I read this horrible article on MSN recently, which freaked me out quite a bit. It made two main points:
1) There is a huge zone in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that is full of old plastic crap – plastic bags, plastic rings, plastic containers, plastic nets, plastic everything. This is bad for the animals in the ocean, and bad for the ocean itself, and on top of that, bad for the planet overall.
2) Plastic may be a hormone disruptor, contributing to fertility problems, and health issues for babies and children.
Naturally, I found this article pretty disturbing on a bunch of levels. I mean, of course I care about the environment, and yes, the fertility thing made me perk up my ears. Plastic is everywhere, and in everything. Food, beverages, toiletries, packaging, hairbrushes, my keyboard, my car, my toothbrush, my TV remote, my everything. I can sit here in my living room and spot like 50 things with plastic in them. How are you supposed to know when it is ok to use plastic and when it isn’t? Is it bad just to be near it, breathing in plastic fumes? If you store your food in plastic, is that worse that using shampoo that is in a plastic bottle? And what about my massive Tupperware collection? I have a friend who’s mom has a Tupperware distributorship, and she usually hits me up to come to a party once a year or so, and I always get a bunch of stuff. I love Tupperware. It is bright and well made and allows me to store things in a variety of convenient sizes.
And would it be more wasteful to chuck (or recycle) all of my Tupperware stuff and switch to glass? If I knew for sure that the plastic stuff was bad, then that would make it an easy decision, but the article was kind of vague on exactly how the mechanics of plastic causing health problems works. Instead, I can’t quite tell how much energy I should put into worrying about and trying to change the level of plastic usage in my life. Now, from an environmental standpoint, trying to cut back on plastic makes sense, and I am going to work on doing just that. Although does anyone have any good ideas for dealing with dog poop without using plastic bags? Because I’m coming up dry there.
Pick up a copy of The World Without Us. It's a really interesting book and not at all boring and dry as you'd think. There's a good description of that zone of crap along with a bunch of other information that really kinda freaked me out about pollution and stuff.
I use something similar to these for my dog:
http://www.ecoanimal.com/poopbags.html
There are even some parks in the city that have installed composts as a pilot project, so people don't throw their biodegradable bags in the park garbage.
Hello!
I am an environmental freak! Yes, I also sell Tupperware. Just started (give my link a looksee and tell me what you think). Anyway, I did tons and tons of research when my neighbor (also a faithful member of our town's recycling committee), suggested that I go into this business with her. I was absolutely convinced that Tupperware was killing the environment.
I "googled" all the links to this company and their plastic that I could find and came up with only positive comments. They really to guarantee that it will never end up in a landfill. It's made from a specfic "mix" that is also proven safe for food storage and microvwaving. It doesn't have the same chemicals that leach into your food through plastic breakdown. NONE of the other "storebought" plastic products does that! Additionally, when they finish producing a piece, they recycle all the left-over plastic from the mold into the general "mix" so it can be used again. Nothing is wasted!
If you want the official company statement about it, I can send you the info. I had no idea that anyone even made "safe" plastic, but these folks seem to have it down. It costs more than gladware, but it won't break down in the microwave and won't be thrown away. By the way, if you do decide to get rid of your Tupperware, please send it back to the company rather than throwing it away! They'll recycle any parts that can be reused in their production. Please dont' add that stuff to your landfill. It'll be there forever! :-)
Thanks for reading