Plastic-free July challenge, inspiration, tips, and support

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:My mom was just saying how she'd given up on cloth diapers when I was a baby, it was too much work for her, and then I find this thread.  

I wonder about ways of making washing cloth diapers easier.  Or a reusable plastic one that you can wash.  Or maybe silicon, like those cooking implements.

Or if you put all your cloth diapers in a soak tub and then can do them at once.  Use the poop too.  Just brainstorming here.

r ranson wrote:Anyone else taking the plunge this year?

Bonnie Kuhlman wrote:I have been reducing my plastic use for many years.  I reuse glass bottles for water bottles; I use my own reusable market bags; I store leftovers in glass baking dishes, but even these have plastic lids.  The things I find difficult are the groceries I purchase: sour cream comes in plastic; most yogurt come in plastic (I've found 1 brand in a jar); bread, tortillas, chips, crackers all come in plastic; most produce: berries, lettuce, carrots, etc. come in some form of plastic.  

Has anyone found solutions to these other than making your own?  

Thanks for posting this Destiny.  I'd really like to reduce my plastic even more.


When buying groceries you can at least bring back plastic bags to reuse for produce.   (Like berries)
You can make your shops more aware by leaving packaging in the store.  You have  to be quite charming to accomplish this.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:I found a dental floss that comes in a little cardboard box.  The floss itself is still a form of polymer, a plastic.  I did find a dental floss made of silk (it came in a plastic box), and I bought them both.  When I floss, sometimes I use baking soda to polish between my teeth.  The silk floss did not standup to the bkg soda, even when doubled.  Still when I found both products (side by side in the dental care row) I was very excited.  I just wonder when the silk floss makers will ditch the plastic box!

Jay Angler wrote:This video shows a number of ideas for eliminating plastic in the garden. I expect that many of us are already doing many of these ideas, but if you know any beginner gardeners, it's worth a watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSZB0DyxlfI&feature=youtu.be

Another alternative to plastic string if you don't have gentle hemp or soft cotton twine on hand and you need to tie up in a pinch is that nasty bindweed (looks like morning glory): grasp a length of it at its "up" end and run it through your forefinger and thumb of the other back toward the root end to strip off all of the leaves at once - when fresh the vine is very flexible and ties easily.  Same can be done with periwinkle and such but not much is as flexible as bindweed which deserves to be punished.

Jerry Brown wrote:About plastics --

For a few years -- in fact ever since my wife and I built the straw-bale house that I'm still living in -- I/we collected 99% of the "soft" -- i.e., "scrunchable" -- plastic that came into our lives, and bagged it up in slightly larger plastic bags; say, those of a size that a large loaf of sourdough bread could fit in. We saved these stuffed bags until we had a building project with walls that needed insulation -- and that would be occupied only in the daytime -- then packed the walls with the stuffed bags of soft plastic. Obviously one doesn't use plastic insulation in any livable structure -- a fire in the walls would emit volumes of poisonous gases; but in a workshop -- especially one with a sprinkler system -- or in a root-cellar or other storage building; or, maybe, in a boat-shed, one should be morally (if not legally) safe with walls insulated with the scrunchies.
Maybe someone can improve upon this idea...