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Plastics Make it Possible® teams up with celebrity chef and television personality Duff Goldman to show how easy it is to reduce several kinds of waste in your kitchen. Stay tuned for the full videos.

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We've moved! And we're happy to direct you to our new online spaces with exciting changes to make your visit even more worthwhile.
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The America's Plastic Makers' site has a wide array of information on the evolving story of plastic, including advancements in recycling technologies, sustainability solutions, emerging policies and more. Visit www.plasticmakers.org to explore helpful insights and resources.

Our main website covers a wide range of topics related to the products of chemistry, including sustainability, recycling, investment and safety. Access this valuable content at www.americanchemistry.com.
To access resources on specific topics, we have provided direct links below:

Plastic Recycling Guide: Discover innovative solutions for plastic recycling.

Advanced Recycling Technologies: Learn about our ongoing efforts to recycle significantly more plastics.

Automotive Sustainability: Learn how carmakers are squeezing more miles out of a gallon of gas - and improving safety and performance - in part by replacing heavier materials with lighter weight plastic components.

Building Sustainably: Learn how durable plastic building materials help drive down home energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Thank you for your continued interest in America's Plastic Makers - we remain dedicated to delivering you valuable information.

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We've moved! And we're happy to direct you to our new online spaces with exciting changes to make your visit even more worthwhile. For access to informative and updated content, we recommend the following alternative websites: The America's Plastic Makers' site has a wide array of information on the evolving story of plastic, including advancements in recycling technologies, sustainability solutions, emerging policies and more.

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Plastics became widespread after the second World War, and as a material, plastic is still relatively young. Microscopic plastic particles, or microplastics, have caught the eye of researchers only quite recently. Microplastics come with plenty of questions, but for the time being, only few answers are available.

"Microplastics are a Pandora's Box of a kind, or at least an infinite source of research questions. However, research evidence relating to microplastics and their effects remains scarce," says Samuel Hartikainen of the University of Eastern Finland. His research focuses on the chemical properties of microplastics.

Whirlpools of plastics and microplastics in oceans have received plenty of attention in the media. However, microplastic concentrations in lakes and other closed bodies of water may be higher than in oceans, where the water flows freely.

"Microplastics are present in practically all bodies of water, although the remotest ones haven't been scientifically studies, of course. We can nevertheless assume that airborne microplastics have found their way also in these waters," says research manager Arto Koistinen, who also studies microplastics chemistry.

Microscopic particles of plastic have also been found in the intestines of fish and other seafood. Microplastics aren't poisonous as such, but they are known to absorb hormone disruptors and heavy metals. So, can microplastics find their way on our plates, and can hazardous materials absorbed by microplastics make our food poisonous?

"There is no clear evidence of possible health risks of microplastics in the food chain or drinking water. This is due to the fact that the methods of environmental health risk assessment have been introduced just recently to determine possible health risks caused by microplastics. It is possible that microplastics eaten by fish and other seafood can release harmful substances that eventually end up in food. This interface plays a key role, and this is why chemical analysis of plastics is important. It is important to study the chemical content of microplastic particles to understand their chemical properties and behaviour in the digestion track of fish and other animals. Moreover, it is important to study all possible sources of microplastics, collect and analyse samples from the environment, monitor the possible pathways of microplastics and harmonise globally the standard analytical methods relating to microplastic studies," Hartikainen says.

"The interface between the chemistry of plastics and the human body is also interesting from the viewpoint of medical plastics. For example, plastics used in joint replacements can wear and tear over time, resulting in microplastics within the body," Koistinen says.

Plastics in water are known to carry microbes and non-native species. According to Hartikainen and Koistinen, there is reason to believe that also microplastics can carry viruses and bacteria.

"Although we don't understand all the mechanisms relating to plastics just yet and the research evidence is not comprehensive, we nevertheless know that plastics have certain properties that affect the environment and human health. This is why we should follow the precautionary principle and combat possible adverse effects already now," Koistinen says.

"It is impossible to abolish all sources of plastic waste, but we should first focus on the major ones, including industrial sources. On the other hand, littering is also something that can be impacted on through educational campaigns and solutions relating to the infrastructure. For example, it actually helps to have litter cans on beaches together with effective waste management," Hartikainen says.

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Microplastics-an environmental cause for concern

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Plastics became widespread after the second World War, and as a material, plastic is still relatively young. Microscopic plastic particles, or microplastics, have caught the eye of researchers only quite recently. Microplastics come with plenty of questions, but for the time being, only few answers are available.

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A September 2008 photo released by the Ocean Conservancy on March 10, 2009, shows a trash-covered beach in Manilla, Philippines. (Tamara Thoreson Pierce/Ocean Conservancy/AP)

There is a lot of plastic in the world's oceans.

It coagulates into great floating " garbage patches" that cover large swaths of the Pacific. It washes up on urban beaches and remote islands, tossed about in the waves and transported across incredible distances before arriving, unwanted, back on land. It has wound up in the stomachs of more than half the world's sea turtles and nearly all of its marine birds, studies say. And if it was bagged up and arranged across all of the world's shorelines, we could build a veritable plastic barricade between ourselves and the sea.

But that quantity pales in comparison with the amount that the World Economic Forum expects will be floating into the oceans by the middle of the century.

If we keep producing (and failing to properly dispose of) plastics at predicted rates, plastics in the ocean will outweigh fish pound for pound in 2050, the nonprofit foundation said in a report Tuesday.

According to the report, worldwide use of plastic has increased 20-fold in the past 50 years, and it is expected to double again in the next 20 years. By 2050, we'll be making more than three times as much plastic stuff as we did in 2014.

[Nearly all of the world's seabirds have eaten plastic, study estimates]

Meanwhile, humans do a terrible job of making sure those products are reused or otherwise disposed of: About a third of all plastics produced escape collection systems, only to wind up floating in the sea or the stomach of some unsuspecting bird. That amounts to about 8 million metric tons a year - or, as Jenna Jambeck of the University of Georgia put it to The Washington Post in February, "Five bags filled with plastic for every foot of coastline in the world."

The report came a day before the start of the glitzy annual meeting arranged by the World Economic Forum to discuss the global economy. This year's meeting in Davos, Switzerland, is centered on what the WEF terms "the fourth industrial revolution" - the boom in high-tech areas like robotics and biotechnology - and its effect on the widening gulf between the wealthy and the world's poor.

But the plastic situation - fairly low-tech and more than a century old at this point - is a reminder that we still haven't quite gotten the better of some of the problems left over from the first few "industrial revolutions."

['Microbeads' soon will be banned from toothpaste and soaps]

According to the report, more than 70 percent of the plastic we produce is either put in a landfill or lost to the world's waterways and other infrastructure. Plastic production accounts for 6 percent of global oil consumption (a number that will hit 20 percent in 2050) and 1 percent of the global carbon budget (the maximum amount of emissions the world can produce to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius). In 2050, the report says, we'll be spending 15 percent of our carbon budget on soda bottles, plastic grocery bags and the like.

Once it gets washed into waterways, the damage caused by plastics' presence costs about $13 billion annually in losses for the tourism, shipping and fishing industries. It disrupts marine ecosystems and threatens food security for people who depend on subsistence fishing.

Besides which, all that plastic in the water isn't too great for the animals trying to live there.

The data in the report comes from interviews with more than 180 experts and analysis of some 200 studies on "the plastic economy."

ONE TIME USE ONLY--------------Artist Chris Jordan is making a film about the albatrosses of Midway Island, which are being impacted by the "plastic soup" in the Pacific Ocean. (Copyright © Chris Jordan/CHRIS JORDAN)

The report was published on the same day that a study came out in the journal Nature Communications asserting that the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization is drastically underestimating the overfishing of the oceans. The study, from researchers Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller of the University of British Columbia's Sea Around Us project, found that global catches between 1950 and 2010 were probably 50 percent higher than previously thought - meaning that damage to the world's fish stocks was also much worse.

Overall, it was not a good news day for anyone with fins.

But both reports gave some signs for optimism. Pauly and Zeller told The Washington Post that the underestimation of how much humans were fishing means the U.N. also underestimated how much fish the oceans can provide.

"If we rebuild stocks, we can rebuild to more than we thought before," Pauly said. "Basically, the oceans are more productive than we thought before."

And the World Economic Forum report, though not quite so sunny, suggests that there are ways to offset all this plastic we're making and discarding. Countries can implement incentives to collect waste and recycle it, use more efficient or reusable packaging and improve infrastructure so that less trash slips through the system and into the seas.

Today's Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.

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By 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the world's oceans, study says

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There is a lot of plastic in the world's oceans. It coagulates into great floating " garbage patches" that cover large swaths of the Pacific. It washes up on urban beaches and remote islands, tossed about in the waves and transported across incredible distances before arriving, unwanted, back on land.

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Five hundred tonnes of Christmas tree lights and at least 25m bags of plastic sweet wrappers, turkey coverings, drinks bottles and broken toys will be thrown away by UK homes this Christmas and new year. But only a tiny proportion of this waste will be recycled.

Even at other times of year, only a little under a quarter of the UK's plastic waste is recycled, but over the festive period still less escapes the tip according to a survey by home drinks maker SodaStream. Globally, recycling of plastics is even smaller.

The outcome is a belief that the Earth is being slowly strangled by a gaudy coat of impermeable plastic waste that collects in great floating islands in the world's oceans; clogs up canals and rivers; and is swallowed by animals, birds and sea creatures.

In many parts of the developing world it acts as a near ubiquitous outdoor decoration, along roads in India, around villages in Africa and fluttering off fences across Latin America. And when it is not piling up, it is often burned in the open, releasing noxious smoke.

There are no global figures on the true scale of the problem but, according to PlasticsEurope, the European trade association for plastics manufacturers, 265m tonnes of plastic are produced globally each year. In the UK, about two thirds of this is for packaging; globally, this would translate to 170m tonnes of plastic largely created to be disposed of after one use.

Even at the almost unmatched EU recycling rate of 33%, two thirds of that - or more than 113m tonnes - would end up in landfill, being burned or cluttering up the environment. Such a figure, almost certainly a huge underestimate, would be enough to cover the 48 contiguous states of the US in plastic food wrapping. If the world recycled packaging at the rate the US does, 15%, it would generate more than enough plastic to cover China in plastic wrap. Every year.

A few years ago the UK was seized with worry about plastic bags: communities went "plastic-bag free" and the then prime minister, Gordon Brown, announced he would talk to retailers about phasing them out. In the absence of much change, his successor, David Cameron, recently re-raised the idea of a national levy. In response, the plastics industry argues that the alternatives would be even more wasteful in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

What would a world without plastic look like? Earlier this year, Austria-based environmental consultancy Denkstatt imagined such a world, where farmers, retailers and consumers use wood, tins, glass bottles and jars, and cardboard to cover their goods. It found the mass of packaging would increase by 3.6 times, it would take more than double the energy to make and the greenhouse gases generated would be 2.7 times higher.

To understand this, consider the properties of plastic that make it so attractive: it is durable, flexible, it does not shatter, it can breathe (or not) and it is extremely lightweight. As a result, food and drink are protected from damage and kept for lengths of time previously unimaginable.

The European Packaging and Films Association (Pafa) says average spoilage of food between harvest and table is 3% in the developed world, compared with 50% in developing countries, where plastic pallets, crates, trays, film and bags are not so widespread. Once the food reaches people's homes, its lifespan is also increased - for a shrinkwrapped cucumber, from two to 14 days.

A less obvious benefit is that, by being much lighter than alternatives, plastic packaging greatly reduces the fuel needed for transport. Because of the huge carbon content of our diets, it is estimated that for every tonne of carbon produced by making plastic, five tonnes is saved, says Barry Turner from Pafa.

A more surprising point is made by Friends of the Earth's waste campaigner Julian Kirby, who points out that because it is inert in landfill, plastic waste buried in the ground is a counterintuitive way of "sequestering" carbon and so avoiding it adding to global warming and climate change.

This focus on carbon and climate change, however, ignores the very reasons plastic bags and plastic packaging generally first gripped the public imagination - namely that it is such a highly visible result of our throwaway society.

Wales, Ireland and other countries have opted to levy a tax on plastic bags to deter their use but making deeper cuts to plastic waste will need other options too.

Many "ethical" products - from sandwiches to nappy bags - have switched to biodegradable plastics, made either from natural products such as cornstarch or by using an additive that helps break down the plastic. However, Turner suggests this will remain a niche, because the process is expensive and - in his words - is "destroying" a resource that could be recycled.

Recycling plastic is particularly hard because there are so many types and because it is difficult to remove contamination. Increasing recycling is, though, one of the two areas focused on by the plastics industry. It estimates that if every council in the UK operated at the rates achieved by the best local authority for each type of plastic - PET bottles, cartons, trays, bags and so on - the country could raise total plastic recycling from 23% to 45%. "On-the-go" recycling - currently almost nonexistent - also needs to be dramatically improved, said Turner.

To meet its self-imposed target of zero plastic waste to landfill by 2020, however, the industry is largely looking to incineration, which is highly controversial with environment groups and communities, who worry about how waste ash is disposed of and breathing in emissions from the plants - despite assurances from the Health Protection Agency that modern plants are not damaging to health.

Greenhouse gas emissions from such plants are also high: equivalent to 540g of carbon dioxide (CO²e) per kilowatt hour, more than gas power and more than 100 times that for nuclear.

Instead, environment campaigners want more attention paid to the "waste hierarchy" - reduce, reuse, recycle. To drive this change, the government this month proposed increasing all recycling targets, raising plastics to 50%.

If enforced, that should encourage innovations, such as more food recycling (which research suggests reduces over-purchasing and so the need for packaging), and the recent development of a new dye for black plastic bags which, unlike the traditional compound, can be detected by the automatic sorting machines.

Globally, 47 industry groups have united to fund research to stop plastic getting into the seas. On land, countries could adopt a system used in several European nations where manufacturers are responsible for recovering a percentage of the plastic they make. "The idea of producer responsibility is one that people are most agreed on, but no one's sure how," said Kirby.

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Global hunger for plastic packaging leaves waste solution a long way off

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Despite measures to increase recycling, discarded plastic packaging continues to blight Earth

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Ocean plastic is likely disappearing into the food chain, new study indicates

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A study out today in Science indicates that the environmental threat of plastic in our oceans is much larger than we thought.

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Garbage Island: An ocean full of plastic

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Garbage Island: An ocean full of plastic

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Garbage Island: An Ocean Full of Plastic (Part 1/3)

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This is the first three minutes of documentary film BAG IT. This film examines the impact of plastics on the environment, marine animals and human health.

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Garbage Island: An ocean full of plastic, VICE Documentary

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Garbage Island: An ocean full of plastic, VICE Documentary

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"There are really high concentrations of contaminants in plastics and the fragments are a big problem, because animals are ingesting them"

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"Of the more than 200 government funded studies, 92% show harm related to BPA"
-Bag it, documentary

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"Single-use disposable plastic, think about it, why would you make something that you are going to use for a few minutes, out of a material that is basically going to last forever and you are just going to thow it away"
- Bag it, documentary

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I use stainless steel straws to reduce plastic exposure and help the environment. What about you? #plasticfreelife

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I use stainless steel straws to reduce plastic exposure and help the environment. What about you? #plasticfreelife https://t.co/S8SSK9cuBp

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I use stainless steel straws to reduce plastic exposure and help the environment. What about you? #plasticfreelife pic.twitter.com/S8SSK9cuBp
— Prerna (@prernakr) September 18, 2016

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I use stainless steel straws to reduce plastic exposure and help the environment. What about you? #plasticfreelife https://t.co/S8SSK9cuBp

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I use stainless steel straws to reduce plastic exposure and help the environment. What about you? #plasticfreelife https://t.co/S8SSK9cuBp

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I use stainless steel straws to reduce plastic exposure and help the environment. What about you? #plasticfreelife

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Depending on where you live and work, you're likely to be exposed to many plastic products every day. Food and beverage containers, some disposable plates, and toiletry bottles are all plastic and all are made from chemicals. Research suggests that all plastics may leach chemicals if they're scratched or heated. Research also strongly suggests that at certain exposure levels, some of the chemicals in these products, such as bisphenol A (BPA), may cause cancer in people.

BPA is a weak synthetic estrogen found in many rigid plastic products, food and formula can linings, dental sealants, and on the shiny side of paper cashier receipts (to stabilize the ink). Its estrogen-like activity makes it a hormone disruptor, like many other chemicals in plastics. Hormone disruptors can affect how estrogen and other hormones act in the body, by blocking them or mimicking them, which throws off the body's hormonal balance. Because estrogen can make hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer develop and grow, many women choose to limit their exposure to these chemicals that can act like estrogen.

BPA also seems to affect brain development in the womb. In 2011, a study found that pregnant women with high levels of BPA in their urine were more likely to have daughters who showed signs of hyperactivity, anxiety, and depression. The symptoms were seen in girls as young as 3. It's not clear why boys aren't affected in the same way.

Steps you can take

While it's likely impossible to completely avoid all plastic products, try to use as little plastic as possible, especially if you're pregnant, and never use it around food.

To reduce your exposure to BPA:

Carry your own glass, steel, or ceramic water bottle filled with filtered tap water.

Reduce how much canned food you eat and how much canned formula your baby uses.

Use baby bottles with labels that say "BPA free."

Avoid handling carbonless copy cash register receipts. If you get a carbonless receipt, don't recycle it. Recycling receipts with BPA in them can spread the BPA to other products made with recycled paper, including napkins and toilet paper.

Look closely at plastics with a number 7 recycling symbol on the bottom. If the plastic doesn't also say "PLA" or have a leaf symbol on it, it may contain BPA. See the chart below for more information on plastic types.

To reduce your exposure to other chemicals in plastics:

Don't cook food in plastic containers or use roasting/steaming bags; the plastic residues may leach into food when heated in a regular or microwave oven.

Use glass, porcelain, enamel-covered metal, or stainless steel pots, pans, and containers for food and beverages whenever possible, especially if the food or drink is hot.

Plastics with recycling symbol 2, 4, and 5 are generally considered OK to use. Plastics with recycling symbol 7 are OK to use as long as they also say "PLA" or have a leaf symbol on them. The recycling symbol number is the code that shows what type of plastic was used to make the product.

Recycling symbol 1 is also OK to use, but shouldn't be used more than once (no refilling those store-bought water bottles!). Keep all plastic containers out of the heat and sun.

All other plastics not included in the other categories and mixes of plastics 1 through 6 are labeled with a 7, including compact discs, computer cases, BPA-containing products, and some baby bottles.

PLA (polymer polylactide) is a plastic made from plants (usually corn or sugarcane) that is also labeled with a 7. PLA plastics don't contain BPA; no safety concerns have been raised about using PLA plastic with food. Right now, it can be difficult to tell the difference between a PLA no. 7 plastic and a BPA-containing no. 7 plastic. Some PLA plastics may also say "PLA" near the recycling symbol. Others may have a leaf symbol near the recycling symbol.

To clear up any confusion, the manufacturers of PLA plastic are working with the American Society for Testing and Materials International, a global group that develops standards, to create a new recycling numbering system that would give PLA plastic its own number.

Do not cook food in no. 7 plastics that aren't PLA and avoid using non-PLA no. 7 plastics around any type of food.

teaches you the biology of breast development and how modern life affects breast cancer risk. Order a or of the booklet to learn 31 risk-reducing steps you can take today.

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Depending on where you live and work, you're likely to be exposed to many plastic products every day. Food and beverage containers, some disposable plates, and toiletry bottles are all plastic and all are made from chemicals. Research suggests that all plastics may leach chemicals if they're scratched or heated.

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6th International Symposium on Food Packaging: Scientific Developments Supporting Safety and Innovation – ILSI Europe

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Off Topic | TMF Community Cleaners Network

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Explore Off Topic space in TMF Community Cleaners Network

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Since the late 1970s, plastic bottles have been widely adopted as packaging materials for beverages, detergent and other consumer goods. Compounds such as polyethylene terephthalate have given plastic bottles several advantages, including toughness, energy savings and ease of production. Plastic bottles are economical to make, safe to use and recyclable.

Rugged and Safe

Unlike glass containers, plastic bottles are rugged and resilient; they don't shatter into sharp pieces when dropped, making products and packaging safe to handle. Because plastics are polymers -- long molecules made by linking many short ones together -- they have useful physical properties such as toughness and resistance to chemicals. The same resilience makes plastic bottles unlikely to leak or burst, protecting the contents as well as exterior shipping cartons.

Shapes and Colors

Plastic materials are easy to mold into a wide variety of bottle shapes, improving their appearance and utility. For example, manufacturers incorporate integral handles, measurement marks and pouring lips into some types of plastic bottles. In addition, plastics can range from crystal clear to any shade or color, whether translucent or opaque, making products and brands easy to identify by sight. Plastic bottles require no paint; the coloring material is mixed into the plastic resin, so it never runs, rubs or washes off.

Energy Savings

Plastic bottles are lighter in weight than their glass counterparts, reducing energy and costs required to ship products. Because plastics are soft and have relatively low melting points, plastic bottles take less energy to manufacture than glass.

A Recyclable Material

After first use, PET and other types of plastic bottles are easily recycled into many types of secondary products, including carpet fibers, pillow stuffing, tote bags and strapping materials. Some beverage bottles and nonfood containers also use recycled plastic. The light weight of plastic bottles minimizes the cost of transporting materials to recycling centers.

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The Advantages of Plastic Bottles. Since the late 1970s, plastic bottles have been widely adopted as packaging materials for beverages, detergent and other consumer goods. Compounds such as polyethylene terephthalate have given plastic bottles several advantages, including toughness, energy savings and ease of ...

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Blog -11 ways

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These bloggers treasure taking a sleek, modern approach to reducing waste in their efforts to save the planet - but they face their fair share of criticism, too

athryn Kellogg, a 25-year-old print shop employee, spends four hours a day on her lifestyle blog Going Zero Waste. She posts on Instagram, engages with Facebook followers, and writes about homemade eyeliner and lip balm, worm composting, and shopping bulk bins - anything to avoid unnecessary waste. Her trash for the past year - anything that hasn't been composted or recycled - fits in an 8oz jar.

Kellogg is earnest, enthusiastic, and admittedly still figuring out what it means to be zero waste. The aspiring actor has also weathered her fair share of criticism. "I'm not even that big yet and I get so much hate mail," says Kellogg, who draws 10,000 unique page views a month and has 800 subscribers.

Since the launch of Going Zero Waste in March 2015, she's been criticized on social media and in private messages for driving and flying, for not installing a grey-water system, and, no joke, for using toilet paper (she does have a bidet, by the way). She's been chastised by vegans for eating eggs, and one visiting relative walked around Kellogg's house pointing out anything made of plastic.

She's also been called out as overly privileged, even though she lives in a modest two-bedroom house in Vallejo, a blue-collar city 32 miles north-east of San Francisco.

"They just nitpick every little thing because zero waste sounds like such an ultimatum," Kellogg says. "My boyfriend thinks that I should change the term, but it's there, and I don't know what else to call it."

The leaders of this zero-waste lifestyle movement are young millennial women like Lauren Singer of Trash is for Tossers, Celia Ristow of Litterless, and Kellogg. They all embrace a sleek, modern aesthetic over the crunchy, hippy stereotypes of yore.

Most of these women trace their lightning bolt moment back to Bea Johnson, a charismatic, 42-year-old mother of two from the wealthy enclave of Mill Valley, California. Outspoken, French and with a taste for a stark minimalist aesthetic, Johnson solidified her status as a zero-waste lifestyle guru in 2013 with the publication of Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Reducing Your Waste.

Ariana Schwarz, 27, runs the Paris-to-Go zero waste blog. As a sustainability major, Schwarz was frustrated by the focus on theory over meaningful lifestyle changes. Then, her geology professor sent her a copy of a Sunset magazine feature about Johnson and her 16oz jar of trash. "Here was a woman actually living as sustainably as possible," Schwarz says. Inspired, she completed a school project, living zero waste for a month, then three months, and then a year. "Once I realized how easy it was, it kind of stuck with me."

These young women aim to reduce their landfill trash at a time in history when, on average, every American produces nearly three pounds of trash per day. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 40% of US greenhouse gas emissions come from hauling, making, using, and throwing away stuff and food.

Food waste in the US: 40% of greenhouse gas emissions come from hauling food.

On a drizzly, grey day back at the Vallejo farmers' market, Kellogg shows off zero-waste grocery shopping in action. She dumps organic strawberries from the plastic trays into her own jar (after asking the stand worker whether he would reuse the container). She uses cloth produce bags for shelled peas, kale and raisins. She orders cheese in reusable glass containers from a local goat farmer. Kellogg says she aspires be a "strong, moderate voice" for the zero-waste lifestyle, which she discovered after health issues pushed her towards a more natural lifestyle.

"Anyone can participate in waste reduction practices," Kellogg says. "I'm from Arkansas; I know that I'm so fortunate to live in California. None of this stuff - bulk stores, recycling programs, municipal composting - exists back home in the south. But I think absolutely anyone can participate, it's to what degree they can."

Rob Greenfield, 29, wrote Dude Making a Difference about his zero-waste journey across the US on a bamboo bicycle. He agrees that any effort counts, even if it's not as extreme as his own. He's also one of the few male zero-waste bloggers around.

Once I realized how easy zero waste living was, it kind of stuck with me

Blogger Ariana Schwarz

Greenfield admits, so far in his travels, he's only come across female zero-waste bloggers. "I don't really know why that is," Greenfield says. "But I don't feel isolated by it because it doesn't matter to me whether my comrades are male or female. I find great joy and passion in my work."

It's no coincidence that young women are leading the movement, says Kate Bailey, program manager at Eco-Cycle Solutions, a not-for-profit group that provides recycling and composting services in Boulder, Colorado.

"Women everywhere are deeply concerned about the health effects of the growing amount of chemicals and toxins in our everyday lives," Bailey says. "Women are also the primary purchasers in the household so they are on the frontlines of hyper-consumption in the US. They're frustrated by the growing prevalence of single-use, disposable products, the trend to over-package everything, and the lack of choices when it comes to sustainable, less toxic products."

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Kathryn Kellogg checks on her compost bin, where she uses worms to break down biodegradable waste. Photograph: Andrew Burton for the Guardian

Celia Ristow, a 24-year-old tech company worker who started the blog Litterless, gives smartly written tips for minimizing waste when traveling, eating out, and in the domestic sphere. Unlike other zero-waste bloggers, she doesn't track her trash in a jar. It's misleading, Ristow says, and doesn't take into account the fact that trash often accumulates in the production stream before products end up on store shelves.

Ristow admits that she'll probably never be completely zero waste, but that doesn't stop her from striving to produce as little trash as possible. She thinks of it as a daily lifestyle choice, a way of finding no-waste solutions to small decisions. Refusing samples in plastic cups. Saying no to the granola bar in non-recyclable packaging on the snack table at work. Bringing along a reusable water bottle - always.

Living in an apartment in Chicago does make taking the zero-waste route easier than it might be for, say, a family of six in rural Illinois. A composting service picks up Ristow's food scraps each month. She buys shampoo, conditioner, bar soap and lotion in bulk at a local store. For clothes, she shops second-hand and doesn't buy anything with packaging. Food is the easiest to procure, with a wealth of farmers' markets and specialty grocery stores. She also takes advantage of an excellent city public transportation system.

Though Ristow has eliminated disposable products from her daily life, she admits that as one of 7 billion people on the planet, those actions have a microscopic effect on greenhouse gas emissions, at best. But, these choices are also the best way she's found to individually combat climate change and live by her values.

"I can't, and don't want, to control what other people do," she says. "I can only change my own actions. I support stores that sell bulk, zero-waste food. I buy from smaller companies that make sustainable, compostable, zero-waste home and hygiene goods. To the people around me, I'm modeling what small daily actions can look like."

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Kathryn Kellogg at a farmers' market in Vallejo, California. Photograph: Andrew Burton for the Guardian

Personal efforts to reduce waste should be applauded, says Dr Daniel Kammen, professor of energy at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy. "Seeing [zero waste] become part of the social dialogue is a wonderful first step," he adds. Yet, in reality, it can be a challenge to quantify just how much reduction is actually happening, since "waste lurks in many corners".

To that end, he and his students built a calculator to help people track their personal and household waste. To make true inroads on waste, according to experts, we'll need stronger pricing of waste, attention to behavior science, and rewards from the public and private sector for low-waste lifestyles.

In the meantime, zero-waste devotees are "first-movers" and "latter-day Thoreaus", says Edward Humes, who profiled Johnson's work in his 2012 book Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash. "Their neighbors may look at them askance, perhaps, or as extremists," Humes says. "The early adopters of rooftop solar power a few decades ago were viewed in the same way. Now they look like visionaries. I think the zero-waste-istas are in a similar place, showing the rest of us what's possible, spreading the word. Ten years from now, they will seem much more mainstream."
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Zero-waste bloggers: the millennials who can fit a year's worth of trash in a jar

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These bloggers treasure taking a sleek, modern approach to reducing waste in their efforts to save the planet - but they face their fair share of criticism, too athryn Kellogg, a 25-year-old print shop employee, spends four hours a day on her lifestyle blog Going Zero Waste.

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Blog

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Today, Enviroblog's Lisa Frack begins a week-long experiment to live completely plastic-free. I was happy to meet with her while she was visiting Oakland last week and give her a few pointers. But don't let me be the only one. Check out her blog and give her your best tips!

Two weeks ago, I called for more plastic-free bloggers, and many of you responded. So many, in fact, that it would be an injustice to try and cram everyone into the same post. So this week, we'll hear from the first 8 bloggers who contacted me. Next week, I'll post Part 2. And hopefully, as more people join the Plastic-Free Bloggers and Plastic-Free Posse, these posts can become a regular feature.

Imagine the change we can make throughout the blogosphere if more people take on the challenge of reducing their plastic consumption and reporting their results online. We're creating a plastic-free meme that hopefully will ripple out into the consciousness of not only individuals but businesses and bureaucrats alike.

Plastic-Free Bloggers
(blogs primarily dealing with plastic)

Plastic Is Forever. Erin and Kerry are old friends from college who now live miles apart (Los Angeles and New York.) Erin says, "The impetus to make a BIG change, to hold myself accountable and blog about it came after listening to the book The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman with my friend and fellow blogger Kerry as we were on a road/hiking trip. After hearing about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch we knew we had to eliminate plastic as much as we could."

Citizen Green. Linda Anderson's son, Joel Paschal, explored the North Pacific Gyre this past winter as a member of the Alguita crew and continued with Marcus Eriksen on his plastic bottle Junk raft to bring attention to the issue of plastics in the marine environment. Linda figured that "if Joel can risk floating across the Pacific, then I can do something here in Indiana to reduce plastic in our lives." So she started her blog to talk about ways to get rid of plastic in everyday life.

Plastic Is Fantastic. Clara is a St. John Ambulance member in South Leicestershire, England. She decided to give up plastic as part of the Amalfi Challenge, a personal development program for young people. Why plastic? She says she's always been aware of it, but it wasn't until she "nipped into the Supermarket earlier this year on a damn cold windy day to try and buy some fruit" that her eyes were opened. "Do bananas and oranges really need wrapping in plastic?!" And yes, the title of her blog is meant to be ironic.

Plastic-Free Posse
(Blogs that cover a range of subjects. I've linked to their plastic-labeled posts here.)

Kale for Sale. Katrina lives in San Anselmo, CA, where she blogs about food and eating locally. Her photos are spectacular! She says, "When I realized we had less plastic waste as a result of eating from the farmers' markets and not the grocery store, it became a game to see how much more plastic we could reduce. The realization began about a year ago."

The Gamble Life. Maya Gamble describes herself as "a displaced Texan, mom to two amazing little boys, wife to the truly fabulous Chris, knitter, sewer, environmentalist, dreamer, and striver." Around the time that she learned of the "plastic soup" out in the North Pacific Gyre, she also came across the No Impact Man blog and Fake Plastic Fish and was "immediately struck."

Mumbled Rantings From the Evol God of Nollij. Ian Hopper from Novato, CA adds humor and pop culture to the mix. I love that he came to the Algalita presentation two weeks ago in a Trogdor T-shirt. He told me that he'd been attempting to reduce his plastic consumption for quite some time, but it wasn't until he read the article Plastic Ocean that he "swallowed the red pill " and was changed forever.

A Slice of the Pie. New Jersey blogger, Kel, describes herself as "Mother, Sister, Daughter. Part Time Writer, Part Time Desktop Publisher, Part Time Medical Billing Clerk, and Full Time Homeschooling Mother of four." She says that while she'd been environmentally aware for several years, it was finding Fake Plastic Fish through the No Impact Man blog that inspired her to change her plastic ways.

Cousin Yellowstone's Recital of Recyclables. Cousin Yellowstone notices recyclables by the side of the road or on hiking trails, and instead of leaving them there, picks them up and brings them home. The blog is mainly a tally of those items. Yellowstone discovered Envirowoman's Plastic-free blog last year, and was immediately inspired, but says that "turning that inspiration into actual action has required time."

I asked these bloggers a series of questions about the challenges of going plastic-free. Here's what they told me:
EASIEST CHANGES TO MAKE
Nearly all the bloggers agreed that switching from plastic bags to reusable grocery bags was one of the easiest steps, followed by carrying a reusable water bottle instead of buying bottled water. Here are a few more easy ideas:

Erin: No more plastic take-out containers. This step is easy but requires forethought; No more bite-size candy, hard candy, or mints wrapped in plastic.

Kerry: Bringing her own coffee mug. Also, eating more fruits and veggies so she doesn't need processed, packaged food.

Clara: Reusing plastic bags, paying more attention when shopping, and reducing the amount of product she uses, "i.e. not just cramming my toothbrush full of paste even though some always falls off," so that each package lasts longer.

Katrina: Not buying food in plastic [note that for other bloggers, this step is more challenging] and using bar shampoo instead of bottled.

Maya: Giving up plastic containers and plastic wrap and carrying organic cotton produce bags.

Ian: No shampoo (using baking soda & water in a reused plastic squeeze bottle), no new liquid soap dispensers (refilling from a bulk container at the store), and buying milk in returnable glass bottles.

Kel: Phasing out plastic cups, bowls, and plates, and replacing them with glass and ceramic ones and looking for plastic-free or reduced plastic alternatives to new products.

Cousin Yellowstone: Buying loose produce at a nearby farmer's market instead of pre-bagged produce at the grocery store and switching from juice to whole fruits.
BIGGEST CHALLENGES
Erin: Plastic-packaged food. Even though she likes fresh veggies and making food from scratch, it's still a daily challenge. And an even bigger challenge for her is staying positive while seeing so many other people use plastic everyday.

Kerry: Planning ahead for picnics, barbecues and tailgates. And "straws are my plastic downfall - I never remember to say 'no straw.'"

Linda: Researching the facts to make sure she is learning and blogging the truth.

Clara: As someone who is "chronically crippled," relying on "quick fix" short cuts to get things done, "i.e. mops with inbuilt floor wash detergent," many of which are full of disposable plastic.

Katrina: Getting out of the habit of plastic produce bags and finding alternatives to keeping things fresh in the fridge without them.

Maya: Kid stuff - plastic toys, stickers, markers - and all the related plastic packaging. She says, "I don't even shop that much and I still find myself with plastic packaging, trying to figure out some way to reuse it!"

Ian: Trying to convince his wife to come on board the "No Plastic Train."

Kel: Finding that for a working single parent of four, time and money are often bigger factors in purchasing decisions than plastic content or packaging. Food packaging ends up being the majority of her plastic waste.

Cousin Yellowstone: Breakfast. Both breakfast cereal and soy milk come packaged in plastic.
INSPIRATION FROM THE PLASTIC-FREE BLOGGERS
In their own words -

Erin: You can do it and you will have a ripple effect! People I know tell me all the time that I have changed the way they look at plastic and that they think twice sometime before using excess plastic. Start small-think big.

Kerry: You can make a HUGE difference by eliminating "one time use" products from your life! Let's be plastic free from sea to shining sea!

Linda: It is easy to lessen one's consumption. Pick one item at a time and figure out how to do without it. We used to do without most of this plastic not so many years ago. Now disposable plastic has become a habit that we can break.

Clara: If you don't give a damn about the damage it's causing the environment, about the future, about saving yourself money, then just think of it as a fantastic way to meet interesting people (and it's less humiliating than trying line dancing).

Katrina: Start with what you know you can change. Something easy so you can succeed and feel good. The next step will come easier and the changes that seem impossible will become a piece of pie. Local apple pie!

Maya: [I let people know] that they will feel really good about such small and easy changes like no water bottles or plastic store bags.

Ian: I try to find the common ground between myself and whomever I'm speaking with and try to find a target issue. If I can get someone thinking about reducing plastic in ONE area of their life, it'll spread like a virus to the other parts of their life hopefully! If I were to pick one thing to encourage people to reduce their plastic, it would be to encourage them to read the "Plastic Ocean" article.

Kel: Anyone can lessen plastic consumption, and every bit really does make a difference.

Cousin Yellowstone: Look at the plastic items in your trash can or recycling bin, and choose one type you could easily avoid in the future. Plan ahead for eliminating that one type of plastic waste, and don't get overwhelmed with trying to eliminate all plastic from your life at once.

And here's a final thought from me. When I was participating in running races, I never thought I would actually come in first. And I never thought of myself as competing against the other runners, but with them. Knowing there were people ahead of me kept me going. And knowing there were others behind moved me faster. The adrenaline pumped, and I had better finishing times than I ever did during solo training runs.

What does this have to do with plastic and blogging? Everything! The more of us out here running the plastic-free race, the more inspiration there will be for each of us to do better. We learn by example. By seeing what others up ahead have already done and by knowing there are others behind who are looking to us to point the way. Let's keep the momentum going!

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Voices of the Plastic-Free Blogosphere, Part 1 " My Plastic-free Life

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Today, Enviroblog's Lisa Frack begins a week-long experiment to live completely plastic-free. I was happy to meet with her while she was visiting Oakland last week and give her a few pointers. But don't let me be the only one. Check out her blog and give her your best tips!

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(NaturalNews) Many plastic product manufacturers are starting to put "BPA-free" labels on their products. The plastic industry is slowly moving away from BPA, removing it from baby bottles and plastic food storage containers. This is progress, especially since BPA has been shown to worsen obesity, cancer and behavioral problems.

However, as manufacturers move away from BPA and assure consumers that their plastics are safe, they ultimately replace it with something just as sinister -- BPS. BPS is like a cousin to BPA. It's also an endocrine disrupter and is linked to some of the same health problems as BPA. In fact, BPS might be worse than BPA.

In zebra fish, BPS has been linked to alteration in brain cell development. Additionally, this new study finds that BPS causes hyperactive behavior. (The brains of zebra fish develop similarly to humans and are a perfect testing ground for the effects of chemicals like BPA and BPS.)

In a new study out of the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, scientists exposed zebrafish to various doses of BPA and BPS. The doses were nearly equivalent to the concentrations measured in Alberta's Oldman River, a waterway near two urban areas. Both BPA and BPS raped neuron development in the brains of the zebrafish, altering the timing and rate at which new neurons develop. The most affected region of the brain was the hypothalamus, which regulates hunger, mood, hormones, body temperature and heart rate. It appears that the scientists are getting to the root of the chemicals' hormone disruption. The chemicals are altering the neurons responsible for regulating hormone production.

The fish embryos that were exposed to BPA experienced an explosion of new brain cell growth compared to controls. The scientists measured a 180 percent increase. Fish embryos exposed to BPS were affected even more. Scientists confirmed a 240 percent increase. This shows that BPS plastics might be worse than BPA plastics, interfering with brain development at a much faster rate.

The scientists concluded that the fish were generating too many neurons at once, adversely affecting the crucial functions in the hypothalamus. They also found that the influx of neurons up front caused periods of slow neuron growth later on. These abnormal fluxes disrupt the formation of connections in neural circuitry. This elicits adverse behaviors in the fish and could very well explain adverse and erratic behaviors in children. Perhaps these discoveries may help explain bipolar and schizophrenic behaviors. They could be the result of abnormal neuron growth in the hypothalamus caused by these plasticizers.

The researchers wrote that BPA-free products are no safer and often contain BPS which is also an endocrine disrupter. Their work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They said they "support the removal of all bisphenols from consumer merchandise."

They pointed out that the zebrafish used in the study were at the same developmental period as the second trimester of babies in the uterus. This might mean that BPA and BPS exposure could affect the brain development of a baby before they are even born. Exposure to these chemicals in the womb could help explain why certain developmental problems occur in childhood. This might not be limited to just behavior but may account for other malfunctions in the hypothalamus regarding proper hormone production, weight gain and more.
Sources for this article include: http://www.oregonlive.com http://www.scienceworldreport.com
http://www.eurekalert.org

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Plastics chemicals BPA, BPS linked to altered brain development

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(NaturalNews) Many plastic product manufacturers are starting to put "BPA-free" labels on their products. The plastic industry is slowly moving away from BPA, removing it from baby bottles and plastic food storage containers.

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(NaturalNews) China is mass producing plastic rice - and it causes some very serious health problems. China's Wuchang rice is extremely popular and well-known due to its fragrant smell and distinct taste - costing almost double the price of normal rice.

With the demand for Wuchang rice so high, companies have start to exploit the opportunity and create fake rice which they sell for the same high price.

It is thought that China has been producing this fake "Wuchang rice" for at least four years, recreating the popular product using potatoes, sweet potatoes and some poisonous plastic for good measure. It looks just the same as the real deal in terms of shape and size; however, the plastic remains hard after cooking and is seriously bad for your health.

An undercover journalist found out that, when producing the fake rice, Chinese companies are mixing a small amount of real Wuchang rice with plastic rice, which they then spray with a fragrance to replicate the original and package in the same way.

It is thought that whilst 800,000 tons of actual Wuchang rice is produced every year, a terrifying 10 million tons of "Wuchang" is sold annually - meaning that over 9 million tons of the "Wuchang rice" bought every single year is fake.

According to The Korea Times, distributors have stated that selling artificial rice is extremely profitable, particularly in the enormous quantities that are currently in demand. Companies have managed to get away with selling this synthetic product for over four years until they recently started to distribute it outside of China to countries such as India, Vietnam and Singapore.

The National Food Authority of the Republic of the Philippines is now in the process of investigating reports of plastic rice and is utilizing a spectroscopy device to detect whether or not the rice in question is legitimate. A warning has also been issued.

Eating just three bowls of this fake "Wuchang rice" is thought to be the same as consuming an entire plastic bag, causing serious and even fatal digestive issues, especially if consumed daily as is often the case.

In fact, most people in China consume over half a pound of rice every single day, and recent health controversies have brought into light the question of whether or not it is safe to use plastic packaging in the food industry - let alone eat plastic rice!

Research has found potentially serious health risks associated with bisphenol A and a class of chemicals called phthalates, commonly found in plastics. Bisphenol A has the ability to disrupt the functions of our hormones, particularly estrogen. It has been linked to effects on reproductive development in several animal studies.

Meanwhile, phthalates are a group of "plasticizers" that are found in various products, despite having been banned in the EU since 2005. Phthalates can also disrupt hormones; however, unlike bisphenol A it is testosterone that is affected.

Each of us likely has a detectable amount of both phthalates and bisphenol A in our bodies due to the contamination of food products that are stored in plastic containers. However, if consumed, the plastic rice in China will likely cause a massive increase in the levels of these dangerous chemicals.

So far, there have been no reports of plastic rice in the U.S.; however, the fact that the rice was being exported and consumed outside of China draws into question whether or not countries are asking enough questions about their food sources before importing goods.
Sources include: ViralAlternativeNews.com AltHealthWorks.com
Science.NaturalNews.com

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Chinese companies are making toxic rice out of plastic

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(NaturalNews) China is mass producing plastic rice - and it causes some very serious health problems. China's Wuchang rice is extremely popular and well-known due to its fragrant smell and distinct taste - costing almost double the price of normal rice.

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Yes, go on, admit it! Everyone has at some point run the fantasy or daydream of an excitingly hot encounter with a total stranger, someone whom, after the event, luckily you never clap eyes on again. But just imagine: the leading star of that one night of steam unexpectedly and unwelcomely lingers...

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