Hello. This is a blog where we can share tips on how to reduce our dependence on plastic in our daily lives. Bear with me while i get the hang of how blogging works in the meantime please!
So we used to export a lot of our plastic waste to China but now they have shut the door. In the short term we need to either find another place to export to that will recycle. In the long term we need to create plastic recycling plants here in the UK so we no longer need to export our plastic waste. We should not incinerate our plastic waste or put it in landfill here in the UK or send it abroad anywhere if the recieving country can only incinerate or landfill either. See BBC report here about China no longer accepting foreign waste: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42455378
So... the idea is to work out alternatives to using plastic. The most immediate thing that comes to mind for me is food packaging. Yesterday i went to Stoke for the day (travelling from London on train). I wanted some food and drink whilst out but nothing packaged in plastic. I ended up buying the last and only glass bottled drink and an unpackaged apple from the mini Sainsbury's in Euston station. 35p for the apple, £1.35 for chocolate milkshake. All the sandwiches on offer contained some plastic so they weren't allowed. It's going to be necessary then it seems to write to supermarkets to ask them to offer sandwiches wrapped in paper or another non-plastic alternative. I can already see their arguments against: shorter shelf life, less protective, prone to getting soggy and splitting open... etc.
ReplyDeleteAfter i finished the drink on train i put empty bottle in bin. Noticed there was no indication of whether this rubbish would be recycled or not. Not much point going non-plastic if it just ends up in landfill. So this means letter no. 2 to Virgin trains to find out what they do with their rubbish.
I was going to Stoke via Birmingham. So in Birmingham i ate the apple and put it in a regular street bin. It's bio-degradable so i'm guessing even if it goes to landfill it won't matter?
Weirdly, i decided McDonalds would be a good option now. 2 cheeseburgers wrapped in paper. Tick.
On to Stoke. A pint of ale in a glass, and a packet of crisps in foil packet. I just found out though the 'foil' is actually metalised plastic! Aaargh. Letter no. 3 to crisp companies coming up....
I then basically starved until i got home. Food that included plastic packing that i ate once home included cheese, bread, olive spread, milk, cereal. I'd already bought these before the no-more-plastic challenge, so am using them up. But all empty packaging is going in the recycle bin, which Wandsworth Council will deal with.
So today i need to get a breadknife as i'm switching to fresh uncut and unpackaged bread if i can find it - should be relatively easy. And a stainless steel water bottle for when i'm out and about, to avoid buying drinks in plastic bottles.
Will share the letters i write on here later and their replies (if i get any).
Bye for now.
Bread 80p in Waitrose. It was the only place i could find it though at a reasonable price. There was a Whole Food shop selling for £2.25 or a local cafe selling for £3, both of which are too expensive for me. Tried Lidl, M&S, Tesco, Co-Op and Asda. These did sell the little bread rolls loose, but they only had mini plastic bags or paper with plastic 'windows' bags available to put them in. A friend has suggested taking my own cotton bags in future so i will look into that too.
DeleteThe only breadknives i found without plastic handles were £12 in Waitrose or £28(!) in Debenhams. So i'm going to borrow my flatmates for time being...
0.5 litre stainless steele flask from Asda was £4. Bargain!
But in general, finding food not packaged in plastic was a real challenge today. I'll start a seperate thread for that.