Living in a disposable world?

[elwar]

I'm not the most eco-friendly person in the world, but since having DD (Guilt about what kind of world I'm leaving for her) I have made an effort to recycle newspaper/glass and generally waste less resources.

I regret that I chickened out of reusable nappies, (but vow to use them for next child) and I'm currently looking at getting a keeper instead of clogging the water works with sanitary products.

However, rather than trying to help us reduce such waste, companies seem to be finding more and more ingenious ways of adding to landfill & levelling forests.

I'm talking about diposable wipes, and the 'just wipe, and throw away!' mentality. Where does it end? I now see disposable wipes for furniture polish, floor cleaner, bath cleaner, window cleaner as well as facial wash & deodorant.

This must be put to a stop. Perhaps I will start a campaign called J.U.A.B.C. (Just Use A Bloody Cloth)...any thoughts?

p.s. Baby wipes are ok! (used in moderation)

[Tetley]

Couldn't agree more!!! After about 10 months of using disposible nappies I bit the bullet & went for reusable - more hassle - but you feel much better about things!

JUABC sounds great to me! Also what annoys me is how everything is anti-bacterial. I thought a bit of good old fashioned dirt & germs were good for kids. It's so hard to find kitchen cleaner/liquid soap, etc that isn't anti-bacterial....

[Tissy]

If you use washable nappies you can wipe the baby's bottom (or any other bit) with a cloth dipped in warm water and wash it with the nappies!

I changed over to washable when I saw the half wheely bin full of stinking nappies after dd's first week at home!

[SimonHoward]

I was a bit of a geek and researched all of this well before DD was born and came to an agreement with DW that we would use disposables at night and re-useable ones in the day.

[bettys]

Having just potty-trained ds & now stopped using nappies it's amazing the difference it makes to the rubbish. Far less smelly & bulky. Makes me wish I'd used washable nappies, but there was never any information about the many new types available at ante-natal classes.

Also do agree with JUABC. These throwaway household wipes must be expensive. I used to use old t-shirts for polishing etc until I got a cleaner who was horrified & I had to buy yellow dusters.

And my HV also said there was nothing wrong with soap and water...I only use anti-bacterial spray on the potty & loo

[PamT]

I think we live in a throw away world. It is usually cheaper to buy new electrical items than have the old ones repaired so it is no wonder. We are also encouraged to have the newest model of everything so the old and out of date ones are just thrown on the scrap heap.

I'm afraid I have to confess to using disposable nappies for all my children over the last 9 years, I could probably fill a whole landfill site myself! I also use baby wipes for messy jobs but use cotton wool just for a quick clean up. When I was little my mum used to take a damp face cloth in a plastic bag everywhere we went, there were no baby wipes in those days.

I always have a full green wheelie bin every time it comes to emptying, which is more than can be said for a lot of my neighbours. I also try to take glass to the bottle bank. And mostly I do JUABC.

[bettys]

Just a thought....I'm a northerner transplanted to the south. Is it a northern thing not to waste money on such products? (am I right in thinking elwar and Tetley are also northerners?) Or am I just mean? Would like to know if anyone has interesting ways of finding new uses for things instead of throwing them away.
For example, as well as using old clothes for dusters, I cut up water bottles to put on garden canes, use clear film canisters for storing seeds & buttons, and save all my string, brown paper and jiffy bags to use again.

[PamT]

I'm a northener too and always save my carrier bags to use as bin liners. I use plastic coffee cups (machine type) as plant pots and save margarine/ice cream tubs for storage containers. Why don't they do returnable pop bottles any more?

[pupuce]

Have you seen Pampers with the suntan lotion wipes... they were on demo 2 weeks ago in our local supermarket... they were not that great 9tried it on my arm).... I am using my hand to slap the lotion on !!!
And DS loves to put it on my legs !

[SofiaAmes]

Well, i'm not a northener, but I'm married to one and being eco-friendly must only be a trait of female northerners. I have never seen so much waste of everything from my dh! It drives me crazy.

[jodee]

We have the green recycling dustcart around our area to collect all the papers/glass/tin cans/clothing, but there doesn't seem to be many places around to recycle plastic (ie milk containers, etc.). - or isn't it possible to recycle them anyway? For economy reasons I go to the supermarket to buy my milk, but I shudder at the thought of the mountains of plastic containers I must have contributed to.

[Enid]

jodee, you can recycle plastic at one of your county's 'recycling centres' - that includes milk cartons, fabric softner bottles, plastic squash bottles, clothes washing liquid containers. You should have a couple near you - check the website for your county council, they usually have listings. Luckily ours is near the library so we normally go there once a week anyway.

I recycle a lot but am afraid balk at washable nappies - too much extra work, I HATE using my tumble dryer (the expense!) and I think they look cumbersome and restricting on smaller children. We chuck the disposables on the bonfire in the summer and on the log fire in the winter.

[WideWebWitch]

Elwar, I agree, we are living in an increasingly disposable world and I dislike the idea on principle. I remember an article ages ago along the lines of "we bought £xxx worth of shopping and this is the packaging that was left once we'd disposed of the edible content". It was a huge amount, much of it unnecessary.

I resent being sold new products that I don't think I need, like disposable kitchen wipes so I'd agree with you there: like the JUABC idea! I think the whole product development lifecycle is flawed. From what I know I'd say it's: Let's develop a new product with a large profit margin, let's produce it, let's persuade people that their lives will be easier if they have it, let's make them disatisfied if they don't, let's market it and position it aggressively. Let's partner with the supermarkets to get it at eye level and move it. And a new, often useless and ecologically unfriendly piece of s* is born Very emperors new clothes.

[Marina]

Jodee, you could get your milk delivered. One advantage of the 'burbs is that our milkie comes round at the crack of dawn and our (organic) milk is in paper cartons, not plastic bottles. Shame they cannot do organic milk in reusable glass, like standard milk, but it is better than plastic. We got through lots of those too and used to worry about it.
While visiting Northern friends (!) we noticed they had packs of inexpensive flannels from IKEA (we are talking 10 for £2.00). So we are now a proud wet-flannel using family and it takes me straight back to my own childhood. I use (Ecover) fabric conditioner on mine, mind you.
Users of reusables whose child is/will be at nursery will be dismayed to hear that as daycare inspection is transferred to OFSTED, the rules regarding the accommodation of used reusables are so lengthy as to force most nurseries to introduce a "disposables only" rule. That is what has happened at ours. I have every sympathy with the staff who would have to have a separate nappy pail etc for each child - there is just no room in their premises. A very great pity though.
JUABC - great campaign.

[JJ]

Oh Enid, don't do that! Agh! Burning plastics is bad. Do you ever get nasty smells? Oh dear, please don't do that. Landfill is better.

Sorry and it's not the end of the world. But please, please, don't.

[Enid]

Sorry JJ, but thats what we do. I know about the possibility of dioxins etc but apparently there's just as much chance of a landfill site polluting the atmosphere/water table in this way.

[Enid]

And we don't do it with all of them, and no, we don't get nasty smells.

[pupuce]

Now here is a topic I should know something about... worked on issues management for the chemicals industry (waste management) in a past life.... Test of memory though !

I don't think the UK is very good at recycling but I can get organic (unpasturised) milk in glass (recycled too)... but I am sure that's not common. Reusing glass isn't always an option and it isn't cheap there are regulations on how glass must be clean (with drinking water). I do remember that Vittel who is in the Vosges Region of France has said that there isn't enough drinking water in their region to wash all their bottles if they would replace their plastic bottles for glass.

Recycling milk plastic bottles - I am trying to think. They are made of PE and I suspect it costs too much to recycle them and to make what afterwards....

I know PET is recycled quite a bit on the continent. PP and PVC as well into wiring and gutters, etc

As for incineration versus landfill... it has always surprised me that in the UK population is so anti-incinerators. Switzerland and Denmark (and I think Sweden) burn almost all (if not all) their waste but they have "clean" incinerators and they treat the fumes as well... don't know what sorts of incinerators the UK has but it must not be the less polluting ones.

Just thought I'd show I know something else besides GF

[jenny2998]

This is one of my pet subjects! I agree that we are turning into a throwaway society, and it's tragic.

I am very environmentally conscious (and a Southerner *shock**!). I tried and failed with washable nappies with my ds, but was determined when dd came along. They are more work, but I feel so virtuous! And my rubbish bin has shrunk dramatically - I recycle EVERYTHING. I also chose not to learn to drive because I didn't want to add to the petrol fumes - now with 2 kiddies I am regretting that decision!

[Enid]

pupuce, our recycling centre recycles plastic, it specifically says (and has a handy diagram of) milk cartons (I'm talking about the 4/6 pint big ones, not the thick cardboardy type 1/2 pint ones).

Well, it takes them anyway, I always suspect that they just dump them all in a landfill site somewhere...

[jodee]

Thanks Enid and Marina. Perhaps I should look into getting the milk delivered, and I will definitely check out with the local council where they recycle plastic.

[jasper]

Enid like you we burn all our disposable nappies in the open fireplace.

[SueDonim]

I'm living in Indonesia at the moment and they seem to be the masters of recycling. Entire families live by scavenging on rubbish dumps or in the rubbish heaps outside houses. One family will collect bottle tops, another, a certain type of glass, a third collects a particular typwe of plastic etc. Their collection is passed onto a middleman, who sells it to a recycling plant. Thus, we don't sort our waste as it would take a job away from someone and there are no recycling facilites such as in the UK (where, BTW, our town has just got a plastics recycling centre inc milk containers!).

Also, all types of goods are recycled into something else. Cars, when they finally expire, will be used to repair other cars or motorbikes, old wooden furniture used to make smaller wooden items etc. When out in the car you can see into the tiny workshops that line the roads, where people are busy fashioning new items from old.

Disp nappies are on sale but I don't know where they are disposed of, as I haven't seen any used ones anywhere. I doubt most Indonesians could afford them, when many exist on $3 or less a day.

[Tetley]

Yes, Bettys, I am a Northerner!! I also use the cheap flannels from IKEA, instead of baby wipes, for cleaning up after mealtimes. Although I have to confess to using baby wipes for nappy changing time.

I used to have milk delivered on principal, but the local milkman got bought out by one of the big companies, and they were charging about 38p per pint! When 4 pints costs less than 90p at a supermarket I couldn't justify it, but we do have a grreen wheelie bin for recycling, so all of the plastic goes in there. My only problem with that is that it's usually full after a fortnight, but is only collected once a month.
We also finally set up a compost bin last year. It's amazing how little our kitchen bin has in it now that all the vegetable waste gets composted!

[Joe1]

I dont recycle as much as I should, we have this tiny little box bin for all the green rubbish and only come every fortnight and after a few days it is normally full, maybe I should ask for another one. But I do use re-usable nappies and will do for no2.

[janh]

Joe1, do you have a garden? Even a small one? Green waste makes lovely compost! Our council has started giving away compost bins to encourage people to do this.