Embarking on our journey to plastic-free living

Eliminating plastic from our lives is going to be really difficult, but our family has committed to doing this for a variety of reasons.

About two months ago, I watched Plastic Paradise, a documentary available on Netflix. And then I watched it again. The moral of this story is that I was quite disturbed. Not just by the terrible ways that plastic is literally destroying our environment - although that is also disturbing but not exactly news if you just go to the beach or the park or any populated natural area and look around you. But also by the way plastic is becoming part of our very fabric of life. It's in our blood, our cells, and our water supply. It's in our food chain at very high levels. And being as plastic was developed for home use in the 1950's, it has only been around about 70 years. If we can do this much damage to ourselves and the environment in only 70 years, what does that say about the future of our planet and our species?

My 10 year old daughter Sheridan was working on a project for Maker Faire in Orlando. She had a lot of ideas but she chose to work on a biodegradable, non-toxic plastic substitute. Of course this filled me with pride, but I knew she had her work cut out for her. A little short of essential chemistry skills and materials science education, she watched Plastic Paradise herself, did a little googling, and came up with a recipe for making casine (out of milk and vinegar) in my kitchen. By cooking, removing the liquid, and curing the substance, you get something that feels very much like plastic but is, in reality, more closely related to cheese.

Her table at Maker Faire was a hit and she had non-stop traffic all day. 90% of the visitors were very impressed and quite complimentary. Some parents were quick to tell me how proud I should be (and I am). Others walked away, lecturing their own kids on their lack of initiative to save the planet. But a few folks asked her some very hard questions. And now she knows she has her work cut out for her in the future, because she wants to pursue this as a career and lifestyle.

Of course, she's 10, so she may change her mind and decide next week that she's going to be a race car driver when she grows up. That's okay with me as long as she's driving an electric race car.

Over the coming weeks, we are going to gradually eradicate plastic from our home and our lives outside of it. This is going to be easy at first and we've already made some basic changes. At some point, it's going to become challenging. We will be depending heavily on Amazon to provide us with a lot of our replacement products, as we do not live close to a Whole Foods or similar healthy living store and with two full time jobs and three active kids, we are just out of time for driving 40 minutes away to get biodegradable garbage bags. But thankfully we live in a day and age where this is not necessary and we can simply let our fingers do the shopping.

Our first step is to tackle plastic straws. These tiny sticks of evil always always always end up in landfills where they will stay for who knows how long. 500 years or more, we believe. In addition to buying a box of stainless steel straws for home use, I am now carrying around a pouch of these.

They cost about $9 on Amazon and I'll report back later on how long they lasted. These straws are very sturdy and the kids love them. In fact, I think I'll go through them quickly simply because everyone around us wants one when I pull them out of my bag. That's okay - spreading the message is part of the mission.

We have also pledged to avoid the plastic covers on cups that we get at fast-food places and to either request paper cups (where available) or bring our own cups. I already bring my own reusable mug everywhere I go, but I've stashed a few extras in the Macon-mobiles so that we don't have to think of this every time we leave the house.

I'd like to post in this blog more than once a week, but I doubt I'll be able to simply because a) my job and life are very demanding and b) I already have another blog that I post in a couple of times a week about my first sustainability-lifestyle love, my Chevy Volt. I'm very committed to moving towards zero emission driving as well. But every week, expect to see a new Macon-innovation geared towards plastic eradication, and these will get progressively complex as time goes on.

Feel free to share ideas in the comments too. No ego here - in order to make this work on a large scale, we all need to be thinking and working together.