F6 LATIMES.COM
NEAR THE END OF A MAY TRIP to Portugal last year, my
wife, Pam, picked up a paperback at a bookshop in Lisbon — “How
to Give up Plastic: Simple Steps to Living Consciously on Our Blue
Planet.” The cover illustration was a cartoon sperm whale blasting
a cloud of bottles and utensils from its blowhole. ¶ “Some light
plane reading?” I said. ¶ I didn’t expect much of a laugh from that,
nor did I expect the book to inspire a dramatic, if brief, lifestyle
change. ¶ I was wrong. The book, by Greenpeace U.K.’s head of oceans, Will McCallum,
told an ecological horror story about seas choked with plastic straws and single-use gro-
cery bags. It also offered the “simple steps” of how to eliminate plastic items from your
office space, kitchen and bathroom. I’d never considered buying toothpaste without a
plastic tube. Now it felt like a moral imperative. ¶ Back home in Silver Lake, we experi-
mented with going plastic free for about six weeks. How hard could it be, right? This is
central Los Angeles, where plastic straws rank with cigarette butts as a social taboo. ¶ We
ultimately failed. Plastic stuff slowly found its way back into our daily lives, even as we
continued to go without meal kit services and plastic water bottles. After a long workday,
commute and gym visit, the appeal of Thai delivery overwhelmed the guilt of basically
becoming a “Captain Planet” villain. ¶ But recently, I wanted to try again. I wanted to see
if I could learn from past errors and do better. Here’s how that went.
D AY 1
MY FIRST STEP was to take inventory
of our kitchen.
Going plastic-free takes more than a
set of metal straws and vacuum-insu-
lated portable coffee mugs, but we had
those on hand, and it was a start.
I also had various airtight glass food
containers, Mason jars and leftover plas-
tic takeout boxes. I spent an hour organ-
izing, because if I didn’t, I knew I’d fall
back on zipper storage bags.
I stuffed a canvas tote with the urban
plastic-free essentials: a 20-ounce Yeti
tumbler, a straw, a dog bowl and a fork.
First stop was Jeni’s on Hillhurst Ave-
nue for ice cream. The eatery has metal
spoons typically reserved for giving flavor
samples, but we knew from experience
that employees will let you use them for a
full bowl. Most shops are happy to obligeyour weird plastic-avoidance requests as
long as you explain yourself. “I’ll bring it
back; I’m just trying to not use plastic,”
Pam told the Jeni’s server. That was good
enough for the employee. Or you could go
with my method and use a cone.
Later, we stopped by the Americana at
Brand in Glendale for some shopping. It
was eye-opening to what extent the plas-
tic-free trend had reached mass-produc-
tion levels. Anthropologie sells an assort-
ment of products marketed as “plastic-
free,” including Stasher silicone storage
bags, Byta water bottles and 8-ounce
Huskee coffee cups. And yet, across the
street at Banana Republic, boxer briefs
are sold individually wrapped in plastic
bags.
American capitalism, welcome to the
green revolution.D AY 2
I RUSHED TOthe Atwater Village
farmers market Sunday afternoon, al-
most forgetting my largest Mason jar,
knowing this was my last chance to find
plastic-free berries before the workweek.
Strawberries, raspberries and blackber-
ries are almost always packaged in plas-
tic at regular grocery stores.
Even at farmers markets, strawberries
come in green plastic trays. So after
paying the young woman at the register, I
dumped the berries into the jar and re-
turned the unneeded plastic.
The glassware I brought was big
enough for only half the berries, leaving
the rest to roll around loose in my tote. I
laughed at my rookie mistake as regulars
milled effortlessly through the rows of
greens filling reusable cloth mesh bags
with watercress and kale.
We needed to stock up on household
supplies, so Pam and I visited HighlandPark’s Sustain L.A., a boutique that sells
products for “zero-waste” enthusiasts.
An energetic employee gave us the
rundown, explaining how to navigate
the store’s giant glass jars of intimidat-
ingly similar-looking fluids, including
bubble bath, all-purpose cleaner and
laundry liquid. Don’t want to confuse
those.
The layout, similar to that at No Tox
Life in Glassell Park and the Refill
Shoppe in Ventura, was less daunting
than the prices. I filled a 2-ounce glass jar
with deodorant paste from a larger glass
jar and paid $15 for the privilege. Use
sparingly, for the environment and your
wallet.D AY 3
MY MONDAY CHALLENGE was to
cook a favorite dinner recipe (Alison Ro-
man’s pork and red chile stew). McCallum
recommends shopping at local grocers
because they tend to sell loose produce
and bulk items, unlike chain supermar-
kets that depend heavily on plastic wrap-
ping. I’m looking at you, Trader Joe’s.
I tested this at a couple of food markets
on Virgil, armed with new cloth mesh bags
for the veggies. Tomatillos, New Mexico
chiles and radishes were easy to find with-
out packaging. Tortillas, on the other
hand, seem to come only in plastic wrap-
ping. If you want tortillas plastic-free,
make them at home.
Finding pork shoulder was my down-
fall. At some markets, I’ve been able to re-
quest meat wrapped in butcher paper
without plastic, but not at the local car-
nicería. I briefly considered what it would
be like to carry 2.5 pounds of loose red
meat in a canvas tote. Probably not a good
idea. I took the loss on this one and ended
up with a fistful of useless plastic.A WEEK
WITHOUT
PLASTIC;
CAN I?
N
CARRY REUSABLE CUPS AND BAGS. AND DILIGENCE. STILL,
PACKAGING HAS A WAY OF SNEAKING ITS WAY INTO LIFE
BY RYAN FAUGHNDER