A few months ago, Sreenivasulu.M.R, a software professional in Bangalore, India, emailed me out of the blue to let me know about his project building intricate miniatures of world-renowned architecture out of used plastic pen refills. These days, a lot of my emails go unanswered and even unread because my time is consumed with caring for […]
Three years ago, artist Dara Herman Zierlein emailed me out of the blue: Dear My Plastic Free life, Thank you for all that you do and the amazing resources!  Below is a link to my watercolor paintings dealing with multiple themes around pollution and the consequences of using disposable one time use plastic items, like water […]
Artist Tess Felix creates amazing portraits out of plastic trash she collects near her home in Stinson Beach, CA. Â She reached out to me in early 2012 when I was finishing up the manuscript of my book to see if she could do my portrait for the book’s jacket. Â Sadly, it was too late for […]
Last year was my first trip to Black Rock City and the annual Burning Man festival of art, fire, and radical creativity, as well as dust storms, cracked feet, and dry, bloody boogers.  I can’t wait to go back. This year, I’ll be part of the Earth Guardians’ Plastic Footprint project — combining art and education […]
Pam Longobardi calls her art “Interventions.”  She spends many hours gathering up plastic trash from the world’s beaches and bringing it into galleries where it can be positioned, examined, seen.  Her current expedition, Drifters Project Kefalonia:  The Giant Sea Cave Excavation, was inspired by a heartbreakingly poignant discovery she made last summer in Kefalonia, Greece.  The […]
The International Plastic Quilt Project encourages people to live plastic-free and to make art from the plastic waste that they do end up with. I met up with Oakland resident Amy Chovnick last month to be a part of the following video, explaining the idea behind the project and how you can get involved. It’s simple! […]
Today is World Oceans Day. It’s also, appropriately, No Plastic Day. The ocean is magnificent and yet fragile. In awe of the ocean’s vastness, we humans discard our waste, imagining that the sea will wash away the things we don’t want. We believe that oil, plastics, mercury, fertilizers, pesticides will all simply disappear. And yet, […]
Fun interview with Plastiquarium artist David Edgar who creates fish from recycled plastic detergent bottles and who edited the book Fantastic Recycled Plastic.
Last week I learned that you don’t have to travel to Kamilo Beach in Hawaii or Midway Island to find mounds of plastic trash. No, there’s plenty of it just up the California coast at Kehoe Beach, part of the Point Reyes National Seashore. And I got to see it. Artists Richard Lang and Judith […]
I’ve been meeting just the trashiest people in the last couple of weeks. Um… trashy in a good way. Trashy Beachkeeper I met Sara Bayles after the Blogger Beach Cleanup on October 24. You know, the one I missed. Sara’s blog, The Daily Ocean, tracks her goal of collecting trash on the beach in Santa […]