It’s a joyous thrill for us to launch our brand spanking new website!
Our new online neighbourhood is all about making it easier for you to find the information and products you need to live without plastic – while helping you educate yourself and take action on plastic pollution. There are also ways to save money, and even make money.
This mobile-friendly site redesigned from the ground up offers delicious new store features we think you’ll like, such as:
- A more versatile shopping cart with comprehensive product descriptions, product reviews, and easy-share social media links.
- A Reward Points Program enabling you to accumulate points for each of your purchases, and for helping to spread the word about what we do – and the points can be used as cash in our store!
- An easy-to-manage Gift Registry you can set up in minutes and direct friends and family to, whatever the occasion may be.
- The much-requested and long-awaited Life Without Plastic Affiliate Program!
And there are two important new content-heavy sections we are very pleased to share and continuously grow:
- INFO – All kinds of new information and resources on plastics and plastic alternatives…plastic-free living tips, films, blogs, apps, common plastics #1-7, other common plastics, bioplastics, stainless steel, glass, wood, BPA, phthalates… and always more being added.
- ACTION – Ways you can take action now to reduce plastic use and pollution in your home and across the planet, such as by taking a personal pledge and supporting visionary anti-plastic campaigns such as 5Gyres’ Beat the Microbead.
When we started Life Without Plastic in 2006, the plastic-free movement was a tiny trickle.
There were only a few NGOs and companies – such as Environmental Defence and Klean Kanteen – out there starting to build awareness about the broad plastics issue.
One had to search long and hard for research and media reports on plastics issues. Making such information more easily available and understandable has always been a fundamental part of our mission.
We always knew it was just a matter of time before the plastic-free movement would grow into a wave.
And grow it has… into the beginnings of a global tidal wave.
Now there are multitudes of stories in the press daily about plastic pollution, plastic bag or bottle bans happening around the globe, the environmental toll of plastics, bioplastic alternatives, and vast amounts of peer-reviewed scientific research about the growing health problems associated with plastics.
Back in 2006, bisphenol A (BPA) was nowhere near the mainstream media radar. Now it is increasingly a household term and – with good reason – a source of concern for most people.
Wow, how things have changed.
Here are a few ground-breaking reports that have come out in just the past few days:
- A wide-ranging neurotoxicant study published in The Lancet, one of the top medical journals in the world, urgently calling for action to curb children’s exposure to industrial chemicals that are known brain toxicants and which contribute to such conditions as autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and dyslexia. It is rare to see scientists call so forcefully in a peer-reviewed scholarly article for “urgent” global action.
- This investigative report in Mother Jones shows how the plastic and chemical industries are doing all they can to cover up, hide and falsify any evidence of the dangers of BPA and other common – and potentially equally or more dangerous – BPA replacements such as Tritan.
- New research on how BPA can be absorbed through the skin from store and ATM receipts, which are coated with a microscopic layer of the toxic plastic chemical.
- A substantive and easily understandable (even by children) investigation by Greenpeace – A Little Story About Monsters In Your Closet – into the toxics in children’s clothing and footwear. They include common plasticizers like phthalates.
And there are many new plastic activist players – some now well-established – out there on the plastic-free front. We’re proud to partner with many of them in our common mission of raising awareness of the problems with plastic and decreasing the world’s reliance on plastic (feel free to meet them on our Partners page), including:
- The indomitable Beth Terry, plastic-free living expert extraordinaire, well known blogger at My Plastic-Free Life, and author of the indispensible guide for living without plastic, Plastic-Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit And How You Can Too.
- The Plastic Pollution Coalition elegantly and effectively brings together organizations from all over the world with the shared purpose of working together to end plastic pollution. Their dynamic projects in towns, on campuses, and in various regions of the world including Central America and the United Arab Emirates are galvanizing the movement and educating globally.
- Algalita Marine Research Institute and The 5Gyres Institute are the leaders when it comes to research on plastic pollution in the waterways of the world. Their cutting edge data-gathering voyages and phenomenal outreach activities have contributed to high level concrete change, including revolutionary legislation.
- You.