Juggling Dynamite

Traditional plastics require hydrogen and carbon ‘hydrocarbons’ and today the most common way of accessing hydrocarbons is to extract them from oil. But hydrocarbons can be made from other biodegradable and recycled materials like starch, cellulose, sugars, lactic acid, organic waste, vegetable oils, micro-organisms and more we have not even discovered yet.

First, we individuals need to avoid and dramatically reduce one-use plastics, and then we must demand that only biodegradable and recycled plastics are legal for other applications.  The below info-graphic offers some more on the reasons why.  Also see Straws, Bottle caps.  Polyester.  These are the new targets of California’s environmental movement:

“There could be more plastic by weight than fish in the world’s oceans by 2050, according to a widely cited World Economic Forum report. A recent UC Davis study sampled seafood sold at local markets in Half Moon Bay and found that one-quarter of fish and one-third of shellfish contained plastic debris.

Our sleep patterns tend to move up and down with our life cycle for better and worse, but good sleep is a foundation of good health.  Like many, I experienced years of sleep deprivation balancing young kids, post-graduate studies, career, rental property management and home renovations all at once.  Later, there came a couple of years of chronic insomnia when we were getting our firm off the ground and my mom was devolving into early onset dementia.  It was then that I realized how critical sleep is to our health and ability to manage the demands of being alive.  Daily meditation and writing were key tools that got me back to balance again.  But today I never take sleep for granted, and prioritize it along with diet and exercise as part of a daily health regime.  I wrote about one of my favorite sleep aids here last year.  The discussion in this recent Eat for the Planet podcast episode is also worthwhile, here is a direct audio link.

John Shegerian is the co-founder and CEO of SOM Sleep, a company that makes an all natural, vegan, non-GMO, allergen free, non-habit forming beverage that is formulated to help individuals achieve better sleep.

In this conversation, John and I discuss what led him to found Som Sleep as well as:

* How he went from making his own sleep formula at home to teaming up with food scientists and later packers and distributors to help make this company a reality.

* Statistics related to microsleep events and the average American, that will frankly, shock you.

* The current competition in the sleep space and how he plans to grow and expand in the future.

* The plant-based food space and how overall wellness products fit in.

We spend a lot of time talking about how we can build a healthier, more sustainable food system on this podcast, but realistically, we can’t even get to that point if we don’t stop to consider our own well-being. What I like best about this interview is that it shows you don’t have to run yourself completely into the ground to be successful in the business world. In fact, if we all just got some sleep, not only would we all be more healthy, but in the end, much much more productive.

Hate to be a downer on a Friday, but most of the plastic we use never gets recycled.

Yes, even the items we carefully sort and send off in blue bins mostly ends up in landfills and our water systems.  Most containers are manufactured with mixed formulas that cannot be efficiently separated, so they are not.

For a long time, China was accepting our waste and stockpiling it there.  This was always a lazy ‘out of sight, out of mind’ effort on our part, enabling the unsustainable to continue far longer than it should. Fortunately, on January 1, China stopped accepting 24 types of waste and recycling items like plastic and paper from overseas.  Now the waste is piling up all over the place, and it will be harder and harder to ignore.

The solution is to drastically reduce our use of plastic, and to require goods’ producers to only make and use packaging which can be reused or easily biodegraded.

Plastic pollution is not going to solve itself.  We all need to take personal responsibility for reducing our use by finding other more efficient options and ideas, and that starts with avoiding plastic packaging in the first place.

The best way I have found to reduce packaging in my own life, is to make things from scratch at home and bring them with us when we leave the house in reusable containers.  You also tend to get higher quality contents that way, for much less cost.

Products that are labelled as eco-friendly, healthy or about ‘nature balance’ are oxymoronic when sold in plastic packaging.  Conscience has to extend beyond the contents, if the brand is to be authentic.

This video offers a good reminder of why and how to make smarter choices.