A reader question:
Dear Editor,
As your readers already know, the New England thing before preppy ethos is built on the foundation of natural fibers and wares, things that will last, growing older with you and becoming both more comfortable and somehow a bit more noble, composting along with you when you are gone. This ethos extends to the love of the land and sea, even to our homes and cars.
Over the last few generations, the introduction of plastics, and thus microplastics and nanoplastics, into our land, our sea, and the bodies of all creatures, has been immense. While some amount of plastic is inescapable, the plastics most likely to enter our bodies can, in good part, be replaced with non-plastic, traditional materials that work as well or better.
The kitchen is an obvious starting point, and I will spare all the recitation of kitchen replacements, but brooms and brushes, even toothbrushes, made from palmyra, tampico, horse hair, boar bristle, and so on are available. The various cloths we use are available in cotton, linen, bamboo, and the like make it possible for us to skip the polyester. Beeswax impregnated cloth can keep our produce, bread, leftovers, and more better than plastic cling wrap. Products like Blueland replace laundry soap and dishwasher pellets that are not only packaged in plastic but use plastics in the products themselves as surfactants. Even something like salt often comes from the ocean and brings microplastics with it, some salts more than others. Rather than enumerating my own list, I would love to hear others' solutions and sources.
Peace, Vecchio Vespa
All so good and very much respected and endorsed. Forgive my ignorance in the measure of plastics used in the field of medicine. Knee replacements as an example. Ethos extends to the love of the land and sea, even to our homes and cars- what about our bodies?
ReplyDeleteLet’s all go back to bar soap. Deep six hard plastic “body wash” containers. Insist your local grocer package prepared food in bio-degradable containers. The other day I stood by as a customer ordered a clam cake. The cake itself was about the size of a hockey puck. It was handed to the customer in a clear plastic container in which another 3 or 4 cakes could easily have fit. What’s with liquid laundry detergent? Is it that less of a product than the liquid detergent that is packaged in those seemingly impregnable plastic containers? Figure out your own way to “hydrate” you and your family without buying bottled water packaged in plastic. Recently on this blog someone brought up the “altar of efficiency.” How much of our environment is sacrificed on the “altar of convenience?”
ReplyDeleteHear! Hear! Refilling my Yeti several times a day has become second nature. Tomorrow will probably be the day for a new bar of Cremo soap in the shower. The string bag and the smaller cloth produce bags go everywhere with me, and beeswax impregnated cloth is the go to choice for keeping bread, produce, and even those leftovers that don't need to go in a glass container.
DeleteI order Cottonelle toilet paper in bulk from Amazon that comes wrapped in paper and shipped in cardboard, no plastic involved. It's one of the few things I order from Amazon. The blue mechanic shop clothes (cotton, not microfiber) are great paper towel substitutes. We also have a wonderful bulk section at our local food co-op where I can fill grains, cereals, nuts, flours, olive oil and bread into my own containers. We have a bulk soap store where I can do the same with most of my household products.
ReplyDeleteThe zerowasteoutlet.com has many plastic free household cleaning options I just reordered wooden bottle and veggie brushes from them...they last for years if you keep them clean and store them properly. They also have a fantastic toothbrush/floss/toothpaste set.
ReplyDeleteYeti!
ReplyDeletePlastic?
ReplyDelete"I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic." --- Andy Warhol
My brother and I went to college in Claremont. With regard to the possibility of the great earthquake dumping everything west of the San Andreas fault into the Pacific, he quipped, "Don't worry. Plastic floats."
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