This is from the Story of Stuff. I hope you will give it some thought and make thoughtful purchases for the holidays and all year. “This time of year, the pressure to buy more — and waste more — is everywhere. Black Friday doorbusters, holiday flash sales, limited-time offers: overconsumption during the holidays isn’t an accident. It’s by design.
And the consequences are massive. Americans generate 25% more waste between Thanksgiving and New Year’s — an extra one million tons of trash every week. From impulse purchases tossed by January, to mountains of packaging, the holiday season has become a pipeline of extraction, production, shipping, and disposal.
What we rarely see are the impacts hidden upstream. Most of a product’s environmental footprint happens long before it reaches your door — through rapid mining of raw materials, energy-intensive manufacturing, and global shipping emissions that fuel the climate crisis.
Fast fashion hauls and holiday overbuying only accelerate the damage. Every second, a garbage truck’s worth of clothing is landfilled or burned. Electronics, toys, gadgets, and seasonal “stuff” flood into toxic e-waste dumps around the world.” Story of Stuff
Trying to be more climate friendly with gift giving this year? This holiday gifting guide will help you get in the spirit while saving you money and deepening the meaningfulness of your holiday season.
I found this so interesting from the New York Times. All this processed food has also led to the explosion of plastic packaging. Plastic and processed food are full of chemicals. Chemicals we don’t want in our bodies or in our environment.
Ultraprocessed nation
Humans have been processing food for millenniums. Hunter-gatherers ground wild wheat to make bread; factory workers canned fruit for soldiers during the Civil War.
But in the late 1800s, food companies began concocting products that were wildly different from anything people could make themselves. Coca-Cola came in 1886, Jell-O in 1897, and Crisco in 1911. Spam, Velveeta, Kraft Mac & Cheese and Oreos arrived in the decades that followed. Foods like these often promised ease and convenience. Some of them filled the bellies of soldiers in World War II.
Eventually, these products overtook grocery shelves and American diets. Now they are among the greatest health threats of our time. How did we get here? Today’s newsletter is a tour through food history.
Wartime innovation
During World War II, shelf-stable foods were developed to feed soldiers.
During World War II, companies devised shelf-stable foods for soldiers — powdered cheeses, dehydrated potatoes, canned meats and melt-resistant chocolate bars. They infused new additives like preservatives, flavorings and vitamins. And they packaged the foods in novel ways to withstand wet beach landings and days at the bottom of a rucksack.
After the war, food companies realized that they could adapt this foxhole cuisine into profitable convenience foods for the masses. Advertisements told homemakers that these products offered superior nutrition and could save them time in the kitchen. Wonder Bread commercials from the 1950s, for instance, claimed its vitamins and minerals would help children “grow bigger and stronger.” An ad for Swift’s canned hamburgers boasted that they were “out of the can and onto the bun” in minutes.
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More women found work outside the home, and by the mid-1970s, they spent much less time cooking. But they were still expected to feed their families. Fish sticks, frozen waffles and TV dinners filled modern freezers, and convenience foods became more popular. These products weren’t all ultraprocessed — some were just whole foods that had been frozen or canned with a simple ingredient, like salt. Still, people got used to the idea that packaged goods could replace cooking from scratch.
An explosion
By the 1970s, innovations in fertilizer, pesticide and crop development, along with farm subsidies, led to a glut of grain. Companies turned it into ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup and modified starch to fill sugary cereals, sodas and fast foods.
In the 1980s, investors wanted food manufacturers to show larger profits, so they developed thousands of new drinks and snacks and marketed them aggressively. (Have a look at how the ads changed over the last century.)
The tobacco companies Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds diversified into the food industry, dominating it through the early 2000s. They applied the same marketing techniques that they crafted to sell cigarettes — targeting children and certain racial and ethnic groups. Kraft, owned by Philip Morris, created Kool-Aid flavors for the Hispanic market and handed out coupons and samples at cultural events for Black Americans.
Obesity tripled in children and doubled in adults between the mid-1970s and the early 2000s.
A health crisis
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By the 21st century, you couldn’t walk through a school cafeteria, a supermarket or an airport without being inundated by ultraprocessed foods. Obesity kept rising, and food companies addressed it by making products they marketed as “healthier,” like low-carb breakfast cereals, shakes and bagels; artificially sweetened ice creams and yogurts; and snacks like Oreos and Doritos in smaller, 100-calorie packs.
They were popular, but they did not make us healthier. Scientists soon linked ultraprocessed foods to Type 2 diabetes, cognitive decline and cardiovascular disease. For generations, obesity had been seen as a problem of willpower — caused by eating too much and exercising too little. But in the last decade, research on ultraprocessed foods has challenged that notion, suggesting that these foods may drive us to eat more.
Today, scientists, influencers, advocates and politicians publicly condemn ultraprocessed foods, which represent about 70 percent of the U.S. food supply. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. calls them “poison.”
Are we at a tipping point? Maybe. There are signs that people are eating slightly fewer of these foods. But our reliance on ultraprocessed food was “decades in the making,” one expert told me, and “could take decades to reverse.”
We all need to examine the amount of plastic we purchase, and figure how we can reduce the plastic we are exposed to and disperse into our environment.
Plastic is harming our health and our environment.
By Mary Koseth and Katelynn Rolfes
From the Minnesota Reformer
Microplastics have become a significant environmental concern across the world due to their widespread presence in various ecosystems, potential harm to wildlife and marine life, and the uncertainty surrounding their long-term effects on human health.
This summer, concerned citizens across Minnesota worked with staff from Environment Minnesota Research & Policy Center to test 40 Minnesota lakes for microplastics.
When we analyzed the water samples the results were clear: No Minnesota lake is safe from microplastics.
The report presents the test results, from the northern coast of Lake Superior to the wouthwest corner Minnesota, and includes recommendations to tackle the problem. In our citizen-science research project, the 40 samples were filtered using a funnel, flask and filters which had a pore size of 0.45 microns. The goal was to capture any tiny bits of plastic that were tough to spot with only our eyes. The types of plastic we searched for were microfibers, films, fragments and microbeads. We found all of these types save for microbeads, commonly found in beauty products prior to their banning in 2015.
The results of this survey should set off alarm bells for Minnesotans who love our lakes. Minnesota’s waterways are a source of peace for people, a critical habitat for wildlife, and part of our state’s identity.
Our report underscores that microplastic pollution is not an “over there” problem. It’s a “right here” problem that none of us can afford to ignore. But fortunately for us, this isn’t a hopeless situation, and there are many ways we can take action. As individuals, as community members, as whole nations, we can uphold human and environmental health and justice with our creative ideas and bold visions. Everyone has something to offer. When it comes to microplastic pollution, it’s all hands on deck.
The report outlines a broad range of various ways to tackle the problem. These include fighting fast fashion and excess textile waste, and changing Minnesota law to allow local governments to restrict single-use plastics like plastic bags.
We need to take a lot of steps to protect our lakes and health from microplastic pollution, but to start, we need to move away from single use plastics. Nothing we use for a few minutes should be able to pollute our environment for hundreds of years.
I wanted to share an invite to Zero Waste Fest on Saturday, October 11 at Burroughs Community School in Minneapolis. It’s a free, all-day community event with panels, food, music, kid’s activities, and lots of hands-on ways to get involved in building a future without waste. Zero Waste Fest — MN Zero Waste Coalition
The day runs from 10am to 4pm and includes:
Inspiring panels on:
Building a Zero Waste Future in Minnesota
Plastic is a Justice Issue: Fighting Pollution from Production to Disposal
From Throwaway to Reuse: Reclaiming Culture, Creating Systems
Tabling from organizations around MN supporting zero waste
Clothing swaps and mending
Food, art, and music!
It’s free and open to everyone. I’d love for you to join us and help spread the word!
Every year the countries of the world produce more plastic, and there is no end in sight. Production. of plastic keeps growing.
The list below is composed by the Plastic Pollution Coalition. Let’s work every day to reduce our consumption of plastic. Never use plastic utensils, plastic bags or straws
Plastic never goes away. It doesn’t break down; it only breaks up into smaller and smaller pieces. These microplastics and nanoplastics are harmful and are everywhere now, including in our bodies.
Plastic pollutes the environment, wildlife, and people.
Plastic is not safe. Plastic leaches toxic chemicals and sheds plastic particles at all stages of its existence.
Plastic especially harms communities living near petrochemical and plastic infrastructure.
The more plastic companies make and we use, the more we contribute to pollution and climate change.
Plastic was not designed to be recycled, and most plastic does not get recycled in the way we’ve been led by industry to believe.
To solve the plastic pollution crisis, industries must stop producing so much plastic. Instead of single-use plastics, we need to use nontoxic reuse and refill systems and regenerative materials.
Taking action on an individual level, using less plastic, and demanding policy action to hold producers accountable can help support the systemic changes to shift away from society’s reliance on plastics.
Yay, It’s Plastic Free July. Join millions of people working to reduce their plastic use
Start refusing plastic today!
We have a plastic problem. Plastic pollutes our earth from it’s extraction to it’s end of life.It pollutes our water air and land. Plastic is made of fossil fuels and contains harmful chemicals are needed to make it plastic. It breaks down into tiny fibers called microplastics. These tiny microplastics have been found in our brains, blood and in every organ in or body. Do you want plastic in your brain? Plastic permeates our lives, and we would all be healthier by reducing our plastic use.
Plastic may feel convenient, but the long-term costs are serious:• Only 9% of all plastic ever made has been recycled• The rest ends up in landfills, waterways, or breaks down into microplastics. Some of these microplastics end up in fish, plants, animals and human beings. Reducing your plastic exposure is not easy, but it is important.
We all see plastic litter that is harmful to our waterways and our environment, but we are just be learning that plastic contains harmful chemicals and that it breaks down into microfibers. We can’t see these chemicals or the microfibers that can harm our bodies.
Plastic contains thousands of harmful chemicals that are especially harmful to children. These chemicals leach from plastic containers into our food and bodies. Plastic chemicals contain serious hormone disrupters that can cause obesity, diabetes, cancers and birth defects.
Water from plastic bottles has about double the microplastic level of tap water on average, according to a 2018 study published in the journal Frontiers in Chemistry. So unless your tap water is contaminated with unsafe elements, such as lead, it’s probably best to drink tap. Fill up a metal reusable bottle for when you go out. You can always filter your tap water. Depending on the filter, that may further reduce microplastic levels. (Check CR’s ratings of water filters.)
Do: Heat food in or on the stove, or by microwaving in glass. Don’t: Microwave in plastic.
Some heated plastics have long been known to leach chemicals into food. So if you’re warming up food, use a pan in the oven or on the stove, or if you’re microwaving, use a glass container. Also, avoid putting plastics in the dishwasher because of the high heat involved in cleaning.
Do: Buy and store food in glass, silicone, or foil. Don’t: Store food in plastic, especially plastic that may contain harmful chemicals.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has said that plastic food containers with the recycling codes 3, 6, and 7 may contain potentially harmful chemicals, unless they’re labeled “biobased” or “greenware.” Don’t store food in these types of containers. Instead, use containers made of glass or silicone, or wrap your food in aluminum foil. If you’re storing food in or eating food out of plastic containers, know that plastics with recycling codes 1 and 2 are more likely to be recyclable—though they are usually recycled into lower-quality plastics. And there still may be harmful or unknown chemicals in any type of plastic.
Do: Eat fresh food as much as possible. Don’t: Rely on processed food wrapped in plastic.
The more processed or packaged a food is, the higher the risk that it contains worrisome chemicals. Food cans are often lined with bisphenol A (or similar compounds). Buy fresh food from the supermarket, and—as much as possible—try to use refillable containers if your market allows. (Of course, with shopping made difficult by the coronavirus pandemic, prioritize your health and shop however is most feasible and safest.) Certain markets let you fill up cardboard or reusable containers with bulk items and weigh them, or you can use your own mesh bags for produce. Raw meat and fish need to be kept separate for safety reasons, but ask the store fishmonger or butcher to wrap these foods in wax paper instead of plastic. Take cloth—not plastic—reusable bags to the store to take your groceries home.
Do: Vacuum regularly. Don’t: Allow household surfaces to get dusty.
The dust in your house could be loaded with microplastics and chemicals that are found in plastic, such as phthalates. Cleaning up dust may help reduce the amount of plastics you inhale, especially if you are stuck inside for long periods of time during a period of social distancing. CR recommends vacuuming regularly with a HEPA filter, which is best for trapping dust. (Check CR’s ratings of vacuums.)
Do: Work with your community. Don’t: Assume your impact is limited to what you do in your personal life.
Legislation to limit the use of single-use plastics and plastic production may pull the biggest levers, but joining forces with community-level recycling groups can truly make a difference. Look for so-called zero-waste groups, which can offer guidelines for how to recycle or compost all your garbage—and which lobby for local rules that can restrict throwaway items. When possible, shop at markets that source goods locally, so they don’t require as much packaging and shipping. Seek out groups such as Upstream, a nonprofit working to create reusable takeout packaging for restaurants. And when possible, educate yourself about and support any city, county, and state legislation limiting single-use plastics.
My list to reduce your plasticfootprint:
Always carry a reusable glass or metal water bottle, and reusable shopping bags with you.
Learn to refuse single-use plastics, such as plastic water bottles and coffee cups, straws, plastic bags and plastic utensils.
Purchase fruit and produce in the bulk section, and don’t place items in plastic bags.
Always search out products in glass jars instead of plastic containers.
When you must buy plastic products, choose ones that you can recycle rather than ones you must put in the trash.
Bring your own containers and shop the bulk section of your local food coop.
In honor of Plastic-free July, buy yourself a wooden cutting board.
Plastic cutting boards (made from chemicals sourced from fossil fuels) are a staple in many of our kitchens. But did you know that they have actually been found to be a significant source of microplastics in our food? This study estimated that a person, on average, consumes between 7.4g-50.7g of microplastics from a polyethylene cutting board each year, and 49.5g from a polypropylene one. These microplastics have many potential health risks such as increased risk of disease, artery blockage and inflammation.
In this NBC News article, Victoria Fulfer, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Rhode Island, gives a demonstration to show how easily microplastics can end up in food and water. After cutting two slices of a white onion and rinsing the slices, she filtered the water used in the rinse. When the filter was placed under a microscope it revealed small pieces of plastic that had transferred from the cutting board to the onion.
All cutting boards, including plastic ones, should be replaced when there is evidence of excessive wear and tear, such as deep grooves in the surface. These grooves can make it harder to properly clean the board, and it makes it easier for microplastics to transfer from plastic cutting boards. This article talks about how damage to the surface of plastics further increases the release of microplastics, and goes more in depth on possible health risks associated with them.
Maybe replacing your plastic cutting boards with wooden or bamboo ones could be your first step to reducing plastic use in your daily life, or maybe you have already started the process and this is another step in your journey. Above is from The Carbon Almanac
For the health of your family, switch to a wooden cutting board
How can you use less plastic? #BeatPlasticPollution
June 5th is World Environment Day Today is World Environment Day, an international observance that began in 1973 and held annually ever since.This year’s theme continues to focus on plastic and the goal is to #BeatPlasticPollution. Did you know that:Less than 10% of plastic is recycled? The rest end up in landfills or waterways.There are more microplastics (plastic less than 5mm in diameter) in our waterways than there are stars in our galaxy?We ingest microplastics from the food we eat and the air we breathe?A global treaty to end plastic pollution is currently being negotiated, with the second round of discussions happening in August. Consider taking a count of the number of single use plastic items you use in a day or a week. And then consider what alternatives exist to help reduce that number or eliminate your single plastic use altogether. We can all take action. Together.
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” — William James
Refuse to consume so much junk. Avoid Target and The Dollar Store.
What is the single best thing I can do for the planet? Maybe the best two things I can do? The New York Times put this question to some experts. It was actually the most click on article on Earth Day.
They have sone good suggestions, but we all have such different lifestyles and ways we are all harmful to the planet in the way we live. We all need to take inventory of the ways we are harmful to clean air and clean water. Everyone can buy less stuff. Do we really need all the Easter eggs and decorations everywhere the past two months? Do you really need that extra shirt or pair of shoes? What can you purchase second hand or reuse?
Cutting meat consumption and driving less are huge, but so is not wasting so much food, and reducing our single-use plastic
The New York Times asked their experts how to be the best planetary citizens?
I think their ideas are thoughtful and interesting. It is worth a read
“The thing
First, it’s important to understand that climate change is a symptom of a larger issue: ecological overshoot, or the fact that humans are consuming resources faster than they can regenerate and producing more waste and pollution than nature can absorb, said William Rees, a human and ecological economist and professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia. The most effective solutions, then, address not just greenhouse gas emissions but overall consumption and pollution.
One of the most effective ways to avoid consumption in the first place, Dr. Rees said, is to have a smaller family. But that might not be a realistic option for many people, for all kinds of personal, cultural and other reasons.
As The New York Times’s ethics columnist has pointed out, it might also be realistic to think that children who are raised with a sense of responsibility could — in personal and collective ways — be part of the solution, ensuring human survival on a livable planet by promoting adaptation, resilience and mitigation.
A less complicated recommendation is to cut back on meat. “On all these different metrics, eating a plant-based diet broadly improves sustainability,” said Seth Wynes, a scientist specializing in climate change mitigation at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.
Bring your own plastic-free reusable cup for drinks on the go.
Bring your own metal fork from home so that you can skip plastic utensils.
Say no to receipts (BPA).
When it comes to leftovers, store food in glass, ceramics, or stainless steel foodware.
Shop naked. Buy produce that isn’t wrapped in plastic.
Don’t forget your reusable bag so that you can skip single-use plastic bags.
Health4earth 