Bye-Bye, Bags and Bottles: This Woman Lives Plastic-Free
Wed, 23 Apr 2014 06:26:34 PDT
A baby albatross with a stomach full of plastic trash changed Beth Terry’s life.
The Oakland, Calif.–based accountant had been living on a diet of frozen dinners and plastic-wrapped energy bars her entire adult life. She’d regularly buy beverages in plastic bottles without a second thought.
But in the summer of 2007, she heard a radio interview with Colin Beavan, who, over the course of 12 months, deliberately generated as little garbage as possible. That day she visited Beavan’s blog to learn about his No Impact Project and saw the photograph of the dead albatross. Its parents had likely fed it the plastic, thinking that it was food. “Seeing that photo shocked me into action,” says Terry. “The baby was full of plastic stuff that I used every day.”
Since then, Terry has reduced her annual plastic waste to 2 percent of the national average, launched a blog, My Plastic Free Life, and written a book, Plastic Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too.
Terry began her conversion to a virtually plastic-free lifestyle gradually, knowing this would make it easier to succeed. First she used up an item she already had at home, then tried to find a plastic-free version. “I would ask myself if I could live without it—and if not, then I would keep using it until I could find an alternative,” she said.
She also wanted to know her personal plastic footprint, so each week she collected her plastic waste, tallied it, and posted a photo along with the results on her blog.
The first week Terry tracked her usage, her plastic waste weighed 20 oz.—and her footprint kept shrinking. By 2009, she had generated 3.7 pounds of plastic for the entire year, about 4 percent of the U.S. per capita average.
To this day—with the help of a lot of glass jars and reusable cloth sacks—Terry uses a minimal amount of plastic, such as prescription bottles (which cannot be reused) and the small plastic rings that are sealed around glass jars.
Terry maintains her almost plastic-free life, she said, by adhering to the following eight guidelines:
1. Use glass jars and stainless steel containers of all sizes to store your food; they can also be used to package your lunch.
2. Avoid the plastic tubs that hold berries by buying them at the farmers market—you can put the fruit in your own reusable bag and give the containers back to the farmer on the spot or return them the next time you go.
3. Bring reusable produce sacks and containers to the grocery store or farmers market. (Terry puts bread in the sacks and fish and cheese in the containers.)
4. Find markets that sell locally produced milk and yogurt in ceramic or glass containers and return them to the store for reuse. (Terry buys from Saint Benoît Creamery and Straus Family Creamery.)
5. Bring your own doggie bag (reusable container) to restaurants.
6. Carry around a set of your own reusable utensils.
7. Consider making your own household cleaners, deodorant, shampoo, and conditioner to cut down on plastic bottle consumption. (Terry makes her own deodorant using baking soda and tea tree oil and uses the "no poo" method of washing and conditioning her hair with baking soda and apple cider vinegar.)
8. Wear as little synthetic clothing as possible. (Terry says that the one synthetic-free item she hasn’t been able to find is underwear. She invites anyone who makes a synthetic-free version to contact her.)
Terry realizes that some things just can’t be found without plastic packaging. In instances like these, she recommends buying the largest size available and portioning it into smaller sizes at home.
“At this point, it’s really easy for me to live this way, but it wasn’t always that way,” she said. “The hardest part is doing research and finding the alternatives.”
Related stories on TakePart:
• 10 Awesome Green Victories That Will Give You Hope on Earth Day
• 6 Horrible Oil Spills Since Deepwater Horizon That You Probably Didn't Hear About
• 7 Landmarks to Visit Before Climate Change Ruins Them
Original article from TakePart
