So I was tickled a month ago when Fake Plastic Fish reader Tiffany, proprietor of the the Etsy shop Picnic Basket Crafts and writer of a blog by the same name, emailed me to ask some questions about plastic packaging.
Tiffany is a school teacher by profession and in her "spare time" sells healthy cleaning and skincare products that she makes herself, trying very hard to reduce the amount of plastic packaging. She doesn't even use plastic tape, and recently posted a Plastic-Free Green Product Packaging Tutorial on her blog, demonstrating exactly how to use paper tape. But she's stuck when it comes to containers. As she wrote me,
...I can't seem to get around the fact that my customers' number one priority is to be able to buy healthier alternative products which they can actually afford. I would like to use glass bottles, but the cost would become prohibitive to my customers, who will just turn around and buy a plastic-bottled product from someone else.
Instead, she offers to fill reused plastic water bottles "(gleaned from my classroom recycling bin - I would NEVER buy bottled water myself)" and to refill customers' containers. Recently, she posted a poll on her blog asking her readers for their opinions about businesses that use plastic packaging. Over 50% of her readers voted for her to stick with plastic to keep her prices low.
This is a real dilemma, isn't it? I didn't have a great answer for her. But after browsing her shop and reading her philosophy, especially her
which emphasize her commitment to environmental sustainability, I could tell she was definitely on the right track. Even more exciting to me were some of her products that actually solve some of my own plastic dilemmas.
My lonely Swiffer comes out of retirement!
One product that made my day was the cotton chenille
made to fit a Swiffer mop system. From the description:
Can you balance a clean floor with the trash created by using those disposable mopping systems? [Why no, Tiffany, I can't!]
So if, like me, you've had your Swiffer gathering cobwebs in the garage [Yes, I have!] because you can't bring yourself to use those disposable mopping pads [in their disposable plastic packaging], here's your solution! This listing is for a set of three thick and thirsty reusable cloths made to fit a standard Swiffer or other similar convenience mopping system (the kind where you shove a corner of the cloth down into the pokey hole to make it stay attached).
Tiffany sent me a couple of her reusable Swiffer cloths to try out.
Here's how they came packaged:
I and my floor love them!
She also makes reusable pads for other types of Swiffer systems, as well as "unpaper cloths" and "mini unpaper cloths."
Another plastic-free product Tiffany sent me to try is her new Biodegradable Laundry Stain Bar, made from vegetable oils, sodium hydroxide, borax, baking soda, sugar, and salt.
I tried it out on a tomato-stained pair of pants, scrubbing a corner of the damp bar onto the pants before I tossed them in the wash.
Stain-free!
Meet Tiffany (Cuz she's great!)
I asked Tiffany to tell me a little about herself and how she got started creating her own products to sell. The following is our interview. Be sure and read to the bottom for the Give-Away instructions. Enjoy!
Beth: When did you start inventing and making your own natural products? How did you get started? And why did you want to make these things yourself?
Tiffany: I can’t tell you about my cleaning products without telling you a little about my Oma. Coming of age in post-World War II Germany and then moving to the U.S. with 4 kids to raise on her own, it was always just a given that cleaning products would be homemade. I grew up watching her start her day by crafting the concoctions she would later use to clean, disinfect, deodorize and freshen up the house with. She was well-known for having THE cleanest house on the military base. Decades later, when she would come to visit and ask where we kept the borax and washing soda, I’d shrug and hand her some Windex and Comet. She would just shake her head and mutter to herself in German, then proceed to dig through the pantry herself looking for suitable substitutes. Oh, the wonderful things that woman could do with a stale box of baking soda, half a cup of white vinegar, and the juice of a lemon! Well, there you go… the inspiration that made me throw out everything under my kitchen sink, and begin to ask, “What would Oma use?” Her thrifty "waste-not, want not" lifestyle also inspires many of my other crafts, and I think of her often as I am working.
Beth: When did you first learn about the problems with plastic and what steps have you taken to get disposable plastic out of your own life?
Tiffany: As a like science teacher, I feel obligated to teach my students about the impact their actions have on the environment. I teach biology through an ecological approach, so it's something I sort of live and breathe every day. I am also the sponsor for our school's Leadership Club, and together we have done a lot of work to make our school closer to zero-waste. We have also stopped doing preserved-specimen dissections (those preserved with chemicals and injected with latex - ewww). As a compromise, we only dissect what we can eat when we finish (lots of veggies/fruits, squid, chicken wings, eggs, etc). In my personal life, I never buy plastic bottled beverages or use plastic bags, use cloth diapers for my kids when we are at home, bring my own dishes to school and parties, use cloth baggies for lunches and snacks, and choose products with less packaging, and those which will last longer.
Beth Terry writes about finding alternatives to plastic and tracks her own plastic consumption and plastic waste at www.FakePlasticFish.com. Why Fake Plastic Fish? "Because if we don't solve our plastic problem, they could be the only kind of fish we have left." Please stop by and leave a comment!
