Hi Everybody

Hi.

After googling plastic free products, I came across Envirowoman's crusade to rid her life of plastics in 2007. She also has a blog here, http://plasticfree.blogspot.com. After realizing this community was set in BC, I figured why not join up. I'm not exactly an activist but I try to do a little here and there.

 This is the article that brought out the giver-of-shits in me again, Our Oceans are turning into Plastic

I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing here. I don't have any missions or goals. Though participating in an online community is something in itself. A sense of community is really missing from the green movement. When you picture taking action in a more outrageous sense, say filming an expose documentary on some horrible corporate practice, it's almost as if you're leaving the flock of society to accomplish this -- like (in an extreme example) green anarchists living in the woods, blowing up logging roads. It's not really appealing to the great sleeping dinosaur of North American middle class people. Swallowing the guilt is easier than actively clearing up any ignorance to the green movement. So I figure I'll take part, do some homework, and spread information in my own little way.

 My guiltiest pleasure is that I'm a rampant driver. I single handedly melted the skies above BC with my selfish driving habits. Driving gives me a chance to pull out of the daily grind, think and reflect while listening to loud music, and forget. Unfortunately I need to do this a lot. Maybe that's a sign I need to do something about depression. I've seen Al Gore speak in person; I got the whole Inconvenient Truth speech in the flesh, and I still do it.

 And I almost completely stopped recycling a year ago. Penn and Teller have a skeptical TV show called Bullsh!t, in which they pick a topic of controversy and demystify it in their own glib angry way. Their expose on recycling was extremely interesting. I can't rattle off facts and numbers, but their message was that it sucks up a lot of energy to recycle plastic, producing tons of C02 anyways, and for junk garbage products no one needs. Recycling paper puts ink into the oceans. Yada yada, recycling is bad according to Penn and Teller. I bought it for a while, but had a nagging feeling that they were wrong. I haven't done my homework yet, but I still think their slant wasn't saying recycling is pointless so much as it needs a huge overhaul to become efficient and not wasteful.

So, I'm here to learn and change little things. Driving less is something I need to work on. And I'm actively trying to cut out plastics from my life and buying habits. More to follow, chums!

 -B