New Ideas to Cut Down on Plastic

I learned about this site from Ideal Bite. Ideally we don't want to use a Dry Cleaner at all, because the chemicals used in the process of dry cleaning are really bad for us and the environment. Not to mention the waste involved! Look at all the plastic they use to wrap those clothes after "cleaning" them!

I have a few clothes that need to be dry-cleaned and they have been sitting around my house not being worn for close to 2 years because I just couldn't bring myself to go to the dry cleaners anymore. Well, good thing I didn't get rid of them because I found a Dry Cleaners locally that cleans clothes using liquid carbon dioxide. It claims to be non-toxic, non-hazardous, non-carcinogenic and has no chemical smell!

I can't wait to try it. If you live in the San Diego area you can find one closest to you at:
Hangers Cleaners.

Then you can take your Clothesnik bag with you and help cut down on plastic waste too!

You Can Help!

Each year Californians use 19 billion plastic bags. Those bags end up in landfills or in the ocean.
Trash in landfills is a major contributor to greenhouse gases that cause global warming. And plastic bags in the ocean are harmful to marine life - hundreds of thousands of marine mammals die each year from ingesting plastic bags.
Plastics are also harmful to human life because they never fully break down in the environment and end up as toxins that threaten human health.
Help reduce the use of plastic bags in California. Email your state senator to support the Plastic Bag Litter Reduction Act (AB 2058).
http://action.edf.org/campaign/CA_plasticbags

Compostable Plastic Alternatives

Check out this website. For those of you that love the convenience of plastic bags, you can now get guilt-free plastice bags at BioBag!

Action: Encourage your favorite take out spots to switch to 100% compostable plastic!

Getting rid of Plastic Bags

I'm going to get right to solutions, since you can all look up the facts about plastic (and hopefully share it here!)

I mean, what did we use before plastic was invented?

We used paper and destroyed a gazillion trees, thus impacting our environment by threatening the very air we breathe. Gosh, I gotta hand it to us humans. We are so bright!

Well, now that we have learned that lesson (hopefully) we are recycling paper like crazy and I know that the grocery store I shop at uses paper bags made from 100% post-consumer recycled paper.

So let's tackle the plastic bag problem, since that is the most obvious and easiest to solve:

1. Use your own cloth bags at the grocery store. You should have several since I'm sure there are days when you want to buy more than one bag full of groceries. Cloth bags can be purchased right there at the grocery store and they are not very expensive. Or if you have someone in the family that crochets you can have them make up a few. They only take an hour or two to make.

2. If you don't have a cloth bag yet, ask for paper at the checkstand. If your grocery store does not use paper bags made from recycled paper, ask for the manager and URGE them to use recycled paper bags.

3. You can even bring your own veggie and fruit bags so you don't have to use plastic inside the plastic! Use those net laundry bags or get creative and make your own!

4. If you have any old plastic bags laying aroung the house right now, do not throw them away! You can take them to your local grocery store to be recycled or you can reuse them yourself. If you don't have your cloth grocery bags yet, you can use your old plastic bags for a pretty long time until they wear out. Then you can take them to your grocery store to recycle them.

5. Newspaper bags. If your newspaper is delivered in a plastic bag, make sure you recycle those bags too. You can also urge your delivery person to only use plastic when necessary. If you have a crafty person in the family, the plastic newspaper bags can be cut in long stips and used to crochet nice chair covers for your outdoor furniture and door mats. You can also make water bottle holders for hiking. Again, by being creative, a lot of plastic can be reused to make something useful that will keep it out of our landfills and our oceans.

OK, now I want to hear what the rest of you recommend. You can comment here or email me. I will post all ideas!