Stop Before You Pop: An Exposé on Sustainable Popcorn Making

We’ve all been there: waiting eagerly as the final seconds tick down on the microwave timer, the pleasant little pops are few and far between, and the aroma of freshly-popped popcorn is wafting tantalizingly in the air. Upon hearing the long-awaited beep beep beep signaling the popcorn’s completion, we snatch the bag out, careful not to burn ourselves as we pour the contents into a bowl and tromp out to resume our position on the couch, a movie queued and ready to go.

In the frivolity of popcorn, it can be all too easy to simply overlook the waste we generate. However, as with most products of convenience, microwave popcorn has an underlying dark side of wastefulness. From the cardboard box the bags are packaged in, to the plastic that wraps each individual bag, to the bags themselves, microwave popcorn leaves much to be desired in the realm of sustainability.

Luckily for us zero-waste warriors out there, there exists more sustainable alternatives that allow us to have our popcorn and eat it too, free from the single-use, throwaway culture that pervades much of our lives today.

The first of these alternatives is the classic stove-top popping option. All you need is a stove top, a pot, some oil, and, of course, kernels. You heat the oil, add the kernels, cover the pot, and allow the kernels to pop over the heat. It’s a simple process, and although it takes about 10 minutes to prep and pop (admittedly longer than the average 2-3 minute microwave popcorn timeline), it has the added benefit of allowing you to customize your popcorn in the type of oil and seasonings you use.

A simple internet search of “how to make stove-top popcorn” will yield a myriad of easy to follow instructions and popcorn recipes. For your convenience and as a good starting point, I recommend checking out Elise Bauer’s Perfect Popcorn recipe.

For those of you who feel put off and disenfranchised by this 10-minute endeavor that produces an oily pot to clean, or for those of you in staunch support of utilizing a microwave, you can invest in a $14-$16 silicone air popper, such as the Colonel Popper . This product is available on Amazon, but I would recommend checking your local kitchen supply store in the hopes of shopping locally before ordering online.

I ordered this popper as a gift for my popcorn-loving dad back in June. Having since returned home, I have used it on multiple occasions with great success. Using a silicone air popper, such as the Colonel Popper, entails measuring out an amount of kernels, mixing those kernels in oil or  melted butter (I always choose butter), adding salt or other seasonings as desired, dumping the kernels/butter/seasoning into the popper, covering with the lid, and putting the whole thing in the microwave for about 3 minutes. You can eat the finished product right out of the bowl and then simply give it a wash‒no waste needed!

In addition to reducing waste in utilizing reusable pots / silicone poppers as opposed to single-use, plastic-encased bags, stove top or air popper alternatives have the added benefit of offering kernels packaged in recyclable containers. As with most products, buying kernels in bulk is the most sustainable, and often most economical, option. I happened to have Orville Redenbacher kernels on hand, and have been enjoying them just fine. Best of all, when I’m done I can recycle the container they came in. However, sourcing local kernels in glass or reusable containers is a step better. Even better than that, you could endeavor to grow your own popcorn kernels for ultimate self-sufficiency.

For an astonishingly thorough review of different brands of kernels, check out Food Shark Marfa’s Best Popcorn Kernels.

I was unable to find hard facts on the exact amount of waste generated from microwave popcorn each year. However, according to The Popcorn Institute, which promotes and performs 85% of all popcorn sales within the US, Americans consume 15 billion quarts of popcorn annually. With the invention of microwave popcorn in the 1980s and more than 80% of US households currently owning microwaves, one can assume that a significant amount of household popcorn is coming from microwave popcorn bags, thereby generating massive amounts of non-recyclable waste in the process.


In writing this week’s post on popcorn, my hope was not to diminish people’s zest for and consumption of this tasty, nutritious treat, but to instead promote more sustainable popping practices. Ultimately, in addition to reducing waste, popping your own corn is much less expensive and often healthier (microwave popcorn bags are lined with chemicals that have some substantial and as-of-yet unknown health impacts), than buying microwave popcorn or even pre-popped bags of popcorn, making it a win-win-win for your wallet, health, and our planet.

So, the next time you find yourself hankering for some popcorn, try these home-popping, lower waste alternatives. As always, let me know how it goes in the comments section below, and best of luck on your journey toward greener living.

~Sam

Greener Living: It's "in the cards"...

I’m sure we have all either given or received a gift card at least once in our lives. Gift cards offer a convenient, albeit  impersonal, gift option that allows the recipient to choose what they want to buy. Although there are commonly acknowledged pros and cons to giving and receiving gift cards, a con that is often overlooked is the environmental impact of plastic gift cards.

Gift cards are most commonly made from PVC—deemed by Greenpeace to be the most environmentally damaging of all plastics because it is difficult to recycle and because toxic, chlorine-based chemicals are released in the production, use, and disposal of PVCs. When you think of toxic plastics accumulating in our landfills and polluting our environment, plastic gift cards may not immediately come to mind as a significant source of such waste. However, according to Plenty magazine, a staggering 75 million pounds of PVC material from plastic cards enter the waste stream in the United States every year.

That’s 75 million pounds of plastic pollution that could be greatly reduced or eliminated by better decision making during the stages of using, purchasing, and disposing of gift cards.

When using a gift card, in order to increase the shelf-life and reduce the environmental impact of the plastic cards, be sure to reuse your gift cards whenever possible. Many cards can be reloaded and continually used by you or gifted to someone else.

In addition to reloading and re-gifting your cards, you can also reuse old gift cards in a variety of creative ways. From a multitude of crafting projects, to stabilizing a wobbly table leg, to labeling plants in your garden, to organizing yarn, cord, or wires—used gift cards are surprisingly versatile. Check out The Balance Everyday’s 14 Nifty Ways to Reuse Empty Gift Cards and This Old House’s 10 Uses for Gift Cards for a list of creative, innovative, and functional ways to put old, used up, empty gift cards to good use.

Additionally, if you get a gift card you’ll likely never use, consider selling or trading it on sites such as Cardavenue, Plastic Jungle, or Swapagift.com, as suggested by Plenty magazine.

Of course, in addition to reusing and re-purposing plastic gift cards, arguably the most important step you can take in combating this form of unnecessary and unsustainable plastic waste is to avoid it altogether by utilizing electronic gift cards whenever possible. Without saying too much, as it involves a gift for someone who consistently reads this blog, just today I ordered a gift card for someone’s birthday. Although my materialistic, capitalism-indoctrinated subconscious hesitated when faced with the choice between sending a physical plastic gift card (something tangible for the recipient to open and hold in their hands) and an e-card that would be delivered via email on the day of their birthday, it was but a slight hesitation.

The e-card, in addition to being less environmentally destructive than its plastic counterpart, is also incredibly convenient. A series of clicks and some quick payment info, and voila!—the gift card is set to be delivered, electronically, on the day I specified.

Utilizing e-gift cards also eliminates a lot of additional waste used in gift / gift card packaging. Although the cute tins and festive cases that gift cards are often delivered in may add some pizzazz and visual appeal to the gift-giving process, this too is ultimately a source of unnecessary waste. 

If e-gift cards aren’t an option or simply aren’t your cup of tea, you can still act with the environment’s best interest in mind by seeking biodegradable gift cards when available. Some retailers, including Target, REI, Borders, and Walmart, offer biodegradable gift cards made out of a corn-based material, so be sure to seek these out whenever possible.

As a consumer, you can eliminate plastic waste from PVC gift cards by seeking electronic and biodegradable alternatives. As the recipient of a plastic gift card, your responsibility lies in reusing, reloading, re-gifting, or re-purposing spent plastic cards in addition to disposing of cards that cannot be reused or re-purposed in a responsible manner.

If you’re anything like me, you may have accumulated a truly impressive stack of plastic gift cards over the years. Rather than tossing your spent plastic gift cards into the trash where they will accumulate in landfills, look to recycle these cards (along with the gift packaging they came in). To do so, you can use Earth 911’s recycling locator to find recycling services for gift boxes, plastic cards, and wrapping paper near you.

You can also mail used gift cards to Earthworks System, which collects and recycles used disposable PVC gift cards. They recycle the PVC cards into sheets of plastic which can then be used to manufacture new gift cards, thereby reducing the need for new PVC to be produced.

Although they do accept cards from individuals, large batches of cards are preferred, so consider setting up a collection at your office, school, or other community location.

Cards can be mailed to:

Earthworks c/o Halprin Ind.
25840 Miles Rd.
Bedford, Oh 44146

Overall, this week’s exploration into waste reduction of plastic gift cards is another great lesson on reducing, reusing, and recycling. Ultimately, in our ongoing effort to eliminate sources of waste in our everyday life, we should first and foremost reduce the number of plastic gift cards we purchase and circulate by opting for electronic or biodegradable alternatives whenever possible. We should also reuse plastic gift cards we have received by reloading or re-gifting cards whenever possible and by re-purposing or upcycling cards for a variety of crafts and useful purposes. When we do have plastic gift cards we want to dispose of, we should recycle the cards through services like Earthworks.

This week, eliminating waste on our journey toward greener living is most definitely “in the cards.” The next time you use, purchase, or dispose of a gift card, I urge you to keep the tenets of reduce/reuse/recycle in mind and to utilize some of the aforementioned waste-reducing tips and tricks.  In the meantime, I’m off to lead some youth through the wilderness, so I won’t be posting for a while. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions of sources of waste for me to cover in the future, let me know in the comments section below.

Until later,
   ~Sam

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: A How-to Guide for Hard-to-Recycle Items

 A lot of the waste reduction tactics and topics that have been covered thus far on Greener Living focus on the pivotal mindset of the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (and a fourth R, of course: refuse). However, when we are unable or unwilling to reduce the amount of trash we generate in our daily lives by refusing disposable items like single-use plastic water bottles, straws, coffee cups, tissues, and plastic bags—just to name a few—it becomes increasingly important to seek to reuse and recycle our waste whenever possible.

Mentioned briefly in my previous post on Greening Your Hygiene Routine, Terracycle is a unique recycling program worth a deeper look.

Terracycle partners with brands, manufacturers, and retailers to offer free collection and recycling of hard-to-recycle waste like toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, empty chapsticks, e-waste, energy bar wrappers, and cereal bags. Partnering organizations include Brita, Burt’s Bees, Colgate, Clif Bar, Eos, and Febreeze, among many others.

Some programs are brand-specific, while others are not. The Clif Bar Energy Bar Wrapper Recycling Program, for example, accepts all foil-lined energy bar wrappers in addition to all Clif Bar product packaging.

There are also some free general recycling programs available through Terracycle, such as their e-waste recycling program, plastic cereal bags and cereal bag liners of any brand, and oral care products of any brand accepted through Colgate’s Recycling Partnership.

Be sure to visit each program’s individual FAQ page for more information on what specific products can be sent in for recycling, whether or not said products need to be cleaned prior to sending them in, and whether or not there is a minimum weight required in order for the shipment to be sent. Burt’s Bees Recycle on Us program, for example, accepts only Burt’s Bees brand products ranging from lip balm tubes to wipes packaging to sunscreen tubes, and simply asks that as much of the remaining product as possible be removed and that the products be dry prior to shipping.

For items that are not included in the free brand-specific or general recycling programs through Terracycle, there is also the option to purchase a Zero Waste Box to collect difficult-to-recycle waste that is not accepted by municipal recycling streams or free Terracycle programs. These Zero Waste Boxes allow a wide range of products, like bottle caps, batteries, athletic balls, and beauty products, among many other offerings, to be recycled. However, these Zero Waste Box options are rather expensive and therefore not widely accessible.

As an individual, you can make a difference by signing up for numerous free Terracycle Recycling Programs that meet the needs of your specific patterns and sources of waste. For example, this week I signed up for Burt’s Bees, Tom’s of Maine, Colgate Oral Care, and Clif Bar Energy Bar Wrapper Recycling Programs. I was added to a waitlist and will be informed via email once a spot in these programs becomes available, but in the meantime I will start collecting those sources of waste with the intent of recycling them through Terracycle in the future.

You can make an even greater difference by coordinating community collection boxes at local businesses, schools, or workplaces in order to collect and ship the products more efficiently than on an individual basis. Terracycle even offers helpful resources on how to engage your community in Terracycle Programs. You can also coordinate public drop off points or search for pre-existing drop off locations for certain products.

In addition to recycling opportunities through Terracycle, there are other creative and innovative organizations putting “trash” to good use, like the Appalachian Wildlife Refuge’s mascara wand upcycling program:

As a steadfast non-wearer of makeup, I cannot say that I have done this myself, but a more makeup savvy friend of mine came across this opportunity to re-purpose mascara wands. Specifically, used mascara wands can be cleaned with warm water and soap, placed in Ziploc bags, and mailed to the Appalachian Wildlife Refuge, where they are upcycled and re-purposed for medical care and wound treatment. These mascara wands are useful tools to clean away oil, larvae, fly eggs, mites, infections, mud, and other contaminants from wildlife.

Used wand donations are accepted twice annually, in October and February, and can be sent to:

Appalachian Wild
P.O. Box 1211
Skyland, NC 28776

Or

Wildlife Wands
P.O. Box 1586
Southwick, MA 01077

Check out Appalachian Wildlife Refuge’s website for more information on this upcycling program.

If your local recycling doesn’t accept certain products for recycling and you can’t find a program like Terracycle through which to recycle your waste, consider upcycling your waste into a DIY project. Terracycle offers a page of DIY Project ideas including  jewelry, wallets, garden projects, and holiday ornaments. You can also check out Diply’s 16 Ways You Can Upcycle Your Old Lip Balm Containers for a list of creative ways to reuse lip balm / chapstick containers.

Although I’ve only touched upon a few specific products, I encourage you to take the time to look into upcycling and recycling opportunities for any and all waste you generate in your daily life. With some research and creative thinking, you just may find that many sources of waste in your daily life can in fact be diverted from landfills and be reused or re-purposed into useful and fun creations.

This week as you continue down the path toward greener living, I challenge you to seek out one source of hard-to-recycle waste in your life and either upcycle it in some way, sign up for a Terracycle program, or find some other creative means of re-purposing or recycling your waste. As always, let me know how it goes in the comments section below.

~Sam

Search Sustainably with Ecosia!

On average, an individual with access to the internet conducts anywhere from one to eight internet searches every day. The largest search engine, Google, receives a staggering 40,000 search queries every second which amounts to 3.5 billion searches every day and 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide, according to Internet Live Stats. That’s a lot of searches, and whether you’re searching from your computer or phone, imagine being able to use those searches for good! Well, imagine no more, because that is exactly what Ecosia offers.

For those of you wondering just what Ecosia is, it’s simple: it’s a search engine that uses its profits to plant trees. When I first heard about this, I thought it sounded too good to be true. However, after some additional research and experience using the search engine, I am officially an Ecosia convert. An exemplar of what a responsible business model should look like, Ecosia is transparent, sustainable, and thoughtful in their operations.

Ecosia is a free search engine that uses its profits, or surplus income, generated from advertisements to plant trees. The act of planting a tree may seem insignificant, but as Ecosia explains on their website, “the forests Ecosia users have planted mitigate climate change, save endangered animals, regenerate depleted soil, and improve the livelihoods of local communities.” That’s wildly significant considering it takes no extra effort on our parts aside from installing the Ecosia extension and/or app and continuing to search the web as usual.

Ecosia is not only environmentally-focused in how they use their advertising revenue, but they are also responsible in their day to day operations with their servers running on 100% renewable energy generated from a solar energy plant constructed in 2017.  Similarly, Google, the world’s largest search engine, has been carbon neutral since 2017. However, Ecosia takes carbon neutrality a step further because with every tree planted they are actively removing CO2 from our atmosphere!

At the time of this blog post, over 60 million trees have been planted using the revenue generated by the Ecosia search engine. More specifically, Ecosia supports over 20 tree-planting projects in 15 different countries including Peru, Brazil, Madagascar, Nicaragua, Haiti, Colombia, Spain, Morocco, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Indonesia, utilizing local partners to plant and monitor the trees on the ground.

In addition to running on 100% renewable energy and actively removing CO2 from our atmosphere through their mission of planting trees, Ecosia is a Certified B Corporation, meaning  they, “balance purpose and profit and are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment.” B Corporations drive a global movement of people using business as a force for good. There are over 2,780 companies that are Certified B Corporations, with Ecosia included among the list of well-known socially responsible and progressive companies such as Ben & Jerry’s and Patagonia.

Unlike some companies that falsely claim to be acting as a force of good, Ecosia provides transparent evidence and access to their monthly financial reports and tree planting receipts so that you can know exactly how the income from your searches is being used. You can even stay up to date with Ecosia’s reforestation projects by listening to The Ecosia Podcast, subscribing to the Ecosia newsletter, or checking out their blog.

To use Ecosia on a mobile device or tablet, simply download the free Ecosia app. You can also add Ecosia as an extension to Chrome browsers or set Ecosia as your homepage in Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, or Edge browsers. For instructions on how to do this, visit Ecosia’s technical support page. Then, simply continue to search away, watching your personal search count tally up (on average it takes about 45 searches to plant a tree) while knowing you are contributing to reforestation and sustainable conservation efforts.

The most important thing you can do on your path toward greener living this week is to not only start using the Ecosia search engine yourself, but to spread the word and encourage others to use it as well. This week’s blog, while not necessarily highlighting a source of waste in our everyday lives, instead encourages a practice of thoughtfulness, intentionality, and consciousness that can inform not only our internet searches, but every aspect of our lives. Whether you start searching with Ecosia or choose more generally to support Certified B Corporations going forward, let me know how it goes in the comments section below.

~Sam

Pernicious Paper Towels: Refuse, Reduce, Don’t Use!!

In the midst of the busy humdrum of our everyday lives, it is alarmingly easy to be unconsciously wasteful. In a culture shaped by the tenets of convenience, and the inherent disposability that comes with such convenience, waste has become normalized, expected, and overlooked. As evidenced by this blog and the sources of waste identified in previous posts, many sources of waste in our daily lives can and should be avoided and replaced with more sustainable alternatives. Today’s topic is no exception: paper towels.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I abhor the use of paper towels. Whether they are being used for drying one’s hands in a public restroom, cleaning up spills, or wiping down surfaces, there is simply no need for them to exist.

As with other sources of unnecessary waste and resource consumption in our lives, paper towel usage comes with some serious environmental ramifications:
-According to Better Planet Paper, in the US alone, 13 billion pounds (6,500,000 TONS!!) of paper towels are used each year.
-To make just one ton of paper towels requires 17 trees and 20,000 gallons of water.
-Additionally, it would require 51,000 trees per day to replace the number of paper towels that are thrown away each day.
And that, is the very essence of the issue here: our acclimatization to, comfort with, and acceptance of our throwaway culture.


Instead of using, wasting, and throwing away countless paper towels, you can progress down the path toward greener living by deciding to do without these wasteful, single-use products.
This can be done by:

1. Simply don’t use them! If you are in a public restroom, choose to use hand dryers or let your hands air dry instead.

2. At home, invest in reusable dishcloths (or repurpose old textiles, such as old t-shirts, into rags). Because dishcloths have a much longer lifespan than single-use paper towels, the impact of their production is much less per use. Additionally, washing your dishcloths using green laundry techniques can further reduce the impact per use. Learn more about the greener and greenest dishcloth options by checking out Green Lifestyle Magazine’s post on the topic.

3. If you do continue to use paper towels (at home or while on the go), be sure to use sparingly. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have looked on in absolute horror as people carelessly pull five or six paper towels from the dispenser and use only a fraction of them to dry their hands before placing the largely unused stack into the trash!!

4. Again, if you continue to use paper towels, be sure to purchase recycled paper products rather than products produced from virgin wood pulp. According to Dr. Greene’s 13 Facts About Home Paper Products, if every household in the United States replaced just one roll of virgin fiber paper towels (70 sheets) with 100 percent recycled ones, we could save 544,000 trees.

5. Although paper towels should not be recycled as oils and other residues can contaminate the recycling stream, used paper towels can and should be composted as long as there are no harmful chemicals on the paper towels after use. Don’t have a compost? Learn how to start one by checking out my previous post on household composting!! 

6. Engage in some guerrilla-style environmentalism by investing in “These Come from Trees” stickers to place on paper towel dispensers. Each sticker deployed saves about 100 pounds (a tree’s worth of paper) every year by raising our levels of consciousness regarding paper towel waste. I ordered a 50-sticker pack for $10 and am eagerly awaiting their arrival...

Overall, the aim of this week’s post, and of this blog in general, is not to shame anyone for their current choices or practices, but to instead raise awareness as to the environmental ramifications of said practices and offer more sustainable, greener alternatives. So, this week I urge you to commit to a paper towel free life. The first steps may be as simple as buying a reusable dishcloth or letting your hands air dry the next time you are in a public restroom. As always, please let me know how it goes and feel free to share any thoughts, considerations, or concerns in the comments section below. In the meantime, best of luck on your journey toward greener living.

~Sam

Plastics Purge Part IV: Plastic-Free Food Storage

Greener Living’s plastics purge series continues this week with Part IV where I delve into non-disposable plastic and plastic alternatives to single-use food storage products including  Ziploc bags, plastic cling wrap, and single-use to-go containers.

Since beginning this blog nearly seven months ago, I have endeavored to eliminate and reduce the waste I’m producing in my everyday life. From the get-go, I knew that my use of plastic cling wraps, disposable Ziploc style sandwich/storage bags, and single-use to go containers was an unsustainable pattern in my life.

I subsequently sought reusable alternatives to all of these and have been using these alternatives fairly consistently and effectively since then.

Growing up in a home of avid lunch packers (cold lunch kids for life!), plastic cling wrap was a staple in my household. Everything from sandwiches to dinner leftovers were typically wrapped in a secure bundle of plastic cling wrap. It got the job done and it was convenient. However, as with the numerous other sources of single-use plastics in our lives, this convenience did not come without a cost. 

Similarly, it was exceedingly convenient to grab a plastic Ziploc bag and toss some snacks into it.

And, when we would go out to eat growing up, we’d bring our leftovers home in single-use plastic containers, the worst of which were made of Styrofoam, which under certain environmental conditions essentially never breaks down. In fact, some estimates find that Styrofoam can take up to 1 million years to break down.

As with all single-use plastics, the disposability of these products has devastating environmental impacts. Once disposed of, these products end up in landfills where they take up to 1000 years to decompose, leaching chemicals into the environment all the while. Plastic products that are improperly disposed of contribute to the ongoing plastic pollution crisis whereby they enter our natural world and are further degraded into microplastics by exposure to sunlight or wave motion. This macro and microplastic pollution accumulates toxins, contaminates our waterways, and endangers wildlife by choking animals and clogging up their digestive systems. 

In addition to their environmental impact, these single-use plastic storage options can also negatively impact human health in their ability to transfer chemicals into our food, especially when exposed to heat.

Luckily, in our planet’s growing awareness around the profound problems posed by plastic pollution (read more about the historic agreement on plastic pollution reached by over 180 countries worldwide), reusable or more sustainable alternatives to these single-use plastic products are becoming more readily available and commonplace.

US households use an estimated 24 rolls of plastic wrap per year. However, single-use, plastic cling wrap can be avoided by storing food in reusable containers with lids. Likewise, sandwiches and other commonly-wrapped foodstuffs can be stored in reusable sandwich boxes or small Tupperware containers instead.

ETEE FoodWraps via Amazon

There also exists reusable beeswax food wraps. I ordered an assorted pack of these beeswax wraps, and although it took some adjustment and practice to get used to, I found that they function just as well as plastic wrap. Unlike the wasteful plastic/cling wrap which readily clings to itself, these beeswax food wraps are “heat activated” and need to be warmed by rubbing them in your hands before they stick to themselves. However, once activated they readily adhere to themselves or to the edges of dishes you may be covering. Best of all, they can be cleaned and reused up to 150 times.

There are a variety of beeswax food wraps available such as the ETEE reusable food wraps that I ordered from Amazon. I encourage you to shop around and explore the product reviews and information for yourself to get a better idea of how these alternatives to cling wrap work. (Please note: buying local whenever possible rather than ordering and shipping from online is better for the environment!)

Similarly, I phased out my use of plastic Ziploc bags by investing in reusable alternatives. With fun patterns and a variety of styles, these sustainable alternatives met my various snacking needs. I could fit sandwiches, chips, cheese and crackers, or really whatever I was looking to snack on at work or on the go. These alternatives can be made of cloth, silicone, or PEVA / EVA non-chlorinated plastics. The average US household uses 500 Ziploc or off-brand equivalent plastic bags each year, according to Design-Life-Cycle of the University of California, Davis Department of Design. Swapping out the single-use bags for reusable alternatives can therefore significantly reduce plastic waste output while simultaneously saving you money.

If you do continue to use plastic Ziploc bags on occasion or consistently, be sure to rinse and re-use these bags as they can be cleaned out and used multiple times.

Take-out and to-go orders have also contributed an estimated 269,000 tons of plastic pollution in the form of cups, plates, cutlery, straws, and containers. Many restaurants have invested in biodegradable, compostable alternatives to plastic/Styrofoam containers and cutlery. However, these products are often only compostable at an industrial level. Therefore, even when more eco-friendly alternatives exist, it is best to forgo the conatiner altogether by bringing your own to-go container in the form of a reusable Tupperware made of plastic or glass. Also, be sure to go without straws, napkins, or plastic cutlery that may be offered in conjunction with your to-go, and choose instead to use reusable straws, cloth napkins, and non-disposable cutlery—all of which will help cut down your plastic footprint. Pro tip: keeping a reusable spoon or other cutlery and a reusable napkin in your bag, purse, or car can help you have access to sustainable alternatives while on the go.

Additionally, I keep a Tupperware or two in my car. This way, when I go out to eat and have leftovers I’d like to take home, I can grab my Tupperware from my car.

Many of these alternatives are in fact plastic. Sometimes a sturdier, PVC/BPA-free plastic alternative is the best option in terms of portability and durability. However, it is also worth noting that glass containers, jars, and Tupperware offer plastic-free storage alternatives that are definitely worth consideration.

So, this week, I urge you to work on phasing out these single-use plastics from your kitchens and from your daily lives. If you feel intimidated by the prospect of doing away with plastic Ziplocs, cling wrap, and single-use to-go containers all in one go, pick just one to start with. Your goal this week could even be as simple as putting a reusable container into your car for future use.

Whatever you decide to do, know that you are taking an important step on your continued journey toward greener living, and, as always, let us know how it goes in the comments section below.

~Sam

Plastics Purge Part III: Reusable Water Bottles to the Rescue!

Greener Living’s Plastics Purge Series continues here with Part III. If you haven’t yet had the chance, be sure to check out previous posts in the series, including Part I  on disposable plastic shopping bags and Part II on single-use plastic straws.

In this week’s post, I’ll be delving into an additional source of unnecessary, avoidable plastic waste: single-use, disposable plastic water bottles—a topic near and dear to my heart.

In an alarming trend of disposability, roughly 40 percent of the now more than 448 million tons of plastic produced every year is disposable. This is according to a National Geographic article by Laura Parker, which details the problematic nature of our dependence on plastics.  Globally, only 18 percent of plastic is recycled, up from nearly zero percent in 1980. Even though plastic bottles are one of the most widely recycled products, they are still a serious contributor to our global plastics pollution problem. They are also seriously unsustainable in their oil and water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and prevalence in landfills.

Last year alone, Americans used a staggering 50 billion plastic water bottles. With bottled water consumption reaching an all-time high in the United States and other parts of the world, the time to act is now.

Although it is easy to demonize plastic water bottles from an environmental standpoint, I would like to first acknowledge that plastic water bottles can serve a vital function in bringing safe drinking water to people who don’t have it. However, in the context of addressing superfluous waste in our everyday lives, the unnecessary nature of single-use plastic water bottles applies to those of us with access to clean, safe drinking water.

People with access to clean, safe drinking water who choose to utilize bottled water instead of tap water typically do so as a matter of convenience, status symbol, preference in taste, or perceived increase in health benefits or safety.

However, in both the US and Canada, tap water has more strict safety regulations than bottled water. Additionally, 45% of all bottled water is actually sourced from the tap, and, in instances of blind taste tests, the majority of people choose tap water as the better tasting alternative to bottled brands.

As for the matters of status and convenience, in a perfect world the sheer unsustainability of the bottled water industry would render the use of such a product as socially stigmatizing and unacceptable. Likewise, the few extra minutes in a day it takes to refill a reusable bottle from a tap or water fountain are far less costly than the alarming environmental ramifications of a continued reliance on single-use plastics.

Environmentally, single-use plastic water bottles are incredibly costly, requiring unsustainable levels of energy and resource input in their manufacturing, transportation, and disposal. For example, the manufacturing of a plastic water bottle requires three times the amount of water needed to fill it. Furthermore, the production of plastic water bottles requires up to 17 million barrels of oil and releases 2.5 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. Resources are needed to transport the bottled water as well, using additional fossil fuels and releasing additional greenhouse gases in the process, with some estimates finding that it takes 76 million barrels of oil annually to produce, transport, store, and dispose of the plastic bottles used in the US. That's enough oil to fuel 4.3 million cars for a year!

The water going into the bottles poses additional environmental concerns, as this water is often being sourced and harvested from water-scarce or water-insecure regions such as drought-plagued California and Fiji, ultimately draining local water supplies and framing access to healthy drinking water as a commodity rather than a human right.

The disposal of plastic water bottles poses yet another environmental concern. Each year, as little as 12-30% of plastic water bottles end up being recycled. The rest end up in landfills where it can take up to 1000 years for the plastic to decompose. Moreover, those bottles that are sent into the recycling stream aren’t truly recycled, but are instead often shipped to China where they are “downcycled” and converted into fabric, rugs, and clothing which requires additional fossil fuel use and energy inputs. 

With energy-intensive manufacturing, packaging, and transportation processes, low recycling rates, and inefficient recycling processes, the best thing we can do for the environment when it comes to bottled water it to avoid it altogether.

In addition to the positive environmental impacts associated with avoiding single-use, disposable plastic water bottles, your wallet will thank you too, as utilizing a reusable water bottle can result in significant financial savings. On average, a reusable water bottle costs anywhere from $5-$30. Single-use water bottles typically range in price from $1-$3. So although single-use plastic water bottles are cheaper at the individual price, they are much more expensive in the long run (both financially and environmentally). In fact, as clean energy provider Arcadia Power outlines in their blog post on reusable water bottles, you could save as much as $3,000 annually by using a reusable water bottle over single-use plastic ones—not to mention you'd be saving close to 1500 plastic bottles every year!!

In comparing the costs of bottled water vs. tap water, finance blogger Amy Livingston of Money Crashers cites data from both the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which points to bottled water being a staggering 600 times more expensive per gallon than tap water. Single-serve plastic bottles, which account for 65% of all bottled water sales, cost even more per gallon comparatively and are 3,785 times more expensive than what you’d pay for the same amount of water from a faucet.

Bottled water is expensive on an economic, environmental, and social scale. The ubiquity of bottled water and the power and influence of the big corporations that produce, market, and profit from the lucrative bottled water industry may seem overwhelming. However, you as an individual can make a difference by following these steps:
1. Avoid bottled water whenever possible.
2. Invest in a reusable water bottle. With so many different designs and styles out there, you can find a bottle that meets your needs and expresses your commitment to moving away from single-use plastics. Not sure where to start? Check out this list of the 26 Best Water Bottles of 2019.
3. If you do use a plastic water bottle, consider using it multiple times before making sure it finds its way into the recycling stream.
4. Don’t throw away plastic water bottles, as these will end up in landfills and take thousands of years to decompose.
5. Reduce your consumption of single-use plastic water bottles. Even cutting out as few as two single-use bottles per week prevents 104 items from polluting our planet every year.
6. Advocate for your friends, family, office, company, school, town, state, etc. to do away with single-use plastic water bottles. Learn more about how to raise awareness, educate others, and work toward enacting bottle bans at Ban the Bottle.

So, this week, let’s help out the environment by pledging to reduce our single-use plastic consumption. Literally, visit National Geographic’s Planet or Plastic? to pledge to cut out plastic bottles from your everyday life (along with other sources of single-use plastic). With the ability to customize your pledge, challenge your friends, and calculate the real impact of cutting down on single-use plastics, this tool is a great resource to help you say no to single-use plastics!

In the meantime, I wish you all a happy journey on your path toward greener living…
~Sam