Grateful for the Ride

Finding ways to restore and sustain this beautiful planet of ours through grass roots, legislative, corporate and personal consumption efforts. We’re glad you’re here!

• 

  A proud member of the Beyond Plastics Organization! Welcome, members!

Let’s make some ripples!

*Downcycled: Technically, plastic cannot be recycled as it’s not a “closed loop” material (such as aluminum, metal or glass). Virgin plastic must be added to downcycled plastic to make it into anything of use. The most a plastic item can be downcycled is twice. After this, it will break down indefinitely over hundreds of years, unable to be organically absorbed into our environment.

• 

  A great depiction of the plastic supply chain, with some added information about its impacts during manufacturing and end of life.

• 

• Airplane Cups
  Plastic abounds on airplanes.  Every passenger receives a plastic cup, sometimes TWO (if you order tea, they hand you one for your teabag!!) that’s promptly thrown away after a few hours.  That’s 52 million cups a day.  “Every day, the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization (ATO) provides service to more than 43,000 flights and 2.6 million airline passengers across more than 29 million square miles of airspace. With an airspace system as vast and complex as ours,
• Catharine Blaine K-8 Waste Audit
  Summary: There were a few key discoveries we had by the end of this audit: RESULT:
• Coffee Cups
  Truly, my journey started November 9th, 2019 when I began to think about what life would be like without plastic.   One of the biggest offenders of Single Use Plastic (SUP) I notice in the city of Seattle are single use coffee cups (58 billion are thrown away each year in the United States).    How could I lower my plastic footprint?   I’ve come to realize half of the battle to trimming your “WASTEline” is changing your habits. 
• Colored Markers
  It may be awhile before they come out with bamboo or cardboard markers, but fear not!  Terracycle can recycle your “dead” – ANY dead colored marker, pen cap, etc.!   Let me tell you, with two busy artists on my hands, I’ve got PLENTY of those! The TerraCycle site gives you a couple of options, typically.   You can find a location in your town or neighborhood that has a collection box (the kind you’re interested in using),
• Cottage Cheese
  I love cottage cheese because it packs a lot of protein and pairs nicely with sweet or savory dishes. But I’ll be honest… dairy generates a lot of plastic waste. TLDR: My favorite way to purchase Cottage Cheese is bulk. It’s more expensive, but if you think about the alternative (container taking 500+ years to break down) I’m happy to pay a premium for cottage cheese. Plastic is a synthetic and highly malleable material made from
• Deodorant
  I’m giving up plastic in 2019, and just yesterday, I ran out of deodorant! According to the 2017 census, there are currently 247,813,910 adults living in the United States. If the average American adult uses 10 deodorant sticks a year, we’d be throwing 2,478,139,100 empty deodorant applicators into the garbage dumps. Even if we did recycle them, they present an added challenge because deodorant applicators are mixed material items – items that contain different kinds of
• Deodorant: update!
  A clear winner has been confirmed!  Wave your hands in the air like you just don’t care – you can rest soundly knowing you can not only SMELL good, but avoid using pit stick with harmful chemicals AND save the planet at the same time! TOPS: Island Thyme – Grapefruit Mandarin.   Also love: Cherry vanilla.  For guys: Spruce and Fir.   Completely compostable packaging!  Hooray!   Kaiame Naturals.  Excellent packaging that can be (and has been) reused indefiniately.  Primal Pit Paste
• Drive-Thrus
  Drive-Thru Tips for Reducing Unnecessary Plastic There are several ways you could approach this, and it’s important to tackle because though Drive-thrus are convenient, they are VERY tough on the environment from a packaging AND emissions perspective if you drive a combustion engine and leave the engine running while you wait in line.   Here are some suggestions: 
• Floss
  Best: Bamboo Switch! Purchased from Tacoma Soap Distillery! Pretty Dan good: Dental floss containers are troublesome because they too have a number of various plastic parts within the floss container that are likely NOT the same grade of plastic.  Thus, most of these containers are tossed into the trash heap.   I have been using Dental Lace for the past year with mixed success.  The floss is biodegradable, but breaks easily while I floss my teeth.
• Glass vs. Plastic
  A strong argument to use plastic is its lightweight characteristics, which takes less energy to transport. Glass is heavier and definitely takes energy to create and recycle, as does plastic. But when we consider materials, it’s important to look BEYOND mere transport, and consider extraction, health and end of life. Glass recycling is more efficient than plastic recycling, given it presents a closed loop/homogeneous waste stream that can be reused indefinitely, compared to plastic that has
• Goal accomplished: Only 20 gallons of plastic in 2019!!
  Happy New Year!   I am happy to report I did it – I managed to get through the year using just 20 gallons of plastic!   What does 20 gallons of plastic look like? Like this: That’s IT.   One ENTIRE year of plastic fit into that little trash bin!  You can’t imagine how good that feels!  My kids and I learned SOOOO much in the process, too! Where did it come from, you ask?
• My mission
  Every year I like to set big bold New Years’ Resolutions. I mean – goals that seem impossible and really put the fright in me!  It scares me to share this with you because it’s very personal. It also brings me joy because I look forward to the day with great excitement that these things come to pass (tips, inspiration thoughts and advice please share!).   Until that time, I hope you enjoy my blog and
• Ovens and the “M” before the Rs: Maintain
  There are other Rs, and even an “M” before “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle”: Maintain Repair Refurbish After reading about the Circular Diagram published by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, I decided to give “maintain” a shot. Every time I cooked on high level broil, our beloved “Ovey” would short and completely power off. I contacted a technician to come in and give her a peek. Could our 24-year-old oven be repaired? He diagnosed the problem: an older
• Pads. Period.
  I no longer need them, but I’ve got a couple of incredible growing  girls that do/will!  Thankfully, we have options!  Commercially produced sanitary pads have some bold promises, but these features are backed by a toxic cocktail of harmful chemicals that impact the earth and air as pointed out in this article: “The plastic layer which is used to make a disposable sanitary pad stain-free and the chemicals used in producing it get further transferred between
• Plants and soil
  I have a couple of gardening goals this year: 1. Replace the potted plants I killed last year 2. Declare war on my dandelions. These projects require potted plants and soil, and both of these items come packaged in: P   L   A   S   T  I  C  !  !  ! What’s a person to do?  Let’s talk about that. Potted plant options: 1. Get plant starts from a friend who enjoys gardening 2.
• Plastic Sandwich Bags
  I have a two tiered approach for plastic bags. I’ve had a lot of friends ask me whether I would be throwing away all of my plastic this year based on my plastic free goal. The answer? No! Of course not! The way I see it, the plastic can either continue to exist in a useful way, or exist in a garbage dump. Since it’s going to be around for 30,000+ years, I opt for the
• Protein Powder, etc. .
  You can find protein powder bulk! Remember to bring paper bags, otherwise you’ll be using their film plastic bulk bags. It’s easy to purchase paper lunch sacks right from Winco, or bring your own smallish paper bags from home. Some store will offer customers smaller paper bags near the mushrooms. Context + more info: When a friend told me the single biggest impact I could have on my carbon footprint was to adopt a vegan lifestyle, I sat
• Protein Powder: update!
    When a friend told me the single biggest impact I could have on my carbon footprint was to adopt a vegan lifestyle, I sat up and begrudgingly paid attention.  He’d told me – simply – that eating a hamburger would have a greater impact on the planet than driving a Humvee around for a week.  I was shocked and deftly changed my eating habits.   Enter Vega Organic Protein Powder… my favorite vegan protein supplement
• Shampoo
  Oh my goodness. Shampoo aisles are teeming with plastic bottles. Their life span is too short (~6 months) and their fragments, once discarded, last for centuries: “Can it really be true that half the plastic ever made was produced in the past 15 years? That a trillion plastic bags are used worldwide each year, with an average “working life” of just 15 minutes? That some nine million tons of plastic waste go into the oceans every
• The Story of Plastic – Speaker’s Panel Recording
  The #storyofplastic is the story BIG PLASTIC does not want you to see. Even though watching together in person is a challenge, we can still flatten the curve and be together virtually. Beyond Plastics Greater Seattle is hosted the streaming link through 8/1 AND hosted a follow up Speaker’s and Q&A Panel on 7/31@1pm PST. Thanks to all who joined us for this event! We can no longer show the film, but you can view our
• Toilet Paper – UPDATE
  Purchase from “Who Gives a Crap,” a natural, dye-free, earth-friendly toilet paper wrapped in… paper! From their site: “We’re determined to prove that toilet paper is about more than just wiping bums. We make all of our products with environmentally friendly materials, and we donate 50% of our profits to help build toilets for those in need. To date we’ve donated over $1.8m Aussie dollars (that’s the equivalent of over $1,300,000!) to charity and saved a
• Waffles
  TLDR: Stay away from teflon waffle irons. Purchase cast iron. Healthier, and built to last. I found a cool one on Etsy. We are a waffle loving family. Our waffle iron was electric, worked fine, but I eventually took it my favorite e-recycler 1 Green Planet because the griddle was caked with filth, difficult to clean and the final straw was the Teflon coating. It was beginning to effect the taste of our waffles and I
• Wenatchee Zero Waste
  When I had my home audited a couple of years ago, one of the biggest pieces of advice I received from Balderston Associates, commercial and residential sustainability consulting firm (quite good), was to limit my air travel. WHAT!?! I love to travel! How could I possibly tame my wanderlust? But cut back I must. Up to this point in my life, a fortunate inhabitant of the planet, I’ve given very little thought to what I left
• Whipped Cream
  Whipped cream.  Indispensable and therefore, worthy of  finding a good Earth friendly solution! Whether you’re helping reduce your carbon footprint by going vegan or not, there are dairy and dairy-free ways to mitigate plastic consumption when you have dessert! Dairy: Good: aluminum cans w plastic cap can be recycled. Better: whipped cream in cartons or glass bottles with a small plastic cap.  Caps are too small to be recycled and even if they were, 80% of
• Why refuse to use plastic anything?
  1. It’s getting hot.  I rent my basement and for about a week last summer it was tough for my kids and I to get a good night’s sleep.   Since our basement is currently rented, we are unable to escape the heat down there (and hey, we’re Seattlelites, so no AC either).  How hot has it gotten since you were born?  Read this NYT article to find out.  Plastic consists of oil and other toxins.  If