Microplastics in the ocean

I crashed a brown bag seminar at work, a talk from a UW - Tacoma professor about her research on Puget Sound water samples and how much plastic is in it. Her research was going to help extrapolate how much plastic there is in the world's oceans. I'm not going to go into great detail of the results of the research done here but, no surprise, she found plastic in all her samples.

What did surprise me, however, was a few of the things she stated. The first was that she didn't believe there was a giant plastic patch in the Pacific. Her thinking was that, since it's hard to specify where the patch is and its size given its mobility due to currents and a whole host of other variables, it didn't exist. This would have made Beth Terry chafe.

The second statement she made was that there was no evidence that plastics, given their stability, were dangerous as far as leaching chemicals goes. She even jokingly offered up the idea that perhaps eating microbeads would be a good dieting method because it gave the feeling of satiety. She said that seabirds and fish could eat it and it would pass through their systems (if not too large, which is a problem) but it otherwise wouldn't affect them negatively from a chemical standpoint. This chapped my hide because there clearly is a lot of research showing that plastics leach all sorts of chemicals. BPA is an obvious example.

The last comment really burned my britches. When she asked us what we could do to prevent plastic in the oceans, the room was silent for a moment so I offered up the most obvious conclusion: "use less plastic". Her response was that they weren't about to take on the plastic industry. The answer, of course, is properly disposing of plastics but many people in the audience kept trying to bring up alternatives to plastics. The speaker stated that it's a "personal choice" but didn't have any suggestions or knowledge on how to avoid plastics.

I'm not sure what I was expecting from this seminar, but I guess it was that the speaker would have a broader view of plastics, its affects and would be an activist for less plastics all-around. Instead, she focused directly on her more immediate research and less on the problem as a whole.

I'm not trying to criticize, it just occurred to me that, even scientists who spend their whole careers specializing in studying plastics in the ocean maybe aren't looking at the other issues involved.

What do you think? Do you think the problem of plastics in the ocean is just a disposal issue or are there other endemic problems with plastics?

SodaStream Penguin review and giveaway

We've been using the Penguin soda maker from SodaStream for about three years now, mostly for making sparkling water that we add our own syrups to or for making some fabulous mojitos using the mint from our backyard.

It's convenient because we generally don't have sparkling water or tonic water on hand, so if we want to whip up something besides water, tea or coffee, we've got the penguin to chirp our way into sparkling goodness. Chirp you ask? Well, when you are carbonating the water, you know it's done when the penguin makes a chirping noise. The kids get pretty excited about it too, because it's like a little mini science experiment.

Anyway, we've also been known to make actual soda from it using their flavored syrups, mostly Root Beer, Cream Soda and the like. The cool thing about their soda syrups is that they use actual sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup and, if diet soda is your thang, they have that option as well, using Splenda as the sweetener.

They also have a new line of Sparkling Naturals in a bunch of fruity flavors like Orange Pineapple and Apple Mango, that I was able to try out. I normally don't go for regular sodas and diet sodas because I don't like all the artificial ingredients that tend to be in them, but the Sparkling Naturals literally have no artificial colors, flavors or sugars in them. You can check out the ingredients list here.

The reason why I really like the Penguin (besides the cute noises it makes) is the fact that the carafes are made out of glass. You get two with the SodaStream maker so you can have more than one flavor going at a time, plus you don't have to worry about plastics leaching into your beverage. One of the things I was concerned about when getting this product was replacing the cartridges. Well, it turns out we can exchange them at a kitchen store down the street from our place (you can see a map of where you can find their products), so it really ends up being super inexpensive if you tend to drink a lot of carbonated beverages. And you will go through tons less plastic in the process.

Yeah! There's a Giveaway!
SodaStream has been nice enough to sponsor a giveaway of one of their Penguin Starter Kits that includes the:

• Penguin Sparkling Water & Soda Machine
  
• 2 Penguin Glass Carafes
  
• 2 60 Liter Carbonators
  
• Sparkling Naturals - Pink Grapefruit concentrate 750 ml
  
• Sparkling Naturals - Orange Pineapple concentrate 750 ml
  
• MyWater Flavor Essence - Variety pack

This starter set plus the soda mixes retail for $280 so I'm really excited about the opportunity to give this set away to one of my readers.

To be entered in this randomly drawn giveaway, please add your name to the comments of this post and tell me what your favorite sparkly beverage is. You have until midnight PST on Sunday, October 31st to enter this spooktacular giveaway. Good luck!

Getting rid of plastic

Okay, so I'm no Fake Plastic Fish. I don't avoid plastic like the plague as much as I should, although we've made some great strides in reducing the amount of plastic that comes into the house. Our biggest problem is food, but that's for another post because today I want to talk about another area of the kitchen.

Since my kids were born, starting almost 8 years ago, we've used plastic plates, bowls and cups for them, mostly because they tend to drop and break the heavier stuff. And the glass and porcelain dishware we have is generally too big for them for the most part. But, with all the issues with BPA and plastics lately, I finally got off my keister and cleared the kitchen of all plastic dishes and cups.

I, personally, stopped using the plastic stuff a few years ago, but now we all are plastic free. We replaced the plastic plates with adult sized porcelain ones and, for the bowls, we bought smaller porcelain ones for cereal and the like. We bought more small glass tumblers for the kids (we only had a few in the house) since the large ones are too huge for them.

They have been getting a kick out of using "adult" dishware and I've been happy to finally rid the kitchen of all that plastic crap. I hated wondering if it was leaching in the dishwasher and I hated when visitors accidentally microwaved food in them (ick!). I'm not sure why I feel such a huge sense of accomplishment with this, but I guess it's been bothering more than I realized.

We still have a way to go with food storage containers. We have some lidded ceramic ones, but I would like to get some in clear glass since you can't see what's in the ceramic containers with the lid on and we forget what the heck is in there and it rots in the fridge.

Our biggest issue is really containers for lunches. The glass and ceramic ones are so heavy I don't expect the kids to lug around a 20 pound, breakable lunchbox. And I don't want to either, for that matter. So, for now, it's plastic. Does anyone have suggestions for lightweight, non-plastic lunchbox containers? Are there any light steel ones out there that you like?

Shopping bag tax

Today is the day that Seattleites vote for or against a shopping bag tax. Well, in theory, it's the last day we can vote since we've switched to all absentee mail-in voting. Anyway, by voting "Yes", citizens are choosing to retain an ordinance that was adopted by Seattle City Council last year whose goals was to reduce waste and pollution by encouraging shoppers to use reusable bags. The ordinance would charge shoppers 20 cents for every new disposable bag they carry out of grocery, drug and convenience stores.

This ordinance was modeled after a similar law that exists in Ireland, with the hope that the fee would increase the use of reusables and is expected to reduce disposable bag use by up to 90%. Not too surprisingly, oil and chemical companies have now spent 1.4 million dollars in a campaign to repeal the law, mostly focusing on how unfair the bag tax is to the poor, etc.

What’s the American Chemistry Council getting for its money? In the last two weeks the group has spent $40,000 on direct mail, more than $7,000 on yard signs (many of which have been placed illegally in city medians), $15,000 on phone calls to voters, $11,000 on online and radio ads, and nearly $9,000 on unspecified "get-out-the-vote" efforts. Looks like this ordinance is hitting the ACC in a sore spot - its profits.

Disposable shopping bags are a significant source of pollution, generate global warming gases, harm wildlife, clog stormdrains, and cause other problems. Seattle Public Utilities estimates that Seattleites use approximately 292 million plastic and 68 million paper disposable shopping bags per year, totaling about 360 million bags a year. Nationally, we use 100 billion plastic bags and 7 billion paper bags a year. Wouldn't it be nice to get rid of them all?

Want to find out more? Read How Bad are Disposible Grocery Bags?.

What do you feel about a bag tax? Would you vote for one in your area?

Another eco-dishwasher product miracle

A few months ago I reviewed an eco-dishwasher detergent that we had received a sample of and loved. It worked great with our crappy dishwasher and had minimal environmental impact. Unfortunately, the brand, Wave Gel, is hard to find in our area or, at the very least, is inconvenient to buy.

Because of the cost (free!), we went back to the plastic bottles of cheapo dishwasher detergent my mom gets on super-sale and gives to us, but it's been driving me crazy not using something more sustainable. We were out of detergent this weekend and using up the rest of the Seventh Generation detergent that doesn't work for us - it leaves a greasy film all over the dishes - and trying to figure out what to buy.

So, Saturday, before I went shopping, I went back through all the comments from the post and re-read which detergents you guys love. After reading through them all I decided to look for the ECOVER Dishwasher Tablets. We had tried some other non-sustainable gel pack things (again, from my mom on super-sale) and liked the fact that it was packaged in a cardboard box with only a thin plastic liner (albeit non-recyclable) on the inside. I was hoping to find something similar instead of a product in a big hunking chunk of plastic.

Our local grocery store, that I love with all my heart, doesn't sell the Wave detergent but they do sell ECOVER tablets. I was happy to see that the tablets were individually wrapped in recyclable plastic, the box is made of 95% recycled cardboard, it has plant based ingredients, is biodegradable and has a minimum impact on aquatic life.

But do these miracle tablets work in a crappy dishwasher? Well, I'm here to testify that, yes, they do work just as well as Cascade and the other "leading" brands. Who knew that something so simple as finding a decent eco-dishwasher detergent could be so satisfying and make me so pleased! Thanks to everyone who regularly supplies their input on what does and doesn't work for you. Without your suggestions, I'd still be fumbling around with trying to figure out what to do.