Totally Unnecessary Plastic Packaging

Many of us will have seen the episode of Blue Planet 2 which showed the disastrous effect plastic is having on our oceans.  It brought home to many people that the plastic we all handle every day is a HUGE problem and we really need to do something about it.  But for consumers it can be so hard when manufacturers seem to be INCREASING not decreasing the plastic packaging.  Take these examples I have found this week:

A Plastic Wrapped Sink Plunger

Why on earth does this rubber part of the plunger need to have a plastic sleeve around it? It is not a product that needs to be kept extra clean or protected from damage.  The packaging doesn't hold any product details or prices (the price was a small label stuck on the handle) nor enable the plunger to be hung from a rack.  But the worst thing about it all was I bought a plunger just a couple of months ago from the same supermarket and then, IT WAS NOT WRAPPED IN PLASTIC.  Sorry, I had to shout that.  This is NEW packaging. Why Why Why????

The Ultimate Collection of Green Christmas Ideas

Christmas is just around the corner and for those trying to lead a more green and sustainable life this can be a difficult time.  The constant pressure from adverts to BUY, BUY, BUY can all too easily force you into the mindset that the only way to have the perfect Christmas is to buy masses of new stuff - presents, cards, wrapping paper, decorations, food and drinks, clothes, new sofas, new technology .... And only when you do this will you have the picture perfect time as seen in all the big budget TV adverts, magazines articles, billboards and so on which are inescapable at this time of year.

It is difficult not to get sucked in.  Who doesn't want a fabulous meal or to see the delight on children's faces as they rip open their presents on Christmas Day?  Perhaps you want to be the decorated home everyone talks about with your magazine perfect brand new every year decorations?  Or maybe you can see beyond the glitter and the tinsel for what Christmas is really all about - plastic, excess packaging, waste, food miles, lining the pockets of big business, exploitation of workers, family debt etc.

Now don't get me wrong.  I am not saying we all turn into Scrooge and bah humbug our way through the festive season.  But I do believe we can all have just as much fun without all the excess.  So I asked on a couple of Facebook groups (Make Do and Mend and Zero Waste Heroes!) and among my fellow bloggers and friends what they do at Christmas to keep keep it green whilst still having fun and I got MASSES of responses.  So much so I have going to have to put them in to 2 blog posts - one for present ideas (Green Christmas Present Ideas - The Ultimate List) and one for everything else!

Ending the use of disposable drinks cups

In rural France, where I live, you simply do not see people drinking on the run. A drink, such as coffee, is either drunk at home or whilst sitting in a bar or café and it is drunk from a china cup.  However I am just back from Ireland and it was rather a shock to see so many people wandering around with drinks in disposable cups.  Even the local supermarket had a coffee vending machine and when we crossed on Irish Ferries, the coffee in the canteen was only sold in disposable cups.  

Many people believe that disposable drinks cups can be easily recycled when, in fact, because they are lined with plastic this is not true.  And anyway, with most cups used "on the run" the vast majority just end up in general waste bins.  It is estimated only 1 in 400 cups in the UK actually gets recycled.  Furthermore the cardboard the cups are made from is "new" board and almost no recycled fibre is used amidst health concerns for the user.

In the UK 2.5 BILLION disposable cups are thrown away every year.  That is 7 million every day or just over 80 cups EVERY SECOND.

My Green Summer

I pretty much took a break from blogging this summer - partly I was too busy and something had to give and partly my internet connection was playing silly whatsits and was often so slow (or even dead) that it made working online almost impossible.  I am keeping everything crossed that will behave itself from now on.

So I though I would take this opportunity to share with you some of my green moments from the summer of 2017.  I'd love to hear what you have been up to too.

Family Time

The boys and Simon went camping in the UK for a while and when they were here we had some great times playing games such as Settlers of Catan and Molkky (Finnish skittles made from wood), visiting local landmarks including our favourite castle at Falaise (birthplace of William the Conqueror) and taking some lovely walks around the Normandy countryside.

Playing Molkky

Observations on #PlasticfreeJuly

So #PlasticFreeJuly is drawing to a close for 2017.  How was it for you?  Did you manage to refuse plastic and find alternatives?  Did you learn anything new and will you move forwards more plastic aware?  I know I learnt a lot from the month, some of which was rather depressing but some was really very uplifting. 

Home made foods > 4. Plastic packaging > 0.

July is Plastic Free July which aims to raise awareness of the problems with single-use disposable plastic and challenges people to do something about it. As part of the challenge one of my aims has been to make more foods that I might otherwise buy and which comes in plastic packaging.  So what have I managed ... 

1. Tortillas Wraps

Not only are these plastic wrapped*, they also contain a shed-load of additives AND palm oil.  This recipe for home-made tortillas from My Make Do and Mend Life popped up in my Facebook timeline and I am please do report that they were easy to make and tasted delicious.

* I do reuse the plastic bags they come in - they are great for helping to keep lettuces fresh in the fridge and make good string packages for sandwiches and my own home-made bread.  But overall I would rather not have them and he fact the tortillas contain palm oil ensures they are no longer on my shopping list.

Does Zero Waste need a re-brand?

I have always been pretty good at not wasting too much stuff.  I think it brushed off from my mother who was born just before WWII and spent all her early years eeking things out, making them last and only throwing them away when they really had reached the point of zero usefulness. As her generation grew into young adults they took 2 very different paths.  Some threw off the shackles of the austere war years and others, like my Mum just carried on as before.  Those who changed started to buy more things and would have seen their waste levels creep up. They enjoyed the convenience of ready meals as they started to appear in the shops in the 70s and as they had money and things were freely available nobody questioned if they wasted some food, threw away the Christmas wrapping paper of filled their bin with plastic packaging etc.  In contrast we never wasted food and Mum knew how to make meals from left-overs, we had to open our presents carefully so the paper could be reused for the next year (and the one after that) and my mother did not waste her money on a lot of stuff she felt we didn't need ... stuff that was increasingly to be found in more and more packaging.

All this rubbed off on me. At university I read Environmental Science and a friend once pointed out that I was Green long before it was trendy to be so.

Fast forward a few years though, and with the advent of the Internet I learnt of a whole new level of waste reduction that I could never have envisaged >>> Zero-Waste. I saw pictures of zero-wasters holding a small glass jar containing their entire waste for a year – in some cases even more than that. Oh my goodness me. I thought I was good at not creating waste but it seems I am not. No, there are zero-wasters out there who have all but eliminated waste in their lives.

Image from Inhabitat

My shopping trolley - a plastic reducing challenge

Throughout June the Marine Conservation Society UK is organising a #PlasticChallenge, encouraging everyone to reduce how much plastic they use, especially single use plastic.  You can find more details and how to sign up here.

Over the years I have gradually worked at reducing how much waste we, as a family produce, although I know I have a long way to go to become zero-waste (more of that in another blog, shortly) ... but I thought I would share this week's shopping trolley with you complete with my failures and successes, and some ideas on how I could further reduce my plastic consumption.

How much plastic is in your shopping trolley?

Take the 100 step plastic reduction challenge

In our modern world is is impossible to avoid plastic.  It is all around us that in many cases we probably do not even notice it yet its negative effect on the planet is devastating.  Plastic is made from fossil fuels that were laid down many millions of years ago, locking up carbon and you can read more about why this is so bad in a recent blog I wrote - 100 ways to reduce your plastic use. Scientists estimate that there are 269,000 tons of plastic pollution may be floating in the world's oceans made up of some 5.25 TRILLION plastic particles.  We are even eating plastic and microplastic particles have been found in mussels, oysters and sea scallops.  It is even estimated that by 2050 there will be more plastic, by weight, in the ocean than fish.  That is plastic that YOU and I have used and thrown away. 

Image from the Marine Conservation Society

100 ways to reduce your plastic use

Synthetic plastic has only been around since 1907 yet it is now found in almost every aspect of our lives.  Looking at my somewhat chaotic desk I can see plastic in or on all these items - the film covering books, a pack of labels and some chocolate I am trying hard not to eat, my laptop and mouse, my phone, a lamp, my glasses case,  a pen pot, a lighter, a flexi dog lead, sellotape and its holder, a tube of glue, a plastic bag full of loose change, a thermometer, a small pot, pens, scissors, a DVD case, the plastic coating on my spiral notepads ..... OK so I have a messy desk but it makes you realise how all pervading plastic is.  Recently I bought a jar of rollmop herrings.  I thought I was doing OK not buying plastic as they came in a glass jar with a metal lid but when I opened them I saw that the rolled herrings were no longer held together with a small wooden peg as previously but with a PLASTIC one.  Plastic is everywhere and this is not a good thing for us or our environment.

Why is Plastic Bad for the Environment?

1.  Plastic is made from non-renewable petrochemicals and natural gas whose extraction process produces large amounts of toxins that are harmful to wildlife and the workforce involved.

2.  Its manufacture adds to atmospheric CO₂ levels leading to global warming.

3.  It is non biodegradable but it will break down to toxic components which can affect wildlife and enter our drinking water thus affecting us.

4. It is difficult to recycle so most ends up in landfill.  That plastic bottle you put in the recycling does not get made into a new bottle but gets down-cycled to polyester which is then not recyclable.

5.  It is a major constituent of litter - this is both unsightly and a danger to wildlife.  Much of this litter ultimately ends up in our oceans causing major problems to the marine ecosystem.  It is estimated that the weight of plastic in the oceans is equal to 50% of the total weight of marine life.