One person’s trash… is every other person’s trash: Jeb Berrier at a landfill on California’s Monterey Peninsula. Photo: Courtesy Monterey Regional Waste Management District
Telluride TV personality Jeb Berrier has eliminated plastic and other waste from his life. Think you can do the same? Catch his documentary “Bag It” and listen to the advice he gave us.
Was there a particular instance that motivated you to get rid of single-use plastics in your life? I never really thought much about single-use plastics before “Bag It.” I wasn’t a big bag user, hated Styrofoam and thought bottled water was kind of dumb, but that was as far as it went. Once we started working on the film, I realized what a huge issue single-use stuff is and really started cutting it out of my life. The biggest thing for me was coffee cups. I learned that cardboard coffee cups have plastic in the lining. Now I never use them.
What plastic disasters have you witnessed close to home in Colorado? I saw bags in a wetland behind our house here in Telluride and I decided to go and fish them out. I got four shopping bags, two inflated packing things and one bread bag. Ducks live there and it was making me crazy seeing them all the time. The bags I mean, not the ducks.
Breaking a habit can be difficult, especially when it feels like an inconvenience. Got any tips? Remember to bring your tools: reusable bag, bottle and coffee cup. When you forget, which you will, make yourself carry all your groceries in your hands and pockets. It’s fun.
How creative have you been to avoid using plastic? Recently at a restaurant, I had leftover chips and guacamole that I wanted to take with me. They were in paper, which was in a basket, so I dumped the guac on the chips and then wrapped them in the paper. I put that in my shirt pocket so I had my hands free to carry my son on my shoulders. It was a MacGyver moment. I’ve also put coffee in an empty glass jar to go to work when I couldn’t find a travel mug.
Besides plastic bags and bottles, what else should people avoid? Don’t heat up anything in plastic! Even if something is BPA free, don’t heat it up. I’ve seen parents putting hot water in a “BPA free” baby bottle thinking that it’s safe. It’s not. Plastic has chemicals that leach into our food with heat. Like we say in the movie, plastic is an amazing substance, but it’s not supposed to end up in our bodies or our oceans.
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