Live like you're in a canoe.

[Callisto]

I watched the BBC Nature program last night about Hawaii (called message in the waves BBC ) and found it really disturbing.

Hawaii is in the middle of the Pacific and works like a net to catch all of the crap chucked into the ocean on the Pacific Rim. This means that the leeward side of the islands are covered in plastic - it looks like a landfill.

Worse is the effect this has on the wildlife, in particular the Albatross are really struggling - they pick up what floats on the ocean assuming it is food but it is plastic. They then feed this to their chicks. The chicks die and as they decompose the plastic they have eaten is exposed - plastic lighters, toys, toothbrushes, golf balls etc. Dolphins, seals and turtles are also dying because they get tangled in or try to eat plastic bags.

It is blatantly obvious that our consumer society is unsustainable. We have such a chuck away attitude to everything and it needs to change before it is too late.

You're probably all wondering where this is leading. Well, I have a challenge for those of you with enough of a sense of social and global responsibility to care. The challenge is to not use or accept a plastic bag for a month. When you go shopping take a reusable bag, leave the plastic bags in the shop and make a real difference to your environment.

For those of you who are brave enough I have a further challenge, the Rebecca Hosking Challenge: campaign to get plastic bags banned in your area/town/village. I am working up the nerve to do this where I live and shall update you on any progress that I make. Thanks for taking the time to read this and lets change the world today.

what hte canoe thing

T'is worrying thought to see reusable bag and fashion mentioned together. That means in a year's time, they could be declared unfashionable and people will be throwing away their fabric bags

I remember my Mum's string bag! It was red! Good God I'm old!

Yeah, the last couple of times I've been in Asda I've been given a voucher for a free reusable plastic bag because I've brought my own lovely jute ones. I suppose it's a bit like preaching to the converted but it is good that they're at least trying to cut down the use of 'disposable' plastic bags.

It winds me up no end when you see someone taking a plastic bag to carry a packet of crisps

lol boco - I remember them from when I was a kid too!

I was given a bag in Boots this morning for shaving foam

I recycle my bags - local Sainsbury has a recycling point. Think they get made into garden benches (at least, they have a recycled plastic bag bench outside Waitrose only oddly no recycling point).

Don't want plastic bags banned as those bags for life are too big if you walk home with your shopping - distribute the weight oddly. OK if you drive but am already doing my bit for the environment by not driving in the first place!

I'm proud to say I have one of those old-lady trollies on wheels I take with me to the farmer's market to do our big shop every fortnight.

I don't care if it's ugly, it's easy to use!

Message withdrawn

I love mine!

funkytrundle

I tried to knit a small bunting style flag for our cycle trailer because we had lost the flag off it. I didn't get very far with it. I really doubt I could knit enough to make a bag.

expat is there a market near you?

Yep! Every Saturday, Castle Terrace, 9AM-2PM.

wow - this has moved on quickly ! There is weight and space issue using tupperware - eg ds's lunch - sandwiches, grapes - usually because just washed, cut up cucumber - etc - either lots of boxes or everything soggy together. Same argument with greaseproof paper to an extent.

And I guess if you wanted to argue about it - you could consider the relative resources required to make plastic bags over tupperware, together with the cleaning costs for tupperware (clean hot water uses up resources too).

I just wish someone out there would sit down and work out all these relative pros and cons for me - incuding whether it is better to have bio degradable plastic - or somehow waterproofed paper. I am fairly "green" generally but plastic bags aren't high on my priority list - but I do wish they were routinely biodegradable.

Going back to the original post - much of the issue is people's carelessness in letting said objects get into the sea in the first place.

ekra i wouldn't have thought so - i think the fashion thing is that it's become more fashionable to be environmentally aware - and i don't think it would become fashionable to become deliberately wasteful in the future

did you see my foil recommendation throck? or the degradable lunch bags from sains?

also, you can get these really small clip and close boxes (like tupperware but with easy lids for small fingers) now - perfect for grapes and the like.

lunch cube for throkenholt

I'd like to see a charge on bags. Many towns I must be a sad person for enjoying putting lunch into lots of little plastic boxes!

You could always buy vintage tupperwrae boxes secondhand.

yep - just waded through it all .

Again - not sure of the overall relative costs of foil over plastic - yes it can be recycled - bu often it is not (eg not allowed in our recycling collection).

I am just wary of jumping on easy bandwagons that are emotive - when actually in the long run it either makes no great difference or is a worse option.

I also query turning off things on standby - I wonder if it make the components die more quickly and so the whole thing lasts less long using more resources to be replaced.

And there are two sides to things - the costs of making it and the costs of disposing - both need to be included in the equation but rarely are.

I don't know the answers but I wish more effort was devoted to working them out and telling the rest of us. And then stopping the damn producers wrapping things in mutlitple layers of packaging.

lakeland to the rescue . Now do I throw away all my useless plastic boxes and bags in favour of those clever nifty boxes - or do I wait until the ones I have wear out first ?

Oops I muddled up two sentences. Not sure how that happened

I put my DD's sarnies in greaseproof paper bags I buy from the local hardware store - have never seen them in the big shops. Not that I'm especially environmentally aware but I don't like the chemicals in cling film. I also use my carrrier bags as bin liners, they are just the right size. They are biodegradable supposedly so I don't see what's wrong with that? I will refuse plastic bags for small items though.

olive, you are a lakeland queen .

throck, how strange that they won't let you recycle foil (the disparity between different areas wrt recycling is very strange - must be money motivated on the council's behalf I would have thought).

I wish people would either recycle their bloody bags or at least dispose of them carefully so they don't end up in the sea. And helium balloons should be banned too, poor turtles eat them and then starve to death.

I keep all my old weaning tups and baby cups for using in the bath, sandpit and sorting beads out (no idea, but they do it!)