Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is the process of extracting natural gas from shale rock layers deep within the earth by injecting highly pressurized fluids–including combinations of highly toxic chemicals–into the shale to release the trapped gas.  The process was exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act in 2005, which means companies don’t even have to disclose […]
If I asked you to list the problems with plastic, you might mention toxic chemicals like BPA or phthalates; or the fact that it doesn’t biodegrade; or that animals ingest it; or that there is a toxic soup of plastic swirling around in the world’s oceans.  Those are the issues I’ve focused on for the past […]
As an anti-plastics blogger, I should be able to write about the gulf oil spill in my sleep. The connections seem obvious. Plastic comes from oil. Our demand for plastic drives up the demand for oil, as do our demands for all the other products made from oil. I should be able to write about […]
This just in: Oregon plastics recycler, Agri-Plas, has begun converting plastic waste back into crude oil. According to Businesswire, “the company recently delivered its first full tanker (8,200 gallons) of oil to a refinery in Tacoma, Wash., which translates to a final delivery of 196 barrels of oil.” The method was developed by Plas2Fuel, a […]
By now, everyone has heard about the terrible oil spill in the San Francisco Bay last week. Friday, I stopped at the wharf on my way to the Green Festival, to see for myself. The smell was terrible. Like walking into a chemical factory, except it was outside! Oil floated on top of the water […]
Why avoid plastic? Â I originally wrote this post in July 2007, just one month into my plastic-free experiment. Â It’s now May 2015, and in the past 8Â years, I have learned a lot more about plastic — where it comes from and what problems are associated with it. Â Here, then, is an updated summary of why […]