Plastic Purge!

[mommabear207]

(hang on and i'll get to why i'm posting this here)
so dh and i were reading this article:
http://www.nhne.org/news/NewsArticle...ticAre-We.aspx

it reminded us how horrible and pervasive plastic is. every aspect from making to "disposing" of it is horrible. and then theres the bit about toxicity. yes plastic is toxic and keeps giving off more toxic stuff to absorb one way or the other. as the article mentions:

"His outrage is obvious when he holds up a rubber ducky, a common child’s bath toy. The duck is made of phthalate-laden PVC, which has been linked to cancer and reproductive harm. “What kind of people are we that we would design like this?” McDonough asks. In the United States, it’s commonly accepted that children’s teething rings, cosmetics, food wrappers, cars, and textiles will be made from toxic materials."

suddenly i think of the new toys we received when ds2 was just born - teething ring=plastic. for that matter what doesn't contain plastic? so we emailed the GPs and told them (again but this time in writing and firmly) no plastic, no batteries. and now i'm purging the plastic. anyone want to join?

as i start this i'm almost at a loss where to start. plastic is everywhere!!! so starting with toys....
this may take a while as we don't have the $ to go out and buy glass juice containers and somethings i'm holding on to like my food processor...

[mommabear207]

no takers?
well i need to cut down on all the toys anyways so using mainly plastic as starting point made it easier to know where to start.so far...
3 store sized bags full of toys
1 bag plastic plates, cups- they were starting to look pretty crappy anyways from teeth & knife marks

[RoundAbout]

I am not anti-plastic, but I'm down to only a few plastic toys right now. Mostly I think they are just ugly and they tend not to be very open-ended or as sturdy. The Schleich animal figures are staying and I have some Legos and Playmobil for when he's older but that's about it. I love the way my son's room looks when I walk in - so calming compared to the dozens of garish and noisy toys I see elsewhere.

I am also moving toward giving him real glassware and dishes for eating and drinking. He did great at brunch today (DS is 2.5) with the delicate water glass and I am willing to suffer a few broken glasses at home for the sake of learning to be more careful long-term.

[mommabear207]

funny you mention the schleich animals and legos. i left those to.
we were also moving towards real dishes and he starting to chew on the plastic so figured it was time.
i'm just trying to move away from plastics. while i don't go out of my way to buy it, it creeps in. plus my house is getting crowded and ds2 will be putting everything in his mouth soon.

[sunnysandiegan]

We already have limited plastic in our house. My main concerns are food-related since DD is 8 and no longer puts toys in her mouth.

[Tangled Hill]

Same here. Ds is eleven, and all the toys he cares anything about are plastic. That doesn't bother me, but plastic in the kitchen certainly does. I've cleared out about 95% (or more) of it. I need to toss those last few pieces.

It feels so good to throw them in the trash (or donate them - I did some of both). Now, I've just got to stop buying canned food with BPA in the lining. That one's scaring me. We love cans. Ugh. I know I need to cook more from scratch, but I just hate cooking. I do a lot from scratch, but not all. Guess I'm gonna have to bite the bullet....

[mommabear207]

before this article i had no idea that can were plastic lined. WTF?! does anyone know if its all cans? i suppose it must be to prevent the food from absorbing metals. canned pineapple, peaches and beans are so handy.

[notwonamesalike]

We've been doing this slowly. DS has very few plastic toys left. A few plastic bugs and his plastic bug collector.

We replaced Mega blocks - which had been packed away for quite a while anyhow with wooden building blocks...which he seems to love.

In our kitchen we threw out our old, leeching plastic gladware and now use pyrex glass containers - they have a plastic/rubber lid, but it doesn't touch the food.

No plastic cups. DS uses a tiny glass jelly jar for drinking water, or his Klean Kanteen.

We're really worked hard to get rid of it in our home.

Good job mama!

[doubledutch]

i just dropped off two boxes of plastic toys, but um, i just picked up a big (old, used) plastic trike for my two-year-old, which will be sent back to the thrift store at the end of the summer. i too have certain plastic toys that see a lot of action. my kids don't *need* them, but we already have them and my kids enjoy them. so the playmobil (gift!), the three-stall garage with the three different keys (rummage sale!), the many sets of sunglasses (gifts!), those kinds of things can stay. the many other cheap pieces of crap just flow in and out of our house, on their way from the grandmas to the goodwill. over and over.

we use mason jars to drink from (and have wood floors). a couple have been dropped but none have broken, that i can recall. our 3.5-year-old has been eating off regular dishes for a long time; 2-year-old has two enamel bowls and one enamel cup, but we've been using the ceramic dishes with him too lately and it's been fine so far.

i also have glass food storage containers (got a whole set for $15 and i also use them for baking!) but do use baggies sometimes too, especially out and about.

op, as you pointed out, it takes money to eliminate plastic when you have to replace it with something else. toys are a great start because they (usually) don't have to be replaced! otoh, you can get glass containers for "free" when you buy a glass jug of juice or a jar of pickles.

[Danidama]

Originally Posted by doubledutch

you can get glass containers for "free" when you buy a glass jug of juice or a jar of pickles.

I love to use empty jam jars (my favorite is Bonne Maman jams) for drinking glasses. I can put them in the top rack of the dishwasher and they come out perfectly clean and the wrapper is somewhere in the dishwasher. :-p The adhesive stuff washing off completely. That makes me so happy. I like to reuse containers for stuff, so it's not often that I come across one where the sticker and sticky stuff comes off so perfectly!

We gave away her Haba Melamine dish and cup set (she didn't use them). The platic flip lid top on her sigg bottle I threw out a while back 'cause it drove me crazy. I just use an extra regular black top on it now, from the others we have.

mommabear207, I saw this thread a couple days ago and said to myself, Sweet! A plastic crap removal thread! I was very happy to see it, but I didn't post right away, just 'cause I'm not on the computer much. Whenever I am, though, I'm on this forum, most likely. Anyway, thank you so much for the inspiration to get rid of plastic toy stuff! I've done it a couple times in the past (and always get rid of the bath toys after a few months), but it was time again. Those things creep back! But, I shall be vigilant from heretoforth. Or something. We are moving to Seattle in a few months (and then on to Portland eventually), and there is no room for any plastic stuff in the back of our truck.

So, yesterday my dd helped me put all her plastic stuff in bags-- except Schleich dudes, a Magnext set, Batcave with batman, robin and spiderman guys, and her plasmacar. But only a few animals and batman guys will be coming with us.

I was shocked about the plastic lining in cans too! That sucks. I like, live off of canned beans. I knew the day would come when I'd have to start soaking them for a day or whatever it is I have to do with the dried ones. I should totally know this, but alas, it has never been required knowledge.

Methinks the most important way to go about this, since plastic is on practically everything easily-purchased, is to make sure toys and kitchen and food stuffs don't have it. I use Pyrex bowls too, and wooden utensils, and most of dd's toys are wooden, cloth, wool and suchlike now. There's nothing I can do about my sewing machine and guitar case being plastic, but it doesn't really matter. Well, maybe there will come a day when I get all crazy and make a leather guitar case, or rig up a futuristic sewing machine made of fancy metals and rubber and strings.

[Raene]

We too are anti-plastic...I have been since DD turned 1 and I read some things about it.

We've managed to keep 99% of it out of the house. The only things I see come in are tiny plastic animals...and those will be disappearing very soon. It's hard b/c DD doesn't understand...doesn't want to understand...she just wants Barbies, etc, like her friends. We have Heart Dolls, which are like Barbies but not plastic (and not anti-woman) but those just aren't the same to DD.

Arg.

[meandk0610]

Originally Posted by Raene

We too are anti-plastic...I have been since DD turned 1 and I read some things about it.

We've managed to keep 99% of it out of the house. The only things I see come in are tiny plastic animals...and those will be disappearing very soon. It's hard b/c DD doesn't understand...doesn't want to understand...she just wants Barbies, etc, like her friends. We have Heart Dolls, which are like Barbies but not plastic (and not anti-woman) but those just aren't the same to DD.

Arg.

what are Heart Dolls? do you have a link?

i think this is a great idea! but as a pp said, it does take money. dd will be 4 next month so, while mouthing is mostly done for her, i do want to be pre-emptive for the next LO, as well as work on the food stuff. hmmm, i guess i need to work on the money part first and just try to use the pyrex for stuff that she might eat.

[meandk0610]

ooooh! i just remembered seeing the bear guy on TV storing all of his leftover food in mason-type jars so the bear couldn't smell the food in the fridge! maybe i could use those for our leftovers! i guess it doesn't matter much as long as it all fits and doesn't leak. :

[Danidama]

Originally Posted by meandk0610

ooooh! i just remembered seeing the bear guy on TV storing all of his leftover food in mason-type jars so the bear couldn't smell the food in the fridge! maybe i could use those for our leftovers! i guess it doesn't matter much as long as it all fits and doesn't leak. :

That's what my best friend does, and she puts soups in and everything.

I've got flour in a big ole pickle jar. I've been wanting to get big glass mason jars for flour and sugar and such for a long time, but now I will wait longer till after we make a big move. Love those things.

[lucyem]

About 10 years ago I read "Our Stolen Future" and started avoiding plastic. Honestly it is hard (almost impossible) to totally avoid it. But you can make good decisions on how much you do use and recycle it. And you can stay away from the more toxic kids like vinyl/PVC. The plumber was not so happy with me when I told him no PVC in our house.

[doubledutch]

oh yeah - i use our mason jars for leftovers too! it seems i have to buy a new dozen every year or two, because i use them to give other people food too (like when someone has a baby) but it's under $10 for a dozen.

[sunnysandiegan]

I purposefully buy glass-jarred food when I need to buy that sort of thing anyway. It is getting harder and harder to find mayonnaise, for example, in glass jars versus plastic, though. In any case, we wash and reuse those "free" glass jars for leftovers and freezing portions of homemade food. (Leave extra space between top of food and the lid when freezing, as food expands a bit during the freezing process...liquids moreso than dry food.)

[mommabear207]

i'm so glad for all the responses. for a bit there i started wondering if maybe people thought i was over reacting i know my relatives thought i was being a bit ridiculous (but then again they always do). then i thought well mostly likely all the MDCers are "turned on" and already know about the problems with plastic. but like pp said too. its really hard to avoid it. i'm sure i'll need to go through stuff again and keep weeding it out.

i really like the idea of using enamel for the kiddos! i have some great glasses that have been dropped a ton of times (including in the tub) and haven't broken plus the frugal side of me won't let me throw out all those free glass jars. i just wish more things came in glass jars, especially large glass jars. i usaully use them fro storing lentils etc but using them for leftovers is such a great idea. now i won't have all those plastic containers falling o my head

[njsummer01]

It's great to read a no-plastic thread! Our families think we're crazy for avoiding plastic, but we feel a lot better since purging most plastics a few years ago and have tried very hard to avoid them since - although plastic packaging is so hard to avoid.

We are really inspired by Waldorf education, so we get lots of ideas of natural toys to make for Ds from that.

Now I'm trying to inspire the people at the church we attend to "green" their nursery and get rid of all the toxic toys...

[Beauchamp]

what does everyone use for serving bowls? I have a crappy set of white plastic bowls that are really ugly, and I was thinking of replacing them with a nice colorful set--- the ones in the stores seem to be all melamine. So for popcorn, chips, etc, do you use glass Pyrex bowls? Wood/bamboo?

The thing that stinks around here is that my city does NOT recycle glass. I'd much prefer to buy food items in glass vs. plastic, but there is nowhere to recycle them, unless we save it up and drive 3 hours to the closest town. :