitments and think of good ways to live in spite of necessary compromise

 

fasting from plastic: toiletries

today i was thinking about my grooming habits and how they require quite a bit of plastic, from toothbrushes and toothpaste to the packaging for facial masks. can i get rid of this plastic?

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my plastic fast (3): groceries without plastic, or a setback

having looked over all of the single use plastic that i typically use, i found that i do pretty well with grocery shopping but could do better. i’m particularly worried about those products that form a major part of my diet that i cannot buy without packaging, like tofu

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my plastic fast (2): where do i use single use plastic

the first step in preparing for my plastic fast will be to account for all of my use of single use plastic at home and when out

fortunately, stanley bought a wide array of mesh and cotton bags that we use for buying produce and items that we can purchase at the grocery store in bulk. because of my experience living on taiwan, i was already in the habit of taking my own bags to make groceries. for the same reason, i usually carry chopsticks or my own cutlery. i thought that we were doing a good job, until i looked around…

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my plastic fast

lent has a bad name, probably because of its association with the rather silly giving up of good things, like chocolate. but i want to claim the battle between carnival and lent for a kind of environmental ascesis

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