My guest Jay Sinha is co-founder and co-owner (with Chantal Plamondon) of Life Without Plastic, a one-stop shop and information resource for high quality, ethically-sourced, Earth-friendly alternatives to plastic products for everyday life. We’ll be talking today about how to get through the holidays without plastic. They founded the business over seven years ago after some tough experiences with chemical sensitivities and following the birth of their son. They sought to avoid the toxicity and awful environmental footprint of plastics but had difficulty finding certain key housewares in a non-plastic form. So they set out to find and source them for others too. Jay has degrees in biochemistry, ecotoxicology and law, and prior to LWP explored jobs ranging from tree planter to environmental consultant to corporate lawyer (most who know him can’t quite believe this one – nor can he) to Parliamentary researcher and policy analyst. This was the most obvious route to becoming a passionate anti-plastic activist and ecopreneur. He loves to walk in the trees – he and Chantal and their son live among the trees in a small dynamic rural community. www.debralynndadd.com/debras-list/life-without-plastic
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Have a Happy Holiday – Without Plastic
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Jay Simha
Date of Broadcast: December 1, 2014 (December 3, 2013)
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world. And we do that because there are many, many, many toxic chemicals of many different kinds that affect us in many different ways and they’re in consumer products. They’re in the environment. They’re even in our bodies that we’re carrying around from past exposures.
So what we talk about here is how to reduce our exposure to toxic chemicals, how to remove them from our homes and from our bodies so that we can be healthy, happy and do what we want to do in life – be productive, be creative, whatever it is we want without being hindered by toxic chemicals.
Today, we’re going to be talking about – well, it’s the holidays. We had Thanksgiving and now it’s time to look forward to – well, I think we’re already in Hannukah. I was going to say “look forward to Hannukah and Christmas” and whatever holiday you’re celebrating at this time of year. We’re going to be talking about gift-giving and decorating and all kinds of things for the next couple of weeks. Today, we’re going to start with talking about how to get through the holidays without plastic.
My guest is Jay Sinha. He’s co-founder and co-owner of Life Without Plastic, a one-stop shop and information resource for high-quality, ethically-sourced, earth-friendly alternatives to plastic products for everyday life. Even though his products are for everyday life, well, holidays are part of everyday life and we’re going to specifically talk today about how we can get through the holidays without plastic.
Hi, Jay.
JAY SIMHA: Hello, Debra Lynn. It’s good to be here.
DEBRA: How are you?
JAY SIMHA: I’m well, thank you, very well.
DEBRA: Well, good. I’m feeling really good today because I’m starting to get into that holiday spirit.
JAY SIMHA: I am too. Yeah, and you know where we are, so it adds to the holiday ambience.
DEBRA: Well first, let me ask you what is your favorite holiday that you’ve received that wasn’t plastic?
JAY SIMHA: Ah, my favorite holiday gift that I have received that wasn’t plastic. Frankly, it would have to be a gift of – I guess you could call it an experiential gift. I’ve received a certificate from our son for five massages.
DEBRA: Ooh, I would take five massages.
JAY SIMHA: That was very cool and I started to use it up. Pardon me?
DEBRA: I would love five massages for Christmas.
JAY SIMHA: Well, I think I still have three of maybe even four left, so maybe I could pass you one.
DEBRA: Well, I actually get massages every week. I actually get massages twice a week.
JAY SIMHA: Ah, good for you.
DEBRA: I mean, this is kind of an aside to what we’re talking about on the show today, but I’ve actually been getting massages twice a week for a couple of years and I found that it’s made a huge difference in my body and my health because most people only go and get a massage when they have a pulled muscle or something, they’re recovering from an accident or something like that. But when you go and get a massage twice a week…
JAY SIMHA: Oh, yes.
DEBRA: Then it goes deeper and deeper and starts releasing all the tension deeper in your body and getting the flows of blood and oxygen and everything flowing more deeply into your body. It’s just an amazing thing. So use your massages.
JAY SIMHA: I will.
DEBRA: Go get them. So let’s go back to plastic. Jay, how did you get interested in the plastic problem and start your business?
JAY SIMHA: Well, for us, it went back away. Both my co-founder, Shantelle and I have always been pretty environmentally oriented and health conscious. We’ve been doing what we do now for about eight years, but it goes even further back than that because it really began probably around back in 2002 when we were living in a house that mold issues. And at the time, I was also working in a building that was what we would call a ‘sick building’ and I developed something what we might call ‘sick building syndrome’. It was pretty mild, but for some people, very seriously and became very sensitive to mold.
Both Shantelle and I became relatively sick for the next year. That made us more sensitive to various environmental irritants.
And so with that, we start looking for ways to decrease our exposure to toxins in general. We came across an article in [inaudible 00:05:53] Magazine, which is now primarily an online resource, an excellent one for families including toxic issues. And in that magazine, there was an article about plastic toxicity. It was really the first time we thought much about it, that we have thought much about the plastic around us in our everyday lives, which was really quite pervasive. We were [inaudible 00:06:16] Tupperware and plastic wrap, that sort of thing – we have plastic water bottles.
That got us thinking. We decided to start by trying to find a non-plastic water bottle and had a pretty tough time back in 2002. There wasn’t that much out there. We did eventually find one company that was making them. Today, we carry the bottles by Clean Canteen. Back then, Clean Canteen was a co-opt in making these bottles. So we ordered one, tried it out, loved it.
And then the next sort of trigger was when Shantelle became pregnant and we had our son and we’re looking for glass baby bottles, which were the norm many years ago – not that many years ago, maybe a couple of decades or even in the seventies. They were very hard to find. We certainly couldn’t find them in a grocery store or any stores where we were living.
So we did some research and found there was one company still making them, Even Flo. They were based in Ohio. So we contacted them directly. They said, “Sure, you can buy some, but the minimum order is a thousand because they only did wholesale.” So that kind of was another light bulb. We thought, “Whoa!”
And we knew there were other people increasingly looking for non-plastic products – our friends and just word-of-mouth where we’re both relatively involved in the environmental movement. And so that got us thinking. We began the company just with those two products plus some stainless steel water bottles and glass baby bottles and some stainless food containers that was a replacement for Tupperware.
That was back in 2006 that we actually began the website. Since then, we just kept adding new products and grow and build our community. We just have amazing clients, customers. It’s not just about selling products for us. It’s really a process of educating and helping people find solutions.
The stories that people tell us are fascinating. They provide us with also lots of new resources and information that help us too. So it’s really building a community of people who are more aware of the toxins around them and in our case, relating to plastics.
DEBRA: I find that with my readers too and my listeners. Everybody is really interested in helping others find the solutions. I really like that because I, as one person, even though I’m coordinating a lot of these information, as one person, I can’t possibly be as effective as a whole lot of people going out and finding these products and then telling me about them.
JAY SIMHA: Yeah, sure.
DEBRA: And so it really is I think a collective effort and I’m very happy to see that in the world.
JAY SIMHA: But also, I just want to add that there’s so much new information coming out. It’s really hard for us alone to just find it and process it and pass it on just as you’re doing with these interviews. It really helps make the information more accessible.
DEBRA: Yes, thank you, thank you. One of the things that I’m working on right now – and I maybe shouldn’t say anything until I actually do it – I’m working on bringing more organization to the information about toxics.
JAY SIMHA: Ah.
DEBRA: So it’s just easier for people to find and understand it and to be able to go to a page about plastic and immediately be able to see which ones are the most toxic ones and what are the health effects and things like that. I think that all that information is out there, but finding it, knowing what to search for and then ending up with a lot of results to sort through in order to find the answer that you really need, I’m hoping to cut down on all of that stuff, so that people can just get the answers. I’m really excited about this.
We need to go to a break, but when we come back, we’ll talk about what’s wrong with plastic. And then we’re going to talk about some things that we can over the holidays to reduce our plastic and have even more wonderful alternatives. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. We’re talking with Jay Sinha from Life Without Plastic.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Jay Simha from Life Without Plastic. That’s LifeWithoutPlastic.com, right? I don’t have it right in front of me.
JAY SIMHA: That’s right.
DEBRA: LifeWithoutPlastic.com. And so Jay, tell us about some of the plastics that people should avoid and what their health effects are.
JAY SIMHA: We take the approach based on two pillars – environment and health. In the holiday season, one that tends to come up unfortunately quite a bit is PVC or polyvinyl chloride. Unfortunately, it’s still quite common as a consumer product, but it’s also one of the most hazardous plastics out there. It contains about 55% of plasticizing agents, which are softeners. In this case, they’re known as phthalates, which can lead to a number of health disorders. But PVC also often contains lead, may contain mercury, may contain cadmium. It’s just a bit of a toxic soup. It’s found sometimes in toys still, in Christmas tree lights, in plastic Christmas trees. So that’s one to really look out for.
DEBRA: And especially when you’re putting out your Christmas lights and you’re touching the cords, you can get lead being released from the cord. I think that most cords, most plastic cords have lead in them unless they’re otherwise formulated to not have lead. And so we should be assuming that if you’re touching a cord from Christmas lights or plugging in a lamp or any of those things, you’re going to get lead on your hands.
So a good thing to do if you’re putting up your Christmas lights is to wear your gloves or wash your hands after you’re doing that. Especially was your hands before you pick up a Christmas cookie and eat it.
JAY SIMHA: Yeah, and that’s obviously very important for children as well who are especially susceptible to issues coming off led.
DEBRA: There is no safe level for lead, no safe level.
JAY SIMHA: Hmmm… mm-hmmm…
DEBRA: So any exposure you have is harmful.
JAY SIMHA: Yes. Oh, definitely. I totally agree with that. Another plastic that you will find a lot during the holidays is polystyrene, which is used in a lot of disposable dishes. Polystyrene contains styrene, which is a toxin associated with potential brain, nervous system, blood, kidney and stomach disorders and possible health effects. So that’s one as well we try to avoid.
And the thing with polystyrene as well, it’s what’s used to make for example Styrofoam and so it’s often used for food and often food that is hot or oily and those two conditions really increase any leeching that may occur. And it’s a relatively cheap plastic too. It’s not very stable and so the leeching can occur quite readily. So that’s another one that we really try to avoid especially when you’re out during the holidays at a, for example, get-together where they may be serving food or drink on disposable dishes.
DEBRA: Especially if you’re out caroling in the snow and you’re drinking hot chocolate or hot apple cider or hot coffee or hot tea out of a Styrofoam cup, you’re getting a big dose of it.
I think if I remember correctly, they do these tests that show what chemicals are in people’s bodies. Environment Working Group has done some and they’ve been doing them for years. I seem to recall that one of the tests that I looked at show that something like 96% of everybody that was tested had polystyrene in their blood.
JAY SIMHA: Polystyrene and also BPA is another one in receipts.
DEBRA: And BPA is another one, right.
JAY SIMHA: That’s taken in the air in these sales receipts. Those two are very prevalent.
DEBRA: Yeah, yeah. So what other plastics are we exposed to especially at the holidays?
JAY SIMHA: Well, another one would be probably polyethylene terephthalate, which is the plastic that’s used – it’s PET. It’s the number one [inaudible 00:18:23]. That’s used to make single use water bottles. And once again, during the holidays, you have a lot of purchasing or juices, even water as well.
DEBRA: Soda.
JAY SIMHA: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. With PET, that’s intended for single use. But people tend to use them over and over. The issue with PET is BPA has actually been found in some PET. You don’t hear much about that. We tend to take the precautionary approach that any plastic may be leeching something just because more and more, the studies are showing, the new ones that are coming out – there’s even a study that says most plastic products do release hormone-affecting chemicals. ‘Estrogenic chemicals’, they call them.
So it’s really kind of a safe way to live to take that approach and act accordingly and try and just avoid the plastics especially the unstable ones.
DEBRA: I think that’s a good idea. I mean, I just try to avoid any plastic although some of them are worse than others.
We need to take another break. When we come back, we’re going to have some good news about how we can celebrate the holidays and give gifts without plastic. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. My guest is Jay Sinha from Life Without Plastic and that’s LifeWithoutPlastic.com. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Today, we’re talking about having a happy holiday without plastic. My guest is Jay Sinha from Life Without Plastic, which is at LifeWithoutPlastic.com. If you go there, they have many, many plastic-free gift products that would be great for holiday gifts, for stocking s. We’re going to talk about those coming up now.
But I also want to mention that they have free shipping that if your order is over $75. So that’s a good thing. They also have some specials on some of their most popular products. So go take a look at LifeWithoutPlastic.com.
Okay, Jay, let’s start by talking about holiday cards. Now, where’s their plastic in a holiday card?
JAY SIMHA: Well, a lot of the traditionally cards are actually coated in a plastic coating. If they look glassy, that’s because there is a plastic coating. If you spill water on it, for example, it beads up. That’s a really good indication that there’s a plastic coating.
But there are lots of ways to avoid those nowadays. There are certainly tons of cards that are now made out of recycled card stock. You print it using the vegetable-based, soy-based ink. Those are really quite easy to find now.
But also, one thing that we really try to promote is making your own cards. This is something that I’ve always done and we tend to do now for not just the holiday season, but birthdays and throughout the year. It adds so much more to the card. And it doesn’t have to be terribly intricate. You can take a photo and paste it on the card. You can do a little drawing. I, myself, I love to use watercolors, but I’ve never taken a watercolor course, so I don’t really know how to use them. I kind of play with them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But it’s always very personal and filled with love.
DEBRA: Well, there’s all kinds of ways to make the cards look either homemade or professional-looking. You can go to any crafts store and get what’s called decal paper. I think that’s what it’s called. It has kind of a little ripped effect on the outside. You can really dress these things up. You can put on stickers. I like to just go to an office supply store and get card stock and I design something on my computer. I make little postcards and send out a postcard instead of sending out a card.
I’ve done that year after year and I really like doing that. People enjoy receiving them. It’s so much more personal.
JAY SIMHA: Another thing that if you do receive a number of cards that may be plasticized, you can reuse them by cutting of the front of the card and then making it into a postcard next year like writing on the back of it and use that as a postcard. That reuses it and also can save on postage as well.
DEBRA: Or pasting those holiday images on another card next year. You can go through magazines or whatever and just find these reusable things and turn them into something really creative and different. Also, there’s e-cards.
JAY SIMHA: Absolutely.
DEBRA: And there are some that are really, really wonderful.
JAY SIMHA: And more and more, you’re seeing charities. For example, environmental non-profits offering up e-cards related to campaigns they’re doing with amazing photos of wildlife or nature scenes. The Nature Conservancy, the [inaudible 00:29:33] Club. That’s another way to do it. And obviously, there’s certainly no paper being used and no waste. And it’s very quick to do as well, which is a key issue for many people during the holidays time. So those are other great options.
DEBRA: Let’s talk about gift wrapping.
JAY SIMHA: Okay, sure. That’s one that frankly, I find the most frustrating during the holidays because so much of it accumulates. It can be so easily avoided. One thing, again, instead of buying new wrapping paper – and again, here, you do have to be careful in terms of plastics because more and more, we are seeing wrapping papers that are actually made out of plastic. It looks almost like a cellophane and it’s just a pure plastic paper. It’s very, very thin, so very, very low quality, very unstable. Why not instead make your own?
Get a roll of kraft brown paper and draw on it, write on it, have your kids draw on it or write on it or what’s really fun is take some potatoes…
DEBRA: I was just going to say that.
JAY SIMHA: Oh, yeah, yeah.
DEBRA: Yeah, tell us about that.
JAY SIMHA: Well, you kind of cut a potato in half and then you just carve a shape of, for example, Christmas tree star onto the open side of the potato. And then deep it in paint and do stamps on the paper. It’s a ton of fun, very creative. I just love to do it. They’re easy. They’re on the web. If you just put in ‘potato stamp wrapping paper’, tons of sites will come up showing you how to do it with great photos.
DEBRA: I’ve also used brown paper bags at my natural food store. I use a reusable bag most of the time. But sometimes, I get the brown bags, which at my store are 100% recycled paper. I use them as garbage bags instead of plastic bags, plastic garbage bags. I use the brown paper ones.
But I also sometimes, at Christmas, they have printing on the outside. I’ll cut them open and use the backs of those brown paper bags in order to be the base of my Christmas wrap. And then I don’t even have to buy kraft paper.
JAY SIMHA: Another one is newspaper, especially the comic section, the funny…
DEBRA: Or old maps. The funny things, I love all those pictures that are on calendars.
JAY SIMHA: Oh, yeah.
DEBRA: And so at the end of the year, I save my calendars and I save the calendar pages as wrapping paper.
JAY SIMHA: I save them too. I never use them as wrapping paper, but I never want to recycle them because it’s such gorgeous images. You know it’ll come in handy some time.
DEBRA: And also, I wanted to mention, there are places online where you can order gift bags like usable cloth gift bags. And at places like party stores and craft stores, they will sell little gift bags like shopping bags with little handles on them. I love it when people give me a gift on those little bags or when I get them at a store especially because if they’re decorative especially, I enjoy using them over and over and over and use them as little, extra bags to carry around and things. That I think is a way –
I mean, I’ll tell you. Way before anybody was talking about the environmental movement, when I was a child, my mother, we used to live in the San Francisco Bay area. There was a fancy store that had fancy boxes. Every year, they had a different theme for the boxes. Every year, we would go and just buy small, inexpensive things so we could get the boxes and save them from year to year.
And as the years went by, we would just get these, our presents in those same boxes over and over because they were such beautiful, little boxes.
JAY SIMHA: Wow! Do you still have them?
DEBRA: I don’t have them anymore. Eventually, they would just fall apart or something, a mouse would eat them if they’re sitting in the garage or something like that. But I had my favorite boxes and it was just – you know how people bring out Christmas ornaments year after year because the Christmas ornaments have meaning. We would bring out our boxes year after year.
JAY SIMHA: Wow! Well, that leads to another one of our favorite gifts, which is really as you’re saying to make the actual packaging part of the gift. We love to give gifts of food especially when we’re going somewhere to another person’s place for a dinner party or something. And so we do our stainless steel containers, which make a wonderful packaging that will last more or less forever. We fill them with cookies or Christmas cake or that sort of thing. It makes a wonderful, little gift and a durable one and a non-toxic one too.
DEBRA: Well, we’ll continue talking about more gift ideas when we come back after the great.
JAY SIMHA: Great!
DEBRA: This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Jay Simha from Life Without Plastic – that’s LifeWithoutPlastic.com – and we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. We’re back now with my guest, Jay Simha. We’re talking about how to choose Christmas gifts without plastic. Jay, let’s go on with our list. We’ve got so many things.
I love to give homemade food too. And in fact, I’ve been known to give it a dish that they can just give as part of a gift. I wrap it in towels. I have a friend who sends me cookies every year in a basket. I now have a collection of these baskets that all coordinate. I love them because I can reuse the baskets.
Okay, let’s go on with some of your ideas.
JAY SIMHA: Well, for some smaller gifts, one that we just love to give – and we give them not just in the holidays, but year around – is a small stainless steel sfork that fits into a little organic cotton pouch. It’s a great stocking stuffer, for example, but also it’s something that can easily be carried anywhere.
DEBRA: Explain what a sfork is. I know what it is, but I think some people won’t know.
JAY SIMHA: Oh, sure, yeah. A sfork is, the concept is that it’s both a spoon and a fork. And so it’s got a rounded basis. And then on the end, there are tines, so you can pick things up actually like a fork. And in this case, it has a folding handle. It folds in two and it becomes smaller. When you fold it out, there’s a little part that opens up so it will stay in place. It’s very easy to travel with.
For example, we’ve had no problems with security taking them on planes. It’s just very handy to reduce and completely avoid using takeout cutlery if you’re going out somewhere. People just love them. I have not had one negative reaction about someone receiving them. They just absolutely love them and generally want more because they’re such a neat, little gift and as I say, a very great stocking stuffer.
DEBRA: I love that! And how much do those cost?
JAY SIMHA: Those are $7.50 for the sfork in the pouch.
DEBRA: Wow! I think I should get one of those. Great idea, yeah! Okay, what else?
JAY SIMHA: Well, another one, which may not be too intuitive this time of year, we have a single popsicle mold, a freezer cup ice pop mold, which is also very small. It’s made of stainless steel and it comes with bamboo sticks. I mention it because I know some children like popsicles year round and again, it makes a great little stocking stuffer.
Another one is we have a stainless folding mug. Some call it a telescopic mug because it folds down into very…
DEBRA: Oh, I remember those from my childhood where it collapses. Is that what you’re talking about?
JAY SIMHA: Exactly, yeah, yeah. You just have to be careful putting it down. If you put it down heavily onto a table, you want it to close up full of liquid. They work great. They’re very easy to carry too.
Another possibility could be a toothbrush, a wooden toothbrush with natural bristles.
DEBRA: I have a wooden toothbrush. I love them, I love them.
JAY SIMHA: I do too, yeah. The good thing with the wooden toothbrush and when it’s the natural bristles as well is that you can gauge the hardness of the bristles depending on how much you wet them. Some people prefer soft, some people prefer hard. You can make your own decision at way and gauge it with the amount of water you put on the brush.
There’s also stainless steel dishes and bottles. We have a number of glass stainless steel, glass bottles and mugs that we’ve just got in. Some double walled and single walled. Some prefer to avoid stainless steel and glasses. They’re completely inert.
It’s becoming more that certain glass products are actually quite tough and travel well too. So that’s another option.
Brushes, other brushes like for the kitchen for cleaning vegetables or for cleaning out bottles. Another little tool that we have in the kitchen is a copper cloth that can be used for scrubbing pans. I don’t know, people may not find these great Christmas gifts, but they’re incredibly handy and they actually do make wonderful, little gifts that people love even though it may not sound intuitive.
DEBRA: Well, you know, I just want to say that one of the things that I discovered many years ago was that I could use the concept of holiday gifts to educate people without them feeling like they were educated. The first thing that I did that with, it was oranges, organic oranges because when I first tasted an organic orange, I said, “Oh, my God! This tastes like an orange instead of tasting like fungicide.” And until that point, I thought that fungicide flavor – because you know, they wrap oranges individually in these papers with fungicide. And so by the time they get to the market, the orange is totally saturated with fungicide. So you really, really, really need to buy organic oranges, but most people don’t understand the difference and how they taste.
So I gave everybody like a half a dozen organic oranges. And when they tasted them, that made such a powerful effect on people even more than me talking about why organic.
JAY SIMHA: Wow! What a great gift, yeah.
DEBRA: So I could see that you could give somebody something that may seem insignificant along with a little card that says, “I’m giving this to you because it’s not plastic.”
In fact, you could make some little cards from Life Without Plastic that explains that this is a gift that’s not a plastic gift. And if they’d like to find more gifts that are not plastic or more items that are not plastic, they could go to Life Without Plastic.
JAY SIMHA: Incredible. Yes, thank you.
DEBRA: You’re welcome.
JAY SIMHA: And also, in that card, they could put a gift certificate and let the person choose exactly what they might most need.
DEBRA: That’s exactly right, yes. Now, you should have little gift cards.
JAY SIMHA: Yes.
DEBRA: Little gift cards, I think that would be very good thing.
JAY SIMHA: We do have some gift cards, but as you say, we don’t have a little message on them. They just have our logo with some holiday cheer added in. That’s a great idea.
DEBRA: It should have a little message because I just find that if I explain to people what the benefit is like why something is less toxic, especially like oranges, they make a really big impression because they’re so delicious…
JAY SIMHA: And they’re so prevalent now too. They’re all over the place.
DEBRA: They’re available and it’s seasonable. You can get somebody to really have that experience of eating organic food. Many, many, many people still haven’t eaten organic food. They just don’t have the concept.
But especially if it’s somebody who likes food, give them some organic food and you can put it in a non-plastic container.
JAY SIMHA: That’s a really good one to build awareness about now because a lot of people, the small, plastic oranges wrapped in paper are such a tradition. They’ve grown up with it and they don’t even consider the fungicide aspect. So that’s a really good one to inform about.
DEBRA: Well, Jay, we only have about a minute and a half left. All of a sudden, the show is over.
JAY SIMHA: Wow! It goes by so fast.
DEBRA: It goes by so fast. So is there anything – I want to make sure you have a little bit of time here to say anything that you’d like to say that you haven’t said.
JAY SIMHA: Sure! Well, there are two things. First of all, I just want to mention that we just did a blog post on our blog that goes through all kinds of different ideas. A lot of things we’ve talked about today for living a plastic-free holiday – and our blog is LifeWithoutPlasticBlog.com. That would give you lots of links to resources and things and other gift ideas.
DEBRA: I do have that. It’s very good.
JAY SIMHA: The other thing I wanted to mention was to just share with you an experience that we have shared with our community in the past that really has been lovely.
We do a lantern walk on the winter solstice, which is December 21st, which is essentially the darkest day of the year when the sun is at its lowest point. People make their own lanterns, lamps with a mason jar and wire and put a little votive lamp inside, a candle and we walk through our village. We live in a small town. Right now, we’re out of that region. But normally, we live in a small town called Wakefield.
We walk through the town with our candles. Kids just love it. A lot of them do sort of paper tissue mache around the mason jar to make it colorful and beautiful.
DEBRA: I have to stop just because we’re at the end of the show.
JAY SIMHA: It’s just a stunning place.
DEBRA: But I’m going to do that this year because I celebrate winter solstice too.
JAY SIMHA: Ah!
DEBRA: Thank you so much, Jay.
JAY SIMHA: Okay.
DEBRA: And please go to LifeWithoutPlastic.com for more information. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. We’ll be back tomorrow.
