Plastic Waste Challenge February

Having stumbled upon Fakeplasticfish I decided I wanted to take the plastic challenge. Simply put I wanted to see what we throw away in plastic waste for a year. I started this in February. Some of the plastic (I am sure there'll be more) I wouldn't normally assemble. But since I am in the process of setting up an emergency kit I'll have a bit more in the way of unrecyclable plastic. The questions that follow are directly from fakeplasticfish's site.


Food
Ketchup bottle (not recyclable in my area, a #7)
cheese wrappers
frozen blueberry bag
flax meal bag
milk bottle tops
soba noodle bag
ziplock bag

Mail/shipping
Tape from a box
several plastic envelope windows
packing slip envelope
Chase fake gift card

Misc.
Empi bag for electrodes
 sunglasses containers clamshell packaging
9 plastic covers for things like toothbrush, sharpie pen, scissors (all for first aid kit)
 random plastic bags

Total weight: 7 3/4 oz or 220g
Total items: 40 (including all envelope windows)


What items can I replace with plastic free or less plastic? 

Ketchup bottle. I plan to make my own this summer when the tomatoes are rolling me over. The cheese and the blueberry bags I can do without. I am working on cheese making to supplement and reduce the plastic there. I can't seem to find any cheese that doesn't come in giant wheels that is wax wrapped. The soba noodles I can buy in bulk and have been. This bag was from my mother who didn't like the noodles.

What items would I be willing to give up if a plastic free alternative doesn't exist?

Most of what I have isn't from any product that comes in plastic. Just household essentials or stuff for the emergency kit.

How many of these items are from "convenience" foods that I could make from scratch?  


None, well if you count cheese as a convenience food then I guess one, but I am working on that.

What Items are essential and do not have a plastic alternative?

None.

What changes might be necessary to reduce my plastic consumption?

Really get on the junk mail delivery. I hate all the crap plastic windows that show up. I did the recent push to get off the junk mail lists, now I have to see what happens with that.

What one plastic item am I willing to give up or replace this week?


Since none of these items are essential I am going to say nothing here.

Are there any other conclusions I can draw? 


I'd say we did really well. Much room for improvement, I plan on going through preserve to get our toothbrushes that should eliminate at least 2 useless plastic pieces every 3 months. I need to make constant choices when out in public or purchasing things. I think knowing what I know about plastic now will keep me "awake" instead of a mindless shopper.

Warning / Computer Sense

Jen and I are going to move to comment moderation now. So if you comment on any of are post and they don't show up, just be patient until we approve them. Since we don't get many comments, this shouldn't be a problem. When we get up to a million follows, we'll go back. LOL. : )

We received 5 comments on our old blog that contained links in some foreign language. I'm 100% sure the links are to spam/porn. I've deleted them but unfortunately, you can't report anyone for doing this (correct me if I'm wrong). They only way to avoid this kind of stuff is to moderate your comments. So, we've chosen to moderate comments for now. I'd feel terrible if someone got a virus or directed to bad sites through our blog, even if it was by accident.

So please use computer sense if you see this on other blogs. If in doubt, DON'T CLICK!!!

Updates on Life without a microwave

So the whole microwave revelation started with pizza and although warmed up pizza in an oven is glorious, it's nothing to compared to pie. See mom made us cherry tarts (from last years frozen cherries thank you) for good ole' George Washington's B-day. I can't remember why to bake a cherry pie but regardless, cherry tarts ensued.  So last night I turned on the oven to 350* placed the tart in the center and set the timer for 20 minutes. When the timer buzzed out came the tart all beautiful and full of itself, smelling like loveliness. We dished up our frozen yogurt, split the tart in half and set to work on enjoyment. The crust got me first all flakey and wonderful nothing like the soggy resemblance of crust in a microwaved slice of pie. Evenly heated every bite was warm, no hot spots. It was one of the few stand out meals that is so exponentially better than it's microwaved counter part I can't even put it into words. Try it, it's brilliant.

Other meals are sometimes easier or harder depending on frozen ingredients and if I had any forethought. It's been a month now since the removal, most of that time was made of pre cooked meals I had on hand for my surgery which got postponed. So the forethought on meal planning was minimal. Take it out frozen stick in oven, cook, eat. Now with most of those meals gone planning for thawing ingredients will be a challenge. I am not looking forward to using the oven when it's like 100* outside this summer. But we are planning on building a solar oven to assist with that. Or we'll just live off food we cook on the BBQ. Further updates on the microwave situation as we progress through this year.

Junk mail

Getting of junk mail is seriously a pain in the ass! I have however found some sites that are truly helpful. I spent much of the morning on the phone or sending emails about being removed from junk mail lists. Here are the sites I found useful.

Privacyrights.org 
DMAchoice.org
41pounds.org

I called DirectTV to (with any luck) get off there mailing lists, since we don't own a TV it seems pointless to keep shredding the paper. At DMA choice I removed myself from all magazines, catalogs, and other random mailings. I however called about the credit card opt out at 888-567-8688, It's through opt-out-preescreen which can be accessed through DMA's website. With any luck I will stop receiving credit card applications from Skank of America. 


Seriously I would love it if I could check my mail only once per week maybe get just the bills from the crapy guys who need to actually mail a bill every month. (thank you city of cheney) My occasional Organic Gardening magazine is the one joy I have when I get the mail. 


Picture and another useful article from stopjunkmail.

Vinegar

In an effort to reduce the amount of plastic that crosses the threshold of this house I think I want to make vinegar. I use that for everything! It just seems such a waste to keep buying it in evermore plastic. But I don't want to make the yummy kind like ACV, or white wine, anything that essentially gets used in cooking. I have found a few recipes and I think I am going to mix them and give em` a go. I have had major success in kombucha brewing, which is a form of vinegar. I think if I can get something really acidic  it can be used in a similar fashion as the store bought white vinegar. We'll see, after all I am not going for edible, just for cleaning and laundry the bulk of my vinegar use. I'll post back with some kombucha pictures and the recipe for the vinegar.

Girlyman

These guys satisfy the inner choir geek in me. I just found them from another blog I follow. Enjoy fellow 3 part harmony dorks!

Toothpaste

Sorry I've been slacking on the blogging and it's not for lack of topics either. Mostly I've been researching flooring, chicken coops, water footprints and humanure. All over the place. I recently came across a blog titled fake plastic fish, Beth, the author of the the blog has been on a remove plastic journey. And that lead me to the great pacific ocean gyre.

I do promise to write about all the things I have been researching but for now I want to document my toothpaste recipe. In and effort to live lighter on the planet and reduce even more our output of garbage I thought homemade toothpaste would be a good idea. There are TONS of recipes online all of which are great but this is what we decided to do.

almost 1/4 c. baking soda
almost 1/4 c. coconut oil
4+ drops of peppermint essential oil (more or less as needed)
about 1.5 Tablespoons of honey
1.5 teaspoons hydrogen peroxide

Mix well.

I mixed all this and put it in an old yeast jar. It is much runnier at first but it thickens up to a crumbly paste. We tried it at first with less coconut oil but the baking soda was way too abrasive. Still, I don't brush directly on my teeth right at first. I add a tiny amount (1tsp or less) of water in my mouth add my toothpaste and swish a little. Just to start the baking soda dissolving. Then I brush with the runny toothpaste. Jake and I switched to an earth friendly brand a while ago so we are used to the lack of foamy toothpaste. But for some it might come as a shock. Like the lack of bubbles in dishwater, without detergents and foaming stuff.

Coupled with our EcoDenT floss, we intend to go green with our toothbrushes too. Preserve has the gimme 5 program that recycles #5 plastics into household stuff.  They make toothbrushes that can be purchased new, and sent back to be re-made into a new toothbrush when you're done with the old.

TED- Jamie Oliver on the food system

Not a shocker for me because we are locavores and eat real unprocessed food. This is definitely worth a watch, but make time for it because it's 20 minutes long.

Toxic floss?

Jacob was curious to see how eco friendly floss was... turns out it's not really. Most floss is made from nylon which doesn't break down. We've been using crest glide and come to find out it is coated with the same stuff they use to coat nonstick pans! Which means I've been injecting those chemicals straight into my gums. Needless to say we didn't floss last night. However we did find a few different companies that sell a variety from vegan floss to biodegradable floss picks. I am going to see what my green grocer, huckleberries has to offer in the floss department. The winner for us so far is EcodenT. The floss is still nylon but it is coated in beeswax or rice bran it comes in bigger rolls and it's container is completely plastic free. It's not perfect, but it's our best option at this point.


Image from here.

Plastic Reduction

Jacob and I have been striving to reduce even further our plastic waste. We have a long way to go but I think I am in love with this woman! She has some fantastic ideas!

Butter Making In Pictures

I started with 2 pints of heavy whipping cream, placed them in the mixer on medium high.

Now it looks like whip cream, keep mixing.

It starts to get thicker and take on a weird soft yellow color.

This is just before the "buttermilk" breaks out of the butter. It looks kinda granular and the yellow is more pronounced.

An then it happens, the mixer and all contents sound sloshy and "buttermilk" is flying out everywhere.
Pour this off and use it like milk. It's not real buttermilk because that is cultured.

Now that the butter milk is poured off, I mix again just to get even more to break free. Once I think I've gotten all that I am going to I switch to my paddle mixer. Then add a cup or more of cold water.  Use this to 'wash' the butter. No the butter isn't going to dissolve into the water. Ever plop play dough or crisco in water? Oil/water don't mix. This washing with cold water removes any extra butter milk that may be lingering. This will spoil your butter, make sure to get it out.

Keep dumping and refilling your mixer with new cold water until the water runs clean like in this picture. Now you have butter. It won't keep as long as store bought butter since it isn't filled with preservatives. Freeze it. I salted only one "stick" of it and then made the rest plain. I figure I can salt it on an as needed basis.

This is the 4 sticks of butter I ended up with after 2 pints of cream. I did one more pint after this for a total of 1.25 pounds of finished butter. Cost wise it's probably not worth it. But I end up with the buttermilk that most people don't factor into the 'is it worth it' cost estimate. For just the butter, no for butter and butter milk.... maybe. Still, I like that this doesn't require one time use only packaging. I get my cream from a bottle that gets reused by Straus family creamery.  They aren't local, but our local dairy say's there milk is just pasteurized but I can't make cheese with it, which means they lie and it's really ultrapasteurized (UP). UP milk is dead, everything that makes it milk has been killed off by the heat of cooking it. It's white water, don't buy it. So I get my milk from out of my region because it's good quality milk and they package it in reusable containers. And now I'll get off my soap box.....

Butter making is pretty easy and it's lots of fun too!

Plop bread

This is actually a no knead bread recipe that is so easy it's kinda sad. It just takes time.... over night actually. I am not going to type out the long post about how to make it because the website my mom found it at has way better pictures and information.

But seriously doesn't this look yummy?  It was in fact! It's really good oil/vinegar dipping bread or garlic bread with pasta, or crunchy peanut butter toast.... you get the idea.

The recipe is at steamy kitchen. 

Crochet Hook Case Completed

I finished this like 2 weeks ago but never got around to actually posting the picture. I posted about crocheting a hook case for my various sized hooks and a few knitting needles. Here it is complete. I don't think I would do this project again, mostly because of the wool used to felt the outside was kinda pricey. I think I would just look up a tutorial online and sew one. I am much more comfortable with my sewing machine than I am with knitting/crochet.

But that's beside the point. :o)