A few weeks ago, my friend Diane MacEachern of Big Green Purse reached out to me about an investigation for a new class-action lawsuit that is just getting underway against companies that are promoting their baby wipes as “earth-friendly” or “biodegradable.” If you know me, you know I hate greenwashing and have railed against the […]
13-year-old Cambria Bartlett contacted me last year to do a phone interview about living plastic-free.  She and a group of other homeschoolers, calling themselves Heirs to Our Oceans, were creating a video about caring for our oceans, and Cambria’s personal focus was on plastic. Since then, I’ve met Cambria in person and learned what exceptional […]
My friends Jay and Chantal, owners of the online shop Life Without Plastic, are brand new book authors! Their book, Life Without Plastic, was just released today, and I’m very honored to have been asked to write the foreword. Here’s what I wrote: Ten years ago, I read an article about ocean plastic pollution – […]
The Problem: Finding 100% recycled or tree-free toilet paper that doesn’t come wrapped in plastic. Since 2007, my toilet paper of choice has been cardboard cases of Seventh Generation recycled rolls that come individually-wrapped in thin paper wrappers. I ordered it from Amazon and even had a subscription at one time. But over the years, I’ve […]
Rebecca Newburn is a middle school science teacher in Marin County, California, who, with a group of elementary and middle school students, successfully lobbied the Larkspur-Corte Madera School District to adopt a resolution making October “Zero Waste Month.”  And together with zero waste specialists Anastacia Nicole and Kathryn Kellogg of GoingZeroWaste, has created a program for cities […]
It’s been a while. I spent all of August in Maryland with my family in the house where I grew up, celebrating birthdays, helping out my dad and brother, learning to love baseball (I even bought a Washington Nationals baseball cap), visiting with plastic-free friends, and driving for twelve hours each way to experience one […]
In March, I wrote about microfiber laundry pollution from synthetic clothing and mentioned that soon there would be a special bag available called Guppy Friend to catch those microfibers before they are rinsed down the drain. Well, the bag is now available and the company sent me one to test out. Guppy Friend is a […]
The last time I wrote about doing laundry without plastic was June 17, 2009. Â Obama was our new president, and Michael Jackson was still alive (he died a week later). Â It’s time for an update. Plastic-Free Soap Nuts Laundry Soap Back in the day, we used powdered Ecover laundry detergent, in part because it came […]
Local readers may be surprised when I confess that I’ve walked past Three Stone Hearth on University Ave in Berkeley a bunch of times over the years and never gone in. Â I didn’t go in because I didn’t know what it was. If I had gone in, I would have discovered a nearly plastic-free, zero […]
Since going plastic-free, I generally avoid processed, packaged foods. Â So I haven’t enjoyed the Day-Glo orange of Kraft Mac & Cheese in years. Â (Yeah, I used to live on that stuff in the 80’s and 90’s, with extra cheese added because, despite the advertising claims, it really isn’t the “cheesiest.”) But the other day, Michael […]