Trash Talk on Plastic

I abhor plastic.



I cringe when I see packets that say individually wrapped, yes, more packaging, that's what we need right? Small tubs of yogurt, 12 little plastic bags of BBQ shapes in a big plastic bag and 6 packs of sugary water claiming to be juice in single serve plastic bottles..... STOP BUYING THEM.



I came across an article or two that I would like to share with you. They are worth a good read and although confronting to many, it is worth it to be more informed next time you go grocery shopping.

Please read this

Los Angeles Times opinion

Monday August 24th 2009
by Emily Monosson

Back to school with less plastic -- a teaching moment - My daughter and I recently made the annual back-to-school pilgrimage to the local big-box office store, and I am appalled. For me, the leathery smell of new shoes stirs sweet pangs marking those precious last days of summer; for my children, it likely will be the smell of vinyl and assorted plastics. More....


This following article is a less namby pamby approach with some really good "in your face" facts about plastic....read on and confront yourself with an issue that definately concerns you and me, all of us.


Rejecting the toxic plague
WAR ON PLASTIC
by Jan Lundberg Northern Californians Against Plastic

Here is a snippet of some interesting findings:

Clear plastic food wrap contains up to 30% DEHP [di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate]. This substance is also in intravenous blood bags. This poison was identified by the State of California for its Proposition 65 list of carcinogens and mutagens, but industry pressure got the listing weakened.

Triclosan, in plastics as well as antibacterial soaps, deodorants, toothpastes, cosmetics, and fabrics, is shown to cause health and environmental effects and compound antibiotic resistance. Researchers found that when sunlight is shined on triclosan in water and on fabric, a portion of triclosan is transformed into dioxin. More......


Maybe this week you could give up one of these things permanently and find a greener alternative.
I am up for the challenge, are you?

Take it easy guys
Melanie

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Trash Talk on Tissues

It is Tuesday again and on this particular Tuesday I am a walking ball of phlegm and I look like dead warmed up from feverish sleep. I sat at my desk and saw a pile of tissues which prompted me to practice what I preach and research what I am consuming.
I want to share this with you and even if it is Greenpeace bias, there is no other way to make tissues and using recycled paper tissues creates a need for new paper products to be produced in the first place.

Consume with a conscience

You Tube on tissues and deforestation here

I simply couldn't work out how to embed it today.

Questions to ponder
What do we use instead? Handkerchiefs? What impact does this have on the environment from its initial production to its rewashing to it's disposal.?

I don't have all the answers if any. I am merely prompting thoughts. Until further investigation my conscience can only deal with using handkerchief's for now.

Cheers

Melanie

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Trash Talk

This week my trash talk topic was made easy when my awesome friend Aisha who is a real artist sent me some links that she knew I would love.

Bonnie Meltzer is from Portland, Oregon and she is an artist who makes very mixed-media constructions from a variety of unusual materials: crocheted wire, recycled computer parts, painted surfaces and digital photography. I really enjoyed browsing through her artwork and became very inspired.

Bonnie MeltzerVery Mixed Media Constructions

This link especially sparked my interest Art of Recycling Competition

Entry forms and details are available on the site.
I cannot believe I missed this little gem of a site and it has a blog too ATASDA Australian Textile Arts & Surface Design Association Inc

Thank you Aisha for your contribution.
That's it for talking trash.
Don't forget, It's your trash, think about what you are going to do with your trash and most importantly reduce/recycle/refashion/re-use your trash.

Cheers All
Melanie

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Trash Talk

It is still plastic but at least they are doing something.

Short and sweet on the environmental topic this week because I have trash to deal with at home. I have been working so hard on my business in the last fortnight and even though everyone else including MR nunde is on break....no one kept up the housework in my absence. This is a working from home mums dilemma as many of you know. I worked until 11pm some nights after working all day and then making sure they had dinner by 6.30..... oh how this is declining into a pity party rant, if I proceed and get too worked up I may well put that recycled environmentally friendly bag over someones head if they don't start figuring out where the vacuum cleaner is!!!!
I wish you all joy and a clean house:)

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I couldnt have Youtubed it better myself! Totes are Hot

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Trash talk on kids school lunch packaging

I am putting together a comprehensive report(?) on the waste created from kids school lunches and whilst it is common knowledge about the garbage we send to schools in the form of packaging or non recyclable containers,
it is the garbage free lunches I am interested in.
What are you using that is low impact on our resources and doesn't hang around for 1000 years once we are done with it ie: those cutesy bags with Velcro and silver refrigerated lining made by various companies. They re only "green" for as long as you use them and I seem to see new ones at the start of every year in kids school bags. So add up the cost to the environment after little Jonny is sick of his Cars lunch bag with the cool drink holder and wants to move on to batman. Yeah, they look lovely as landfill for a few 100 years, right?
Hey I use one too for master nunde so I am GUILTY but want to change.
What do you do that is a "real" green choice.?
Email me or comment with your views or knowledge that you want to pass on. Whether I agree or not, what you have to say is important to me.
Cheers everyone.
Have a great week and enjoy the cooler weather fellow Victorians.

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Trash talk

I want to ask the question "Do our kids need to learn German and Indonesian in school?"
What do you guys think?
I say NO and see it as a waste of money, paper to make the books and bad use of time a child could use learning something necessary.
I did 4 years of German. WHY? I dunno. Mandarin would have been way more beneficial or Japanese but German.......?

Now my kids are learning Indo half the year (compulsory with books being very pricey) and German for the other half. Thats over $100 worth of books that will be tossed and never ever remembered. The cost to the trees MURDERED for this, priceless!

My 2 high school kids before this one loathed the classes and learned nothing but more dislike for school. What they really needed was more English or Maths. A lot of kids loathe these subject but the more they do it the better off they are. It is never wasted.

Have they done surveys on the benefits of learning German or Indo? Isn't it unsafe for us to go to Indonesia at the moment or is that just my paranoid US husband talking?

Printing books for the sake of filling school hours with subjects that seem to have no benefit seems wasteful and also leads me to ask why are we still using so many text books anyway.
I have had to throw away quite a few because they bring out new editions and I don't even get to hand them down. How many times must they revise a maths book? If you spent more time in math than German you could answer that.

My son is being pestered to get a German text book and I am refusing to buy it.
If my dear friend Elsie reads this I know she will speak calm words of common sense to me before I go running off to rebel against the education department...again. I am not sure it will stop me as I am already at that "How dare you" stage with the Dept of Ed lol.

I wonder how everyone else feels about such wastage. Has anyone ever thought about the cost of resources to teach a subject that is so brief and unnecessary? Maybe there are other areas you know of that I have missed. If so you must tell me just in case I have a quiet week and nothing to rebel against:)

P.S i have just tried to google "the cost of text books on our environment" and nothing came up.
People have time to find out how many boofheads you can pile into a mini cooper but not to find important answers...

Have a triffic night all!
Cheers
Melanie

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Trash Talk

A Cool Use for Recycled Glass Sparkly trash, I want some.

Did You Know That? Wacky Facts: Why Recycle? - Good things to know.

REsolve to REduce, REuse and REcycle - brilliant tips for everyone.

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Trash Talk

Bread bag tags

0ne bread bag tag a day, every day for a year for the last 10 years.

That is 3650 bread tags that I have thrown in the garbage, thoughtlessly and without remorse. Until today.....Seems I was a little slow in the realisation that there needed to be some thought behind the disposal of these items and I have turned to the internet to source advice on the matter. Here is what I found

• Slightly interesting but not really - wikipedia


• Burning a hole in my drawer


• Recycle This!


• Snopes


• Bread bag tags can KILL you ?

On a more personal note I walked 12 kilometers today and I didn't cark it. My Nokia95 told me so. My garden has suffered much sunburn and it is still too hot I'm my work shed.

So I have got nothing clever, nothing even froofy to show and tell. I will have to work on that indeed.

If you have any bread bag tag ideas please share.

Oh and P.S

I finished this roll of string and my bag was looking fabbo but Spotlight doesn't stock it anymore so if one of you awesome ladies recognizes this flattish cottonyish string and has some spare in this color or knows where to get it please please let me know. I will buy it off you of course if you have some.

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Trash Talk

Its hot, or cold, if you are in the northern hemisphere (*waving frantically* to everyone from the US and the UK) I have relo's in both countries, maybe you know them? - lol that's a joke of course relating to my UK and US relatives thinking Australia is so small that we know everyone here.
Anyhow, as you see I am rabbiting on because of the heat,
So I have provided some light reading to tickle your trash fancy.

Today's trashy topic:

Waste Art

Hunter Waste Education Group - gallery

This site made me go wow over waste

"Disused waste becomes art" - China Daily

more wow

Eyebeam reblog - Covered chair

Cool but Scratchy?

See ya Later!

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Trash Talk

In India, plastic bag use is a capital offence

Randeep Ramesh, Delhi January 18, 2009

Right On!

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Trash Talk Tuesday

Photos are deliberately blurry to protect the previous owners of this trash' privacy

Most bikes end up in our creek.

Twice a year Melbournites get to throw large amounts of rubbish onto the nature strip. In our area some of it end in the local creek because of kids but mainly it is picked up by the council, compacted and put in landfill. No, it doesn't get recycled. It gets compacted right in front of your house in a great big smelly garbage truck.

Things for us all, including me to consider

Can it be fixed?

Does someone need it now that you don't?

Can it be refashioned?

Is it even worn out?

Should you even buy it in the first place?

(hint hint, yet another hardly used treadmill out for trash, and yes, its working, I know the owner:) She is a good hard working mum with kids so don't think for a minute I'm trashing her. She is good folk but is she any different to many of us?)

So many do it.

That's how we are now.

Everything is disposable

And that makes me sad.

I have my eye on that roller desk and a Triton bench. stay tuned. If I get arrested do you think they will let me blog in jail?

I also have my eye on a fake brass bed and I'm thinking wind chimes. Break out the angle grinder baby. Feel free to suggest what can be done to reduce this kind of waste. Maybe if the council stopped hard rubbish. Maybe if we stopped making it? Not sure we are close to a solution yet but surely it is time for us to think on it:)

Cheers

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Trash Talk Tuesday

Where I get to talk about the good or bad things people do with trash. Please email me if you have trash ideas or links you want me to post. Its all about, reuse, recycle, recreate, refashion yeah yeah, you know, all the RE words:) If your idea gets posted you will of course get the credit.

"A Chat with Elsie"

December-ish 2008
As Elsie and I walked along the path leading to the wood workers function room we chatted about my Trash Talk Tuesday and she thought she might have something interesting to add.
Now Elsie is no slouch when it comes to recycling, re using and such, and she has been quite a pro at it for some time, so much so that she has written a few articles for Grass Roots, sharing her wisdom and offering smart tips on various topics.

One such tip she shared with me was her habit of collecting her yarn left overs which she then turns into cushion inserts.She starts by sewing up a square measuring a standard cushion insert size with one end left open, sits it beside her knitting chair and whenever she has a scrap left over she plonks it in the bag.

Whilst the bag is in its collecting stage she can rummage around to find suitable scraps for small projects or repairs. Elsie says she continues to add to the bag until it is full and once it has reached sufficient bulk she sews the top up and voila she now has a new cushion insert.
Now for me the bag would take 10 years to fill if it were just knitting scraps but for Elsie I am sure she has a few pillow inserts by now because she is an exceptional knitter and contributes her knitted wares to charities all over the world and has done so for many years.

I am going to follow this example and use it for my embroidery and sewing scraps also which I am sure Elsie is already doing. I throw out so many small strands of embroidery cotton and little felt pieces that if I collected it for a year I would have a super soft cushion insert and a continuous supply of scrap threads.

Thank you Elsie for sharing that tip. Now I am passing it on to the blogosphere in the hope it will inspire others as it has inspired me

All the best and get trashy if you dare. Trash is the new black!

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Trashy Talk

Yes, it is Trash talk Tuesday again and I cant wait to share what
Crafty Daisy is doing with trash. Just brilliant. Check these bags out.

More great work

Trash bags.com.au and for other green ideas
Great Green Goods
More links to tingle your enviromentally aware bone

Green on a budget: A sampler of sustainable products

Busting the plastic bag recycling myth

Events raise awareness about the harm of plastic bags

One question I want to ask, should you even be this far into my blatant enviro naggin blog, is this.

Do you really need that one plastic bag to carry that tiny item home from Coles or any other huge Grocery store? I see people still opt to say YES when asked "would you like a bag for that Sir?"

For one bloody item.........


Shame on you who do that.

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Trash Talk Tuesday

Tuesdays are now my days to report what people do with trash and trash ideas.
Refashioning, recycling and reusing are the new black and I hope it is here to stay.
If you are a consumer with a conscience then you might find some interesting stuff on my new Tuesday addition. I wont be doing much writing, just providing you with stuff that I found worthy of noting.
Brilliant Bags
Eco-chic a matter of choice
Wearing rubbish has never been such a great idea!
'Green' designer uses recyclable materials in fashion
How to make bag out of wrappers
Green gifts
'Gifts of Green' at Winter 2009 Edition of California Gift Show(R)
An Interesting comparison for school mums regarding the debate between using foil or plastic is here - I found the aluminium difficult to clean after use which then deems it un recyclable so I am sticking with lunch paper for now. It goes straight into my compost, yucky half eaten lunches and all.
I hope these links provide you with some useful information or inspiration.

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