Hi! We're Mark and Melanie, and we're going an entire year without buying any new plastic! Why? Because millions of throw-away products are made every year out of this material that lasts forever! Plastic is in our oceans, our landfills. . . everywhere. Instead of seeing the amount of plastic in our lives as a problem, we see it as a big opportunity for change. We're dedicated to learning about plastic, its environmental impact, and how we can reduce or eliminate non-essential uses of plastic in our lives.
Join us for this year of discovery, revolution, and reinvention!
Hello Friends!
I just received a press release from my friends on the Live Green In Plano team, and wanted to pass it on for those of you who live in the DFW area. I love that the City of Plano does such a great job of educating people about eco-friendly living. I’m still vacationing in [Continue Reading...]
Hello Friends!
As you may know by now, we’re on our honeymoon in Europe! We’ve been to Ireland…
Scotland…
And now we’re in England in the Lake District. . .
I’m typing this on Mark’s iPhone, so hopefully everything shows up well and the photos are not too big. Anyhoo, the plane ride was the biggest plastic shock [Continue Reading...]
Hello Friends!
I realized last night that I forgot to mention all the eco-friendly aspects of our wedding. Ha! I was just enjoying sharing the pics. So here’s a list of some of the decisions we made to have an eco-friendly celebration:
I made my dress from a duvet cover from goodwill. I drew the pattern for [Continue Reading...]
Hello Friends!
Our wedding was everything we dreamed of and more! Every aspect of it was so wonderful and perfect! I have a few photos to share with you!
13 of 25 family members arrived in Newport Thursday night. We had an amazing drive down the coast from Portland. We took the scenic route through Cannon Beach [Continue Reading...]
My shaving routine has gone from nothing special to more of a luxury spa experience. I love how once again our no-new-plastic project has enhanced my quality of life!
For years I’ve used the same Gillette Mach 3 Razor. Since I’ve had a full beard for many years and a goatee for about the last year, I have used [Continue Reading...]
Hello friends!
I’m writing today to let you know about our homemade tissues. We decided to make homemade cloth tissues about a month before our no new plastic experiment started. We wanted to find ways to replace paper products with cloth in order to reduce the amount of trash we were creating and the amount of [Continue Reading...]
I just used up the last of our homemade laundry detergent, but was able to make a whole new batch before the small load I put in the washer was even done. It took me less than 10 minutes to make the new batch.
Our original method for making our homemade laundry detergent was hand-grating a [Continue Reading...]
Hello wonderful friends! Mark and I are thinking of having a bonfire on the beach during our wedding weekend, and we are asking for your help. We know the traditional dessert is s’mores, but marshmallows and graham crackers come in plastic (and really, I just like the chocolate anyway). We’re trying to come up with [Continue Reading...]
Nothing goes to waste in the Rummel/Parker (soon to just be Rummel) household. Well, actually not ‘nothing’, we do take the trash out from our one 8-gallon trash can about every four to six weeks. This is pretty major for me, because I used to have to empty a larger trash can than that far [Continue Reading...]
We recently received the following comment from a reader:
Water shortages are more of a problem than plastic excesses. You should go a month without using, including consumption, any water!
I think this comment raises a good question: Why focus so much on issues around plastic and not other worthy causes like water shortages?
The truth is Melanie [Continue Reading...]
