When I left my home in California last month to care for my dad in Maryland, I struggled to figure out how to do it plastic-free.  Moving across the country can involve a lot of disposable plastic if you’re not careful: plastic bubble wrap inside your boxes, plastic tape to close the boxes, and plastic […]
Bea Johnson from The Zero Waste Home has created a new mobile website for finding shops that offer products without packaging. Â No matter where in the world you live, it’s possible there is a shop nearby where you can bring your own bags and containers to buy foods or personal care and cleaning products without […]
Sign the petition to ask eBay to quit recommending plastic bubble wrap. Cory Trusty of Aquarian Bath (a small business owner and sponsor of this blog who is committed to reducing her plastic footprint) got tired of all the plastic bubble wrap she receives when ordering supplies from eBay sellers.  While she has found her own unique […]
Dear Lotus Foods: My husband and I used our old rice cooker a lot. Â We used it so much, that we burned out the fuse and had to replace it. Â I was pretty stoked about being able to fix our appliance and make it last longer instead of tossing it out. Â So recently, when the […]
When you write a book called Plastic-Free, and your publisher strives to create the book without any plastic materials, you might expect the book will be offered to the public without plastic. Â But expect the unexpected. Â Logic does not always prevail. Â I’ve received a couple of reports of my book being covered in plastic: one […]
Six years ago, Michael and I got a notice that a Trader Joe’s grocery store was going to be opening down the street from our house. This was back before I had woken up to the problems with plastic, and the news thrilled me. I had visions of all the fresh salads I was going […]
It’s frustrating when electronic gadgets break, and not just because you have to go through the hassle of fixing or replacing them but because in doing so, a lot of waste is created. So when the headphone jack on my phone stopped working intermittently, I put off doing anything about it for several months. But […]
One thing I learned to my dismay back in 2007 when I decided to try and live without plastic is that without exception, all frozen foods come packaged in some kind of plastic. Even cardboard containers like ice cream cartons are lined with plastic. That information sucked for me, the convenience food junkie. I did […]
I’ve been looking for a webcam for a while because I want to be able to meet with people via Skype rather than travel to meet up in person. I’ve done way too much flying this year, and all those emissions are weighing hard on my conscience. IÂ hoped to find a secondhand webcam rather than […]
My vision of a plastic-free, zero-waste world is not a singles club. No, I’m not discriminating against uncoupled people.  But I am a bigot when it comes to the three categories of Singles products, all of which have been featured on the new Facebook Plastic Crap Wall of Shame lately. The first two, I’ve written about extensively, and the […]