Getting Rid of Plastic

So last week I read this book, Boys Adrift.  One of the issues the author discusses is the endocrine disrupters that are prevalent in plastic.  These plastics leach low level doses of estrogen-like chemicals into our foods.  In Dr. Sax's book he looks at how these low level does effect the development of boys.  He ties it to a lack of drive and the skyrocketing numbers of boys being diagnosed as ADD.  He briefly discusses how it might actually effect a boy's sexual development.  People have linked this to all aspects of male sexuality from current low sperm count in the developed world's male population to an environmental cause for homosexuality.  I need to research all this further.  But the idea that plastics, something so ubiquitous in our lives nowadays could being doing something so harmful to males and to our whole society as a result, scared me deeply.  Add into this the prevalence of birth control pills, the hormones of which get into our water, along with the rise of soy everywhere (soy had estrogen in it as well) no wonder men are at sea when it comes to figuring out who they are and what their roles should be.  I wonder if this isn't behind the shift in how we perceive gender even?

And this issue with plastic is completely separate from the horrible pollution/waste aspect of it!  I used to half-heartedly recycle my plastic, but often would get lazy about it.  Now I feel super guilty about it.  I think I read only 7% of plastic actually gets recycled into another use!  That's a lot of non-biodegradable garbage we are leaving for our children!

Anyway, this made me look around and see just how much plastic there is EVERYWHERE.  And much of it is food related.  In my fridge every single slice or block of cheese is wrapped in plastic wrap.  My turkey, ham and bologna is too  In my freezer, my quarter of grass-fed, hormone free beef is all shrink wrapped in plastic.  My milk is in a plastic jug.  Even my orange juice, which I thought was safe because it is in a cardboard carton, isn't really.  That cardboard is not coated in wax anymore.  Nope, now it is sprayed with plastic!

We have plastic cups and plates, and cereal is packaged in plastic inside its cardboard box.  And those organic bags of salad mix I get, thinking they are so healthy?  Bagged in plastic!  It is truly everywhere!

So googling around I found this wonderful blog: http://myplasticfreelife.com/  This young woman is a pioneer in plastic free living.  Of course she doesn't have children and she lives in Oakland where everyone is probably pretty green anyway, so this kind of change for her is probably not nearly as difficult as for others, but still she has many practical suggestions and for the last couple of days, I've been visiting her blog and gleaning lots of advice.  I think she's even started her own plastic free store.   I love entrepreneurs!

So I made up a list of things I could do in my home to at least get us on the road to having fewer plastics in our lives.  I'm starting with plastic that comes in contact with food:

1.  No more plastic grocery bags.  Terry (from the site above) says to keep canvas bags in your car so you have them with you whenever you stop into a store.  She keeps a little foldable one in her purse even.  I'll have to look around for one like that.  Often times I'm too forgetful and I leave my bags at home and wind up getting new bags at the store.  Also she says don't put your produce in plastic bags.  Just put them directly into the reusable nonplastic bags you've brought.

2.  I am from now on buying milk, cider and water in glass only.  This is more expensive because the only place I know to get these are at Whole Foods which is so pricey it makes me want to scream!  However, I'm also going to check out Trader Joe's and see what they carry.  As for OJ.  I've decided it is better to buy a bunch of oranges and squeeze it myself.  My little juicer (not the fancy electric kind but the kind with a glass jar and the special doohickey lid that you rub half an orange over to juice) is half plastic (the top part) so I'd like to get one that had no plastic on it at all.  Where can they be had?

3.  I will only buy eggs in cardboard cartons.  Lately they seem to be selling them more and more in plastic cartons.

4.  For leftovers, use a Corelle bowl (I hope that is safe!) and aluminum foil.  I'll just try not to let the foil touch the food.

5.  I want to start buying things in bulk.  I went to whole foods yesterday with this in mind, thinking I'd get some healthy snacks.  However, every single bin the bulk food was stored in was made of plastic!  So I passed on that for now.

6.  I decided to get out my bread machine and see if I can make sandwich bread instead of buying the stuff wrapped in plastic.  I tried to make my first loaf in many years and it bombed.  It just didn't rise properly.  I'll try again this afternoon.

7.  I'm going to buy foil wrapped butter and foil wrapped cream cheese.  Maybe I'll get ambitious and start making my own butter and cream cheese!  I'm laughing at myself because I am not very good in the kitchen so I have doubts about ever really making cheese.

8.  Cheese is really hard to find not tightly ensconced in shrink wrap.  I could try to make some of this as well (dreaming very unrealistically big here!) or I could try to buy cheese that is in wax still.  Terry suggests buying a big wheel and splitting it with friends.  That might work.  I did find a really yummy bleu-brie cheese yesterday that was in a cute little wooden container.  Inside it seemed to be foil wrapped. So I got that.

9.  I'll try to buy things in cans that are labeled BPA free.

10.  Stonyfield yogurts come in plastic that is made from corn.  Dr. Sax talked about this as a good alternative.  Apparently the stuff made from corn doesn't have the estrogen in it like the petroleum byproducts do.  I'll have to look into that.  Plus it is a renewable resource and recyclable, so it is a good alternative, it seems.  I do want to try to make my own yogurt eventually.

11.  No more bagged salad for me!  I'll just have to make my own.

12.  I want to buy some stainless steel containers to use for storing cheeses and lunch meats.  I can always reduce the amount of plastics leached by at least taking them out of the plastic containers right away and maybe disposing of the pieces that came into contact with the plastic.

In the meantime I'm going to be cleaning out my kitchen and trying to figure out how to accomplish this mammoth change!