to ask what you're doing to reduce your use of plastics?

[k2p2k2tog]

Lots of coverage on the BBC yesterday about how we used to ship loads of plastics for recycling to China, and China have said they aren't taking it any more.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42455378

Of course recycling is a good thing. But that should come third after reduce and reuse.

Plastics are an environmental nightmare - we can't avoid all plastics but we can certainly reduce what we're using. I've just ordered reusable sandwich wraps for the kids to take to school rather than wrapping in cling film. Little steps. If everyone does a little bit, we can reduce the total amount of plastics.

So what are you doing???

@gazelda

You’re so right about the disposable vs reuseable. It isn’t always as clear cut as it seems, but everything has its break even point, where the carbon used to produce the reusable item ‘pays’ for itself after a certain number of uses.

If you aren’t going to use something very much then obviously it doesn’t make sense to buy a reuseable version.

With things like bamboo toothbrushes, where you will have to throw it away eventually, there isn’t so much benefit unless you compost them. This is what I do with mine as sending them to landfill isn’t much better than using plastic.

My kids go through ridiculous quantities of small yoghurt pots. What's the solution here. I know you can get big pots of grown up yoghurts (eg with "bits") but not of kids yoghurts afaik.

Incywincy

Naty are disposable but fully biodegradable. Much better than pampers etc and not perfumed at all. Same price too.

On a slightly different but related note, we are now spending January eating all of the food in the freezers and pantry, supplementing only with what is absolutely necessary (mainly milk, bread and fresh fruit). Once its all completely gone (I reckon we have a good months worth of food but are likely to have some odd combinations towards the end), I will be making sure that we only buy stuff with minimal packaging.

Haven’t figured that one out myself @frazzled! Hopefully, someone will be along soon to offer a solution. Some people make their own yoghurt to avoid buying any plastic. I wish I was that dedicated!

Archery My DD now refuses the bottles and in my own school (teacher) I raised it with the teacher in charge of the eco group (though to no avail). It's not the school though, it's the entire council so this will be the case in all our local schools. The schools actually do have water fountains already! I'm going to see if I can get DD to influence her school eco group.

With things like bamboo toothbrushes, where you will have to throw it away eventually, there isn’t so much benefit unless you compost them. This is what I do with mine as sending them to landfill isn’t much better than using plastic.

Even in landfill though they will biodegrade eventually - unlike plastic. I think its a pretty sobering thought that your very first toothbrush used as a baby is still sitting in a landfill site somewhere.

I hate all the imbalanced reporting about plastics.

It’s not advantageous economically or environmentally to stop producing plastics.

Plastics are made from alkenes, byproducts from the oil industry. When heavy oil fractions are cracked to produce useful fuels, alkenes are also produced. These are not good fuels, nor can they be put back into the rocks. Short of storing them, they are used to make plastics. This is why plastics are so cheap.

The problem with plastics is litter, and that is a social problem, not a scientific or technological one.

Embrace plastics and dispose of them responsibly when they are no longer useful.

StepAwayFromGoogle I'm really interested in your post about the environmental impact of different packaging. What type of packaging would be most environmentally friendly, in your opinion? And why is food waste such a problem (if the food is raw like your example)? Doesn't it just biodegrade or get eaten by something else?

Totally shocked at the list of products containing microbeads. I naively associated microbeads with products that advertised their microbeads as a feature (there was a whole slew of them in the mid-noughties). Never expected to see Body Shop products etc on there

dispose of them responsibly

But that's the question, CraftyGin - how do we do that?

Frazzled they don’t go to the sizes we require. He’s six and quite tall. We have nappies from the NHS continence and have to have what comes in his size.

dispose of them responsibly

But that's the question, CraftyGin - how do we do that?

Exactly. There are a number of plastics which cannot be recycled at all and many others which aren’t recycled in many areas as it’s inconvenient for the LA to offer that service. Until they do, the best way is to reduce and reuse as recycle isn’t an option.

Don’t throw them in the ocean, obviously.

And what then do you think happens to all the plastics you throw away responsibly in your bin? If they can’t be recycled, they will end up in a giant hole in the ground where they don’t degrade for hundreds of years. Logically, there isn’t going to be enough room for all the plastics if we continue to produce them and throw them away in landfill.

I’m pretty sure my council doesn’t tip the rubbish they collect in the river.

The recycling bin goes to a MRF, the refuse bin in land filled in my area.

We don’t know how long it takes for plastics to decompose in a landfill. The idea is that, deprived of oxygen, very little decomposition takes place. If you dig up a municipal landfill, the majority of material you will find is newsprint (still readable after many decades).

While it is right and proper to consider all the costs to the environment from cradle to grave , too much focus on this thread is on the grave part. There is little consideration to how much the materials we use cost to produce. (Replacing plastics with metals is madness, imo).

What do we do with the raw materials that plastics use, if we don’t make plastics?

In my area at least, non-recyclable waste gets incinerated to provide power. That’s not a perfect solution for other reasons, but I do know that the only plastic waste I’m putting into the ocean is the fragments from my polyester washing. That turtle with a beer can holder on its back is not my fault.

The reason why foodwaste is such a problem is a) because there’s a huge carbon footprint behind the production and transport of each wasted lettuce and b) if it goes to landfill instead of being properly composted it rots to produce methane.

It's almost as if some people resent the spread of ideas

Not sure what is smug about this thread. People are just talking about small changes they're making.

I think a deposit return scheme should be implemented, with
companies like Coca Cola forced to pay £0.20p to the customs for every returned bottle.

While it is right and proper to consider all the costs to the environment from cradle to grave , too much focus on this thread is on the grave part. There is little consideration to how much the materials we use cost to produce.

I posted about this on the last page, if by cost you mean environmental rather than purely monetary.

Cost can mean both monetary (ie the energy, plant and labour costs), and environmental (eg destruction of habitats).

Yes, I know it ‘can’ @crafty, that’s why I asked which you meant. Are you saying you meant both?

we should all do out bit, each and every one of us, and it will make a change. Sales of shower gel must be plummeting!!

However it is very clear to me that any real change needs to come from a govt level - taking measures to force companies to consider their packaging, highly taxing less environmentally friendly packaging, making single use plastics fiscally unappealing.

It is a 2 edged coin - Nespresso "reinvent coffee" with the environmental disaster that is the coffee pod (yes I know they can be recycled but I do not know one user of these little fuckers that actually does recycle them, though no doubt every MN'er with a coffee pod machine, or at least the ones on this thread, will be recycling them ), and consumers respond enthralled in some kind on consumption coma, and make the product a huge success. If we all had enough awareness and prioritized the environment in our consuming, giving away a George Clooney with each machine could not made the thing a success.

There are plenty of alternatives to single use plastics - lets use plastic where we really need to use it, and go for alternatives (and make the alternatives cost efficient) where possible.

I also thing we need to think about how much stuff we bleach - toilet paper, cardboard, cotton etc and the amount of water used and chemicals unleashed into the environment.

As a whole consumers need to wise up. But the govt also needs to force change upon companies via legislation.

Yes, of course.

Using soap instead of shower gel is not good for your skin.

That turtle with a beer can holder on its back is not my fault.
If we are shipping our waste abroad (and we are) and a ship goes down or is damaged at sea (and they do), or you drink a beer on holiday in another country (ever done that?) then it could well be "your fault".