Plastic + Sun + Salt Water =

The photodegradation of plastic.

Plastic cannot biodegrade (be consumed by microorganisms and returned to compounds found in nature).

Rather, plastic photodegrades, which means that it fragments into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic, without breaking into simpler compounds.

Oceanographer and chemist Dr. Charles Moore (credited with discovering what would come to be known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 1997), estimates that these millimeter sized fragments, along with the rest of our plastic waste, is dispersed over millions of square miles of ocean, stretching miles deep. (National Geographic 2009).

The image below is my 30 minute collection at the San Rafael Marina. I could spend the rest of my days plucking tiny pieces of sun-bleached plastic and dehydrated wads of styrofoam simply from this marina - it would never ever end, one continuous, sad-sack loop of me and the plastic. 

Here are a few close-ups (from the collection above) of what's left of a couple of straws, a Cheetos bag, and a plastic pudding or applesauce cup, after a period of time in the elements of sun and salt water.

This is a rather common find for me - Straws at this level of degradation are in parks, creeks, roadways - the low hanging fruit of the plastisphere

By my count, this Cheetos bag has separated into a trifecta of plastic films - the mylar-like silver lining, the once colorful plastic printed layer, and the clear top layer. 

This cup is so brittle, merely picking it up causes the corners to crack and fall away

As I see it, the packaging industry needs to undergo a transformative rebirth, like yesterday. Day before yesterday. The brilliant and creative minds are already out there - the technology exists. 

Sennheiser Eco-Friendly Packaging by Design Muse

The Compleat "Fill - Fold - & Drink" coffee cup 

If you're at all interested, then a.) WOW, and b.) please feel free to have a look at some packaging designs (like the two above) I think are pretty great on my Pinterest board "packaging". http://www.pinterest.com/heather_itzla/packaging/

Mea Culpa

How much of my stuff, the plastic that passed through our household, is out there breaking into pieces in the ocean's gyres?

I asked this question of my FB friends today:  PERSONAL QUESTION: Do you know where the water and debris from your town's storm drains ends up? I'll go first. Sleepy Hollow Creek to San Anselmo Creek joined by Ross Creek to Corte Madera Creek joined by Tamalpais and Larkspur Creeks respectively, bing bang boom, pass San Quentin Prison and you're out in San Francisco Bay (San Francisco Bay opens into the Pacific Ocean - you knew that).

That Great Pacific Garbage Patch? (the 1 of 5 that are documented), our own personal plastic waste is out there - we have personally contributed to that.

Until I can convince every business in the world to stop supplying us with this disposable crap, it would be so great if we could just contain the bits and pieces that inevitably pass through our lives - lock that crap down until we get this sorted out.

Okay, you guys are the best, thanks.

p.s. this is how we contain the plastic bits  - the tortilla bag contains every loose bit of plastic that passes through our household. This one holds the pretzel bag that holds the two plastic bags that contained our new checking account checks, inside of those are the cheese wrappers, the little plastic pizza box supporter (dumbest damn thing ever), the acrylic stuffing and squeaker that lasted 15 minutes tops from a dog toy... and THIS entirely makes up our family of four landfill for the week - because when the city takes your food/yard waste (thank you Marin Sanitary!), and you can recycle all of your bottles and cans, what's left?

Stupid plastic.

Breaking Bad

This is a recent collection from a 1-hour walk around town. A few pieces here (pen, hanger, lego, tupperware, tail light...) illustrate the crushing and breaking happening to larger pieces of plastic that end up in the parking lots, gutters, streets, and fields - As the plastic grows increasingly brittle from sunlight/variant temperatures, they're run over by cars and big commercial mowers, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces, until they're the ideal size to be carried along to storm drains and creeks by wind and water. 

Shout out to the humble wooden spoon - bottom right corner of the photo above -

Remember those?!

I'm pushing for a comeback of these original (and genuinely compostable) utensils.

the Vinyl Pizza Magnet (vinyl = fancy word for plastic)

Plastic collected at Memorial Park/San Anselmo Creek.

Today, I've decided to be all up on that vinyl (plastic) refrigerator magnet. "Collect 10 Magnets and Get a Free Pizza!" What are the odds someone (who coincidentally hates kitchen aesthetics) is going to order ten pizzas from this place during the time of the offer? Really, you're going to put five, six, seven... pizza magnets on your refrigerator until you reach your 10 magnet goal?  

Says on the magnet you have to hand over the 10 magnets to get the pizza  (now your refrigerator's just going to look DUMB!) But wait, what happens with all those forever-lasting magnets after that? I doubt they're being reused. Would you want a ratty ass magnet that's been on someone else's refrigerator for some indeterminate amount of time? Methinks they get thrown "away" or, dropped on a park path near a creek.

One Small Thing

Artist Lisa Swerling creates fantastical lilliputian worlds called Glass Cathedrals - It is so worth your time to visit her site to see her own creations, as well as examples of her bespoke projects.

Admittedly, this post is self serving in that I occupy a square in her piece entitled "One Small Thing" 

"Heather is a friend of mine and the inspiration for this project. She ceaselessly (and with rare humour) documents our casually 'thrown away' plastics, thus shedding light upon our local contribution to the global plastic pollution pandemic."

Truth be told, I'm just immensely honored to be a part of the project, and look forward to connecting with the other occupants of the squares.

http://glasscathedrals.com/

Bioplastic Greenwashing

Check the website of the company that makes the bioplastic products you use, or are served in restaurants, and you will read things like "certified compostable in commercial compost facilities" - others will state that their products are "disposable", but made from 100% renewable plants. 
Talk to the commercial compost facilities here in Marin, and they'll tell you that they can't accept ANY compostable plastics - straws, cups, containers, or compostable cutlery. NONE OF IT. 
Two reasons: 
1. It takes too long to decompose (180 days, compared to the average 45 it takes to turn our yard/food waste into compost)
2. Compost Facilities in Marin produce certified organic soil amendment - Add bioplastics and it can't be certified organic.
Compostable/Bioplastics are accepted in San Francisco and the East Bay - their end product (compost) is NOT certified organic and cannot be used on food crops - instead it is used for things like commercial landscaping.
Check with your own sanitation department, but here in Marin, all of those bioplastics go to landfill - or end up as litter (I pick them up all the time) - When these bioplastics end up in the waterways/ocean, they act like petroleum based plastics, contributing to the global/ocean plastic pollution crisis.
If you didn't BYO mug, cup, straw, cutlery, bag... please opt for paper - When I haven't had my own cup, I've gotten my iced drinks/smoothies/coffees in paper cups, for 20+ years - and I've been told countless times by countless well meaners that the cup will "fall apart" - I've even been told "sorry, we HAVE to serve iced drinks in plastic" - Nope. Not true - in all my years I have yet to have one of my iced drinks in a paper cup fall apart.
Please opt for paper - it IS compostable
Tell your server "No Straw"
Keep your eyes peeled for paper straws - I'm on a mission to replace the bioplastic ones with USA made Aardvark Paper Straws!
*note - paper cups/containers/straws are often lined with a plant based starch or plastic (depending on the brand) because the lining is so thin, they are still considered compostable AND compost made containing these items can still be certified organic.

Polyester Petals

My in-laws are on a road trip with dear friends way over on the other side of the country. Today they visited Old Sheldon Church outside of Beaufort SC. 

Blah blah, beautiful setting, historical stories, now used for weddings, blah - Pertinent point is that my mother in-law collected and photographed plastic debris for me.  Fifteen polyester flower petals.  Big whoop, right? Well, turns out that polyester is plastic, and it sheds microscopic lint that you can't see, but it's there. 

Ecologist Mark Browne of University College Dublin, and his colleagues collected samples of sand from 18 beaches, spanning 6 continents - Each sample contained microplastics (of course), but of those samples, 80% were polyester and acrylic fibers.

Many of these fibers come directly from our washing machines.  A single polyester garment can shed hundreds of fibers per wash, and sewage treatment plants are not equipped to filter out these microscopic pieces.

So there's that. 

I'm going to sit here a moment and contemplate the amount of clothing  in this household alone, that contains synthetic fibers... this is going to take a while. In the meantime, could someone kindly invent the best ever filtering device for our washing machines - yeah, just real quick - that would be awesome.

Friendly Skies (could be friendlier)

On a recent United Airlines flight home to San Francisco from Salt Lake City, I asked the flight attendant if I could please use my own stainless steel cup for my beverage. "I'm sorry, we aren't allowed to do that" and after handing me my drink in a little plastic tumbler, she informed me that I could pour that into my own cup. 

Not exactly what I was after. 

Nevermind that the flight attendant on the outbound flight accommodated my request without batting an eye - I guess she had special clearance to "do that". 

I reached out to United Airlines via Facebook, and they politely thanked me for my suggestions that flight attendants be allowed to fill passenger's cups (like Virgin Airlines does), and also that they consider switching from plastic cups to paper cups.

Paper cups are compostable - they could be crumpled up (thus greatly reducing the volume), and could be taken away to a commercial compost facility along with the napkins - For a ballpark idea on how much plastic waste could be averted by switching to paper cups, consider the work of Chris Jordan, whose digital artwork depicts consumerism's staggering numbers as a visual kick in the gut. Here is his piece "Plastic Cups" showing one million plastic airline cups - The number used on U.S. airlines every six hours (data from 2008). It's incomprehensible. What makes it truly unbearable is that it's entirely unnecessary. 

*Chris Jordan is also the artist responsible for the arresting "Midway" photographs of the plastic filled bodies of albatross on Midway Island.

Dental Floss

Typically:  Box = Plastic   Floss = Nylon (plastic)  And that plastic/plastic duo naturally comes packaged in a clear plastic blister pack type thing, so it can be dynamically displayed at your local drugstore. A trifecta of plastic all for one oral hygiene product. 

POH 

Container = Twist cap metal REFILLABLE (awesome!!)

Floss = Nylon (boo hiss)

Outer Packaging = Plastic blisterpack on cardboard backing (boo hiss)

Hmmm = that's 2 Boo Hiss' and 1 Awesome.

Radius 

Container = "Recyclable" #5 Plastic (snort)

Floss = Biodegradable, Organic, Silk (WHOA!)

Outer Packaging = Cardboard Box (cool)

Hmmm = This is bordering great. This one is currently my choice even though I roll my eyes with great exaggeration at the suggestion of recycling the plastic snap-box container. The fact that the 55 yards of floss within are biodegradable and organic? I'm loving it.

But I'm not done. I contacted the nice people at Radius and asked if they would please package their product in a metal/refillable container. 

No.

Something to do with floss being categorized as a "medical device" by the FDA (still checking on why POH can package in metal canisters, as well as finding out more about this "law").

BUT... they are working on something, and I might like it.  

Radius Floss "Sachets". I haven't seen them before, but I'm considering being intrigued. What if the biodegradable, organic, silk floss was contained in entirely biodegradable packets?  I'll tell you what if = I'll shout it from the rooftops - I'll give it as gifts - I'll climb onto a soapbox and grab a megaphone...

I'm patiently awaiting samples...fingers crossed.

"We Make Your World More Convenient"

That's the company quote on the homepage of Dart, "manufacturing quality single-use foodservice products worldwide". 

Thanks Dart.  Thanks a whooooooooole bunch. 

My mother in law (Texas) sent me this photo of a styrofoam cup she was given at a local restaurant, the Silver Spoon.  She was a little baffled as to why her drink was served in styrofoam when other patrons had beverages in glasses. Nonetheless, the text that wraps around this cup reads:  "An average weight paper cold cup generates 148% more solid waste by weight than a comparable foam cup."  And fittingly, this quote is featured above a graphic of a seabird flying over the ocean.  Ironic, no?  
  

Sure, paper weighs more than styrofoam - totally true. What they neglect to mention, is that while paper products will eventually break down, get recycled, or composted (leaving out paper that languishes in anaerobic landfills - that's another conversation), their super lightweight styrofoam does not. In fact, their product is so light, it's very easily blown "away" and into storm drains and gutters heading off to join the rest of the plastic bits in our oceans. I'd wager that you yourself have seen packing peanuts blowing around on the streets! This type of manipulative greenwashing sinks pretty low - It seeks to make an entirely unsustainable product seem "eco" by slapping a nonsensical statement, paired with a reassuring graphic on their product.  Justifying their saying that a paper cup generates more solid waste BY WEIGHT (key words) than a foam cup, is like saying that burritos generate more solid waste by weight than cotton candy. Therefore cotton candy is better.

September 18, 2013 - Surfrider reports that El Cerrito finalized two ordinances (passing the bag ban, AND one that bans polystyrene food containers at restaurants) - Congrats and Thanks to the progressive minds in El Cerrito! 

Compostable Plastics, kind of a bummer.

Those corn-based straws, the plant based cups, the potato-based forks and spoons...they're not recyclable - the green arrow-circle shown on the cup in the middle is a little misleading, in that it resembles a recycling symbol. They're not compostable in your home compost bin (temperatures don't get high enough).  By and large, they're currently going to landfill.

I found the following images on the fantastic blog MyPlasticFreeLife.com   They show compostable utensils AFTER 60-90 days in a commercial compost facility (Golden Gate Disposal and Recycling in San Francisco)

I took these photos at a festival in Fairfax CA recently - It was ironic that most of the (well intentioned) vendors were using these bio-plastics for their food items, while this display was set up nearby... The garbage was a-flowin' 

What I do with it all

Sometimes I'm asked what I do with all of the plastic I collect.  I make a plastic Matryoshka Brick out of it. I'll demonstrate below with the plastic trash from my own home: 

Our new banking checks arrived in these

Plastic Cheese Wrappers

Bread, Tortilla, & Chip Bags

Dish Tab Wrappers - Same brand powder form (no wrappers) leaves gritty soap splatter all over the dishes

Kid's monthly In N Out indulgence - Straws and Plastic-Wrapped-Plastic Cutlery (included in bag for cheese fries - Cheese Fries = Gross, Cutlery for Cheese Fries = Wholly Unnecessary)

Acrylic (plastic) Stuffing & Squeaker from dog toy - Kept the carcass, tossed the stuffing

Hard as rock Vinyl Eraser, Plastic Pizza Box Supporter, Milk Jug Ring, BandAid & Food Safety Seals.

 = 1 Plastic Matryoshka Brick

(plus one big blue pretzel bag)

One goes into the next, and into the next, and into the next, until everything ends up tightly compacted into one larger bag - It's dense and heavy -  My thinking is that it contains all the little landfill-bound non reusable/recyclable pieces, into one secure bundle. The intention is to keep the little pieces, and the lightweight fly-away pieces from falling out of the garbage bin, and onto the ground/into the gutters, as it is tipped into the truck on trash day. 

Incidentally, containing all of the plastic like this results in a really small weekly bag of landfill (for this family of four)  each week. I should have taken a picture of that as well... but our entire trash takeaway for the week is roughly 1/4 of a small (plastic) kitchen waste bag. The rest is recycled, or composted (we're fortunate to have a stellar municipal composting program that picks up our compost - yard and kitchen - every week - meat, bones, cheese, pizza boxes, paper towels, moldy leftovers, bacon grease, banana peels - it all goes in with the grass & yard clippings).

Best Binders EVER

guidedproducts.com   

Guided Products Select Binders

I can't gush enough about these binders. 

Let's say they are being used by students. At then end of the school year, simply unscrew the tattered cover, place in your recycling bin, and attach a new clean replacement cover. Zero landfill. Zero plastic.  

Before I found these, I searched the shelves of the usual office supply stores for plastic/vinyl free binders - I found exactly none.  Another thing I did not find, plastic free binder dividers. But Guided Products has them in sets of 5 or 8 - I'm as thrilled as is possible to be about dividers - super thrilled.

Recycled 8 Tab Dividers

Kraft Tab Divider Labels

The Great Pacific Backpack Gyre

I bought some of this stuff (back to school shopping lists). The rest of it was acquired via school events that raise money by selling novelty items, some of it is from dentists offices or the orthodontist - perpetuating the thing we do to kids where they always "get something". It's all disposable (or too poor in quality to refill/reuse). It's all landfill, and all of it will last forever.  This is part of what has spurred me to create a plastic free back to school set for my son's middle school - if it is well received this fall, I hope to expand to the whole school.

Happy Birthday America

50 stars and 13 stripes made from bits of plastic collected on the streets of San Anselmo

Balloons tethered by plastic curly ribbon were tied to countless posts

I was only able to take a few quick images as we walked the crowded sidewalks into downtown Sausalito to catch the fireworks last night. Two factors, there were throngs of people moving en masse, and I was testing the limits of my family, who would like it very much if I restricted my plastic-collecting to dog walks, or more specifically, times that I'm not with them.

Catching the Waterfall

...with a thimble. In the rain. That's what it's like to pick up the plastic on the streets, and the cigarette butts on the beaches, and the chewed up, mangled straws teetering on the edge of the storm drains...   

While we comb the streets and the beaches with our "clean-up days", and fill up our dirty Debbie Do Good tote bags with the discarded bits of urban and suburban flotsam, the factories are churning out more and more packaging and single-use, disposable plastics than we could ever hope to collect.

There's room for improvement with this arrangement.

Surely we'll keep picking it up, but we've got to stop making all of this crap out of materials that last forever.  

I mean, gum in blister packs?  Seriously?

 I can't remember ever giving a moments thought to a stick of gum. Can't remember ever wishing they'd preserve it like space food, and then present it like birth control.  

Is the humble gum wrapper of yore just too old school?

I have a LOT of items in my Top 5 Most Egregious Single Use Plastics List, and in the upper reaches of my top 5, are plastic tampon applicators. 

Okay, it's a delicate area. But let's be honest, it's not that delicate.  We're talking a ten second, if we're being generous, "application" at most. The cardboard applicators aren't like corrugated shipping boxes, they're relatively smooth - but for the fragile flowers among us, maybe use of a personal lubricant to bridge the gap, so to speak. It gets easier with practice.

If you're on the fence about it, grab a calculator and estimate the number of plastic tampon applicators you'll use in your lifetime. Then multiply that number by forever because that's how long they'll last in the landfill, and about how long it will take in the ocean for them to break into thousands of tiny pieces called microplastics, from constant exposure to the sun, salt water, and waves. 

Maybe it's supposed to look like a party favor because there's confetti inside. You got your Period!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!

The Floss Pick

This is clearly something very important to our modern culture, it needs to be used only briefly, but here on the planet forever. We can't be messing with wooden toothpicks like we're Paul Bunyan or something - let's be civilized.

I believe it is customary to immediately discard the picks on the street as soon as they come out of your mouth.

When you throw them down near cigarette butts, they blend in.

---

Imagine my relief when I spotted these Floss Pick CONTAINERS at the Container Store!  It's a plastic case for your Floss Picks - AHmazing. You know you'll have this forever and ever.

Here there are on the PikBox website - Operators are standing by - Seriously, they want to help you organize your purse.

Ouch.

My youngest son attends a really special little school - like a dozen kids per class kind of little. The play area for the school is one of the things that ultimately sold us on the place - There's a creek running through it, giant trees, an outdoor "theater" - up top there's a new basketball court bordered by a "poetry fence" (kids hang/rearrange wooden plaques with words painted on them) - it's unique. However, a plan is afoot to introduce a synthetic turf field for the kids to play safely on a uniform, softer, sanitized surface. (Gah!)

Photos by Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer

The heart of the problem, Max Liboiron said, is that the oceans are downstream from literally everywhere, so plastic debris ranging from discarded water bottles to stray supermarket bags washes into streams, flows down rivers, and eventually to the sea. Liboiron, who spoke at the Peabody Museum as part of the "Trash Talk" series, shows a sample of plastic-filled ocean water.

I organized my data on how microplastics from such a field will make their way to the creek, as well as the latest information about the bio-accumulation of toxic chemicals in our bodies over time. I put it all in my awesome paper-board binder (guidedproducts.com) - beautifully highlighted with my new pencil highlighters, and biked on over to the school's Focus Group Meeting.

I had this.

I spoke with the other parents, the board members, and the School Director about a range of school issues - it was all going so well. 

Then it came time for me to weigh in on the astro-turf proposal. It did not go anything like version I had rehearsed in my head.

Instead, I played the part (rather convincingly) of the hysterical environmentalist.  I went from rational and informed, to rattled and inflamed. 

My take away is the need to recognize when a person, or a group of people want something, they're not going to be keen on "highlighted data" that is contrary to what they want and believe

What I SHOULD have done, is have the beautifully highlighted data as backup - I could have done a cursory mention of the risks, and then put my enthusiasm and can-do attitude into presenting an alternative.

Duh. Time to reset, and work on the positive, attractive alternatives.

I've got this.

Student Store

​via Gizmodo Design 

article by ROSA GOLIJAN (2009)

​LOTS of disposable going on in classrooms - If we're not talking about it with the kids, and finding sustainable alternatives, we're literally teaching them to fall in line as mindless consumers.