Summer of Plastic Free

Hello friends, it’s been a while! I have no excuses, just pure and utter laziness (in addition to being very busy and important of course). But please rest assured, because although my blogging has taken a pause, my plastic-free living has not! Since my last post in June I’ve been enjoying a (mostly) plastic-free summer and am excited to report back on my findings. Also, I managed to get through the entire jar of my disgusting toothpaste, and I think that’s worth celebrating (I knew my inner Scot wouldn’t let me down). I’ve actually become used to it – yesterday I used normal toothpaste for the first time in ages and it tasted weirdly sweet and frothy, although that might be because it had been lying in the back of the bathroom cupboard for god knows how long.

All gone!

Plastic-free May may be over, but I’m pleased to report I’ve been keeping up the lifestyle, although not quite to the same extent. For example, yesterday I was shopping for the ingredients to make a delicious veggie stew, and courgettes were the only thing I couldn’t get without plastic, and this was after 5pm on a Sunday so my options were limited. In this case I said YOLO, mentally apologised to Mother Earth and bought the courgettes wrapped in plastic. I did of course very carefully and responsibly recycle the plastic packaging when I got home. My general rule is that I won’t impose my choices on anyone else and I buy plastic free whenever possible, which I manage to stick to most of the time. It’s actually incredibly satisfying.

Over the past few months I’ve discovered it really isn’t that hard to live without plastic (said the yo-pro with no dependants or any real life commitments at all). It does often mean I have to hit up 2/3 shops rather than 1, but I now know where to get (almost) everything that I need plastic-free. Packaging free broccoli? M&S next to Chancery Lane station. Loose cherry tomatoes? Meat United Butcher (of all places) in Leyton. Plastic free spinach? Ted’s Veg in Stratford.

Plastic free heaven

However, there is a new player in the plastic-free consumer world, and it is a game changer. Roots delivery came to life but a few weeks ago and is based in Hackney (where else would a hipster environmentally friendly start up be based?). They sell all sorts of dried goods such as rice, oats and pasta, as well as fresh fruit and veg and household goods including washing up liquid. It works like so: you place your order online, choose your preferred delivery time, and a man will show up at your door on a bike (no emissions, and delivery is free!) ready to help you decant your goods into your own containers, or in a nice glass bottle/jar etc to keep it in if you don’t have your own. I tried this out for the first time last week – in less than 45 minutes I had placed my order and received my goods. Customer service doesn’t get any better than that! This is exciting because it means you don’t have to worry about bringing lots of bags and tubs and you can bulk order – as you know by now I’m very busy and important and also lazy so this is great news for me. I’m looking forward to being a loyal customer of theirs into the future.

Less plastic = prettier kitchen

As I’m running out of toiletries I already had I’m replacing them with plastic-free alternatives. I’m on my second conditioner bar from Lush and have just started using their shampoo bars too. I also recently bought deodorant from them which looks like this:

Crumbly.

I’ve been using this for a few weeks and I’m not sold on it to be honest, although I did start using it during the peak of the heatwave a few weeks back so it was certainly testing times. It’s not an antiperspirant so it doesn’t stop you sweating and I don’t feel like it’s that powerful against odor (ie. I’ve spent the past few weeks paranoid that I stink), but now that we’re back to a normal British rainy summer I’m a little happier (and I suspect my colleagues are too). Last week I tried my hand at making my own deodorant, which of course went terribly wrong. I followed this video that I found on YouTube, but I didn’t have any arrowroot flour (what even is that?) or cornflour, so I used plain flour instead, and way too much coconut oil, so it turned into a runny mess. Good times.

Mmm, sludgy.

After the success of the bamboo toilet roll by the Cheeky Panda a few months back I took a risk and bulk ordered it on Amazon. I was a little wary of doing this as you can never guarantee what the packaging will be like when buying through a middle man. I should have listened to my spidey senses, as this is what turned up at my door:

Cheeky Panda toilet roll comes wrapped in its own recyclable packaging, which you would think negates the need for a further layer of packaging. However, you would be wrong, as I sadly was. Look at this!

My 45 rolls came wrapped in additional layer of thick ass plastic, and then strips of parcel tape. What is the point of any of that, and in particular the parcel tape? Why? I contacted Amazon who said they would pass my feedback on to the supplier. It taught me a valuable lesson to research the supplier, or buy straight from the vendor where possible – unfortunately Cheeky Panda don’t sell their products themselves.

This post is becoming a right old uni essay, so I’ll finish up with a top tip for summer – recently I found myself in the Olympic Park on a sunny day with Emma, Ed, and the urge to drink Pimm’s. We brought plastic (reusable!) cups with us to the park, and to keep our lovely summery Pimm’s cold we (read: I) popped into local cafes and pubs and got them to fill up our spare cup with ice. Every place we asked did this happily for no charge, so no need to buy wasteful plastic bags of ice!

Finally, I have some good news – I have finally caught up to 2012 and got myself a Twitter account, specifically to tweet about plastic – mostly to criticise, but also to praise on occasion. I post a lot more frequently there if you want to keep up with my plastic free life: @zer0plastic

Bye friends!

Tackling Toiletries (part 2)

It’s been a while since my last post, and I can only apologise to my dear dedicated readers. I’m technically at the end of my plastic-free month now, but there is lots to catch you all up on, so the posts will keep coming!

I discovered last time that I had so much to write about toiletries that I split my posts into 2. Welcome to part 2 – I have some exciting developments to write about! Last week I received my first delivery of plastic-free toothpaste, of which there are a surprising amount of options to choose from. A quick google of plastic-free toothpaste comes up with a multitude of suggestions, most of which are expensive and weird to my ignorant Colgate-consuming mind. The option I decided to go for is called Truthpaste. It’s all natural, vegan, cruelty free and zero waste – it comes in a little glass jar. There are 2 key ingredients found in normal toothpaste missing from Truthpaste – glycerin and fluoride. I’ve seen a lot of debate online about whether or not you should be trying to avoid these chemicals. Fluoride prevents tooth decay which is a little concerning, but there don’t seem to be any plastic-free options containing fluoride, because plastic-free often also means natural and organic. Next time I go to see my dentist I will ask his opinion. Every time I see him he asks if I’ve been up to anything interesting in the past 6 months, and I never have much to say – now I will!

Ain’t that the tooth.

This little glass jar cost the painful amount of £7.50, plus £2.90 for delivery – by far the more expensive toothpaste I have ever bought, something which is becoming a common theme in this experiment! At least my money isn’t going to a naughty toothpaste corporation.

This is what Truthpaste looks like. I got peppermint and wintergreen flavour, thinking that would be most similar to normal toothpaste. It smells lovely! I was excited to try it for the first time that evening. Sadly my excitement was short lived. My God. This stuff is DISGUSTING.

It is clay based. Which means that it just feels like you’re brushing your teeth with slightly minty tasting clay. It’s gritty and grey and all round not fun. However I will admit it left my mouth feeling fresh. I’ve been using it for a few days now and feel like I might be able to get used to it. The Scot in me also doesn’t want to waste the £10 I spent on it, so I will probably see it through and then look into other options. Once I run out of my current tooth floss I’ll be looking into plastic-free options too, of which there seem to be many, and I can’t imagine could possibly be any worse to put in your mouth than Truthpaste.

In my last post I wrote a warning that I would be talking about periods (I shouldn’t really have to write a warning but that is another matter altogether!). First of all I will blow your mind with a fact – the average woman uses and throws away over 10,000 menstrual products in her lifetime. A few weeks ago I came across this BBC news article, shared by my trusty old friend the Marine Conservation Society, discussing the amount of plastic that is present in menstrual products. Before I read this article I had no idea how much plastic is in the average product. I now know that a single sanitary pad can contain the same amount of plastic as 4 shopping bags! Bet you’re feeling uncomfortable now ladies – who likes the idea of rubbing 4 plastic bags against the most delicate of body parts! Tampons are slightly better, being comprised mainly of cotton and rayon, but often come with plastic applicators and come individually wrapped in plastic (and by the way – did you know that unsustainable cotton farming is responsible for the destruction of large-scale ecosystems and livelihoods?). Either way, these are being found washed up on beaches because of silly ladies who decide to flush them down the toilet. Fortunately, there are an increasing amount of options available to enable an environmentally friendly period.

I recently ordered these reusable pads by Teamoy. There are a number of brands out there, but I chose Teamoy as I could order size small (some other brands are one size only). 6 of these cost about £20 including delivery. Assuming a packet of plastic pads costs £1.30 (and that’s likely an under estimation) a month, these reusable pads make up the cost in under a year and a half, and they will last much longer than that. They are made of fabric and have a little button snap to fasten around your underwear. The absorbent layer is made of anti-bacterical charcoal bamboo fiber – much kinder to your skin than the equivalent of 4 plastic bags! You only have to use one each day, and to clean them, you hand wash them in cold water and then put them in the washing machine at under 30 degrees. These are much more comfortable than horrible old plastic pads and I feel so much happier knowing I’m not producing waste for landfill.

Other options that I haven’t yet explored are period pants by Thinx. The difference here is that this is a pair of absorbent underwear rather than something you affix to your underwear. I imagine these would be the most comfortable option of all, but are accordingly a lot more expensive, at $20/30 a pair. There is also an alternative to tampons in the form of the Mooncup, a menstrual cup made of soft, medical-grade silicone. I’ve heard that they are incredibly comfortable and of course they are very good for the environment as they are designed to last for years. To me this product sounds like the best option to make your period environmentally friendly, and convenient too. Imagine never having to carry products around in your bag again!

My flatmate Bee has been leading the way on sustainable periods long before I considered going plastic free. When she first told me about these reusable products I was a little grossed out, and now when I tell my lady friends about these products I see the same initial reaction. I would like to urge all ladies reading this to get past that and start using these products – your bank account will love you for saving money, your skin will love you for using kinder materials, planet Earth will love you for not creating landfill waste, and you will love yourself for doing your part. Remember that number I quoted earlier – over 10,000 products in a single woman’s lifetime!

I could go on and on about toiletries – I’ve heard through the grapevine you can buy ceramic razors with steel razorblades that you replace every so often, so I’ll have to look into that. I’m slowly running out of all of my current plastic products, so as I source alternatives for these, I’ll be sure to update you all on my findings. Next I’ll be looking into buying reusable cotton pads for taking off my make up – already I have found an option on amazon. Going plastic free is easier than I thought!

This post is already probably too long, but I just want to share a few recent discoveries. A few posts ago I wrote about not being able to find loose basil and rosemary. I have since discovered both of these things! Unfortunately the former was almost 2,500 miles away, but the latter I randomly found in a shop in Camberwell – I bought a bunch of rosemary along with plastic free lettuce for £1. Bargain!

I was on holiday last week, which is why I went so quiet, and I have lots to write about on that, so a new post will be coming over the next few days (if I’m not too busy being busy and important).

Bye for now!

Tackling Toiletries (part 1)

My last few posts have been about food, but that’s only a small element of the plastic consumption in my life. Now that I’ve got that cracked, it’s time to move on to toiletries. I was initially going to try and fit this into one post but I’ve got so much to talk about I’m splitting it into two. Welcome to part one!

I’m a lady, and as such I use an enormous variety of toiletries. Before I started this experiment it wasn’t something I thought about too much, but over the past few weeks I’ve become a lot more aware of how much plastic I consume. Today I gathered all of the toiletries I use on a daily/weekly basis to get an idea of how much plastic is involved.

A crazy amount of unnecessary plastic

Of these 25+ products, only one, perfume, is completely plastic free – and almost completely plastic-free is my face serum stuff, which comes in a glass container and has a rubber and plastic turkey baster (I don’t know what the name for them is when they’re not used for turkey basting). This comes from the Abnormal Beauty shop in Spitalfields – maybe next time I will ask if they’re planning on creating re-fill stations for glass bottles.

During the month I’ve been looking to replace my plastic toiletries with non-plastic alternatives as I need to. I’ve just run out of conditioner, so that was item number 1 on the agenda, and it was an easy fix! Last week I went to Lush and bought a conditioning bar. It looks like a bar of soap – you simply rub it on your hair. This cost about £7, but I hear it lasts a long time. I tried it for the first time today – my hair is nice and soft and smells lovely!

Lush also have plastic-free shampoo options. My flatmate Bee has been using their shampoo bars for ages. They come with a little tin – once you’ve bought one, you can take it back and use it again and again as they have the shampoo bars lying loose in store.

Next on the agenda was that life essential, toilet paper. I’d been avoiding thinking about this, but when we were down to using a novelty Poundland loo roll I was given for my birthday I admitted defeat, and looked into my options.

Truly desperate times.

The first I came across was the snappily titled ‘Who Gives a Crap’. This is 100% recycled toilet paper – each roll is wrapped in paper and it is shipped to you in a cardboard box. The downside is the cost – at £40 for 48 rolls, this is over twice as expensive as 48 rolls of a nice Asda own brand. Instead, I’ve gone for The Cheeky Panda, which is made from sustainable bamboo and comes in recyclable packaging. It’s not as expensive – at the moment 48 rolls are available for £30 on Amazon, and I did see it for £23 the other day – and you can buy it in shops such as Planet Organic. I’m happy to report it feels delightful on one’s botty, particularly after the Poundland sandpaper roll.

Guest appearance by cousin Ed

I’ve been given a couple of lovely presents lately, one of which relates to this post. My flatmate Bee made homemade lip balm with her brownies recently and brought me some in a little tub! This is made from all natural ingredients – bees wax, mango butter and coconut oil, and is lovely and soothing. And thank you to my eco-hero sister in law Stacey, who kindly crocheted me this handy bag.

This post is already getting on, but I want to write about some articles and products I’ve come across recently. The Marine Conservation Society Facebook page is a great one to follow for articles on the issue of plastic. Recently they shared this article listing some of the UK’s best plastic free stores although it sadly doesn’t include anywhere in my own motherland or Northern Ireland, and it doesn’t include my beloved Source Bulk Foods! It did lead me to discover an online shop called No Plastic Shop (they must have taken a while to come up with that). I’ve had a browse and they have quite a good offering, including mascara which is particularly exciting! It’s expensive but at least they deliver – going plastic free doesn’t have to be inconvenient after all! The Marine Conservation Society also shared this sad article about the effects of discarded fishing gear, which makes up 45% of plastic in the ocean, on wildlife – and not even wildlife that lives in the sea!

To quote Charlotte, ‘if it wasn’t a horrific environmental catastrophe I’d say he’s rocking that hairdo’

Finally, my pal Nicole told me about this product which is in development at the moment – water that comes wrapped in seaweed, as an alternative to plastic bottles. I have lots of questions about this. Do you just stick them in your handbag? If I did that it would get covered in fluff and sand and stuff. An interesting idea though!

Re: food, I’ve not been doing too badly lately, although I’ve had a hankering for Thai yellow curry and I’ve been struggling to find plastic-free paste or plastic-free ingredients to make my own, which has made for some sad default pasta dinners. It’s so frustrating to find a glass jar of ginger paste with a pointless bit of plastic wrapped around the lid. Why?! Chris and I went to Leon yesterday and I was annoyed to see that they only offered plastic cutlery – and did you see that McDonald’s are refusing to even discuss replacing their straws with a plastic-free alternative? Damn, Ronald.

Check back again in a few days to find out how I’m dealing with toothpaste – and heads up, I will be talking about periods.

Adapting to Plastic-free Life

It’s week 2 of my plastic-free month and I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying this experiment. This morning I’m writing from my desk again, but in a much better mood than my last post because I have just had my first cup of tea in almost 2 weeks! Yesterday, after a few teething problems, my flatmate Bee and I had our first delivery of milk in glass bottles. In a short period of time I’ve gone from buying plastic cartons of milk from Asda, to having a milk man whose name I know (it’s Adrian, in case you’re interested) who will drop off milk on our doorstep every Monday, and collect the bottles from the previous week.

“Love Adrian xoxo”

Over the past week I’ve spent quite a lot of time investigating different shops to get what I need, and I’ve been all over London in the process. Last week after some research I found a non-Halal butcher called Appetite London in the Olympic Village, not far from my flat. The butcher there sorted me out with some chicken and happily put it in my tupperware – at a cost of £7.28 for 560g, this was more than twice as expensive per gram than Asda. This was evident in the taste though, and I managed to stretch it out over several meals.

On the same day I went to a shop called As Nature Intended near Spitalfields Market. This shop sells lots of eco-friendly products, including organic fruit and veg. This was the first time I’d seen any form of salad leaves sold without plastic, but at £3.15 a head, I decided I didn’t really need organic lettuce imported from France. It also had refill stations for several types of dry goods, so I stocked up on some organic rice and oats. Unsure how to work the stations, I hovered awkwardly until someone else came along and unknowingly showed me how to work them.

Artist’s impression of French lettuce

The following day I ventured back into Asda (with immediate regret). There is a fish counter there, so I had a chat with the fishmonger, who, while friendly, wouldn’t put my salmon fillets in my tupperware, saying that ‘they’re not really supposed to do that’. He gave me it in a paper bag, but wasn’t certain on how recyclable it is, and given that it had a waterproof lining on the inside, I’m guessing not very.

That’s been the only minor snag I’ve come across so far. At the weekend Chris and I went to Borough market, which had a good mix of organic and non-organic fruit and veg stalls. Here I came across some non-prohibitively expensive lettuce, although it did cost £1.89 a head; my perception of value for money has clearly been skewed by that idiot French lettuce at Spitalfields.

And that’s not all! On Monday after work I set off on my greatest adventure yet, armed with reusable bags and tupperware.

I travelled 40 minutes on the tube (and an hour home afterwards) all the bloody way to Turnham Green, which is where I now aspire to live. I was seeking out a shop called Source Bulk Foods, an Australian chain which has fairly recently landed in the UK. This place blew my tiny little mind.

Forgot to take a photo so here is one from the internet

It is plastic-free refill HEAVEN. It has all the dried goods you could ever want – pasta, rice, grains, seeds, nuts, salt, and most importantly, chocolate. I treated myself to some yummy looking chocolate covered freeze dried strawberries which I discovered at the till were a whopping £35/kg. But damn they were good! I also topped up on pasta, and filled up an old glass bottle with rapeseed oil (good for frying, and apparently with half the fat of olive oil). Unfortunately the bottle previously contained Nando’s sauce and now everything I fry tastes faintly of Nando’s. I’ll be going back to Source Bulk Foods, as they also have refill stations for shampoo, conditioner, hand wash, laundry detergent and fabric softener. And they play nice floaty music whilst you shop.

Finally – you’ll probably have seen that Morrisons are now allowing customers to shop with their own food containers (linking to an Edinburgh Evening News article for no good reason other than Edinburgh is the best). I decided to test this out for myself – yesterday after work I went to check out my local Morrisons in Stratford, which has a butcher and a fishmonger. The absolutely lovely butcher was delighted to give me some mince in my own tupperware, and when I enquired, told me that they also do non-halal chicken. It was a lovely reasonably priced experience all round, and on that sunny evening, was an enjoyable walk back to my flat.

I’m proud to say that my meals recently have been almost 100% plastic free. The 0.001% of plastic has either been from stickers (the lovely Charlotte, who if you remember inspired me to do this in the first place, told me it wasn’t really necessary to avoid them) or from packaging from things I bought before I started doing this, such as herbs. Buying fresh herbs is going to be tricky – if anyone knows where I can buy packaging free fresh basil and rosemary please do let me know.

It seems that the issue of plastic is making headlines more and more each week. This is encouraging as it shows the government and businesses are taking the problem seriously. Here are some links:

Iceland to go packaging free by 2023

First plastic-free aisle established in a supermarket in Amsterdam

Michael Gove is to ban wet wipes, and apparently parents are ‘fuming’

Have your say on single use plastic

Next I’m going to be tackling toiletries. Check back soon!

Early Plastic Free Days

I’m writing this from my desk on my first plastic-free working day and I’m grumpy. Grumpy because my ears have been sun burnt to a crisp, and grumpy because my weekend was too busy to sort out a plastic-free breakfast, so all I’ve had is a banana. I’m hungry! This is what happens when you’re a very busy and important person.

Saturday the 5th was my first plastic-free day, and I began by immediately failing the whole experiment (possibly). Chris and I hired some Boris bikes in the Olympic Park – you use a touch screen at the docking station to pay your £2 day fee and it spits out a little ticket with a code to enter at the stand and get a bike out. But it’s not printed on normal paper – it has some sort of smooth plastic-y finish on one side, so I’m not sure if it’s recyclable. Not a good start to my experiment! There was a nice bike maintenance man at the docking station who told us about the app, which sends a code to your phone rather than printing it out, so we’ll be doing that next time.

I continued the day with a zero waste ice cream. Chris got his in a plastic tub and I made him bring it back to my flat to wash it out. Now it’s in my cupboard waiting for its next purpose in life.

The face of sustainability.

I’ve discovered that buying loose fruit and veg is in easy in Leyton – there are loads of shops that sell a bowl for £1, and aren’t covered in stickers. It’s been nice chatting to the shop owners – one new shop I tried was manned (womanned? Personned? What is the PC term these days?) by a lovely lady who I had a good chat with about going plastic-free. She was even kind enough to put my loose cherry tomatoes and ginger in my tupperware. It’s been nice to avoid shopping in Asda for a change, which is full of slow walkers and the spatially oblivious.

Our fruit and veg bowl has never looked so colourful, and completely plastic free!

I also popped by Poundland (which now has its own clothing range, by the way. That is where I draw the line) and got myself this adorable little canvas sack to put my veggies in.

Baggin’ dem veggiez

I also picked up 2 reusable glass bottles, which have already come in handy. On Sunday I went to visit my lovely pals Sandy and Amber, and I offered to bring us some pimms. I then realised it would be cheaper to make my own lemonade rather than buying it in a glass bottle. I transported this to Egham in my lovely new Poundland bottle!

When life gives you lemons, peel and roughly chop. Blend with 140g of caster sugar and 500ml of water. Sieve and add another 500ml of water, to make lemonade.

I also hit up a local bakery to buy a loaf of sourdough bread without packaging. It was super expensive – £2.50 for a loaf – so I’m not sure how sustainable that will be going forward.

On bank holiday Monday Chris and I went to the beach at Camber (south-east coast), and it was bloody glorious, but I was disappointed with the complete lack of recycling facilities there. A bigger issue though (in my opinion) is the careless attitude and lack of respect for the environment that many people have. We left at 4pm and the bins were already over flowing, so I sadly expect it was a much dirtier beach in the evening than when we first arrived.

So far I’m still very much learning, but in time I expect to pre-empt issues such as refusing plastic straws, and to start remembering to bring tupperware with me. Otherwise I will be going hungry again!

All for now – check back in a few days to find out how I’m getting on with meat, rice and oats!

Still Kind Of The Beginning

Today is my last day of living a care-free plastic filled life*. This past working week I’ve been paying more attention to my shopping habits, in terms of where I shop and how often, and what I buy and the packaging it comes in. Every day, I have bought at least one thing (and usually more than one) that has come in plastic packaging. As I mentioned last week I’ve been looking a little more closely at labels and discovering not everything is as recyclable as I have so innocently assumed. Often, produce will come in a recyclable plastic tray and a non-recyclable plastic film. Why not just use one type of plastic (the recyclable one. Obviously.)?

As I hinted at in my last post, I live in London and am very busy and important. I’m lucky enough to live in zone 3, a 5 minute walk from a central line tube station and next to a big Asda (I use ‘lucky’ loosely – it is Leyton, after all), yet I’m not one to do a ‘big shop’ at the weekends; I tend to pop in on my way home from work and grab a few days’ worth of food. I’ll also pop into the M&S next to Chancery Lane station before or after work.

The only thing anyone ever knows Leyton for

I’ve quickly realised that this ‘little and often’ practise isn’t going to work. Asda carries some loose fruit and veg, and they do have a fish counter, but the meat counter is halal, which I don’t particularly agree with (but that’s a debate for another blog). I’m going to have to try and find a non-halal butcher, as well as somewhere to fill up reusable receptacles with staples such as pasta, rice and olive oil.

Something I have been pondering is produce stickers, found on fruit and veg such as avocados. I love avocados as much as the next millennial, but according to the internet, these stickers are often not recyclable or compostable. Until I find sticker-free avocados, I may have to shun this king of fruits for the month (and all other stickered fruit and veg, but this is the one I am most upset about).

Not pictured: 26-30 railcard and empty savings account

During the week I’ve come across a few news articles relevant to my cause. The major of Italian archipelago Isole Tremiti has banned the use of plastic plates, cups and utensils from the 1st of May this year, with fines of up to €500 for those caught breaking these rules. This ban has been implemented in response to high levels of plastic particles found in the surrounding waters. That’s a great start! The ban doesn’t yet include plastic water bottles, which was criticised by the Marine Conservation Society – leading me nicely to this article in the Scotsman, praising an Edinburgh-based entrepreneur for developing a biodegradable water bottle (all the best things come out of Edinburgh don’t you think?). His water bottle is “fully biodegradable, made from sustainable plant-based materials, uses no fossil fuels in its production and can actually benefit wildlife and the landscape when it breaks down. The plastic-free container decomposes within about three weeks in seawater, compared with hundreds, even thousands, of years for its plastic equivalent. It can also be harmlessly eaten by sea creatures and can neutralise acidic soils.” Sounds great! Choose Water have started a crowdfunding campaign to get development off the ground.

On Monday I went to another talk at the RGS, this time about the issue of deforestation in Indonesia. The lecturer discussed the negative effects of the palm oil industry on what remains of the Indonesian rainforests, and made a point that is relevant to my cause too – we as western consumers have the power to influence industry. What if everyone decided to go plastic free?

I’d like to finish with a shout out to my fantastic eco hero sister-in-law and fam – check out the tiny amount of landfill waste they generated over 2 weeks, and with 2 young boys to feed! And also to my pal Emma, who was worried that I didn’t post for a few days. I’m alive and well, Emma.

An inspiration to us all!

Tomorrow, I begin life as a smug, plastic-free hippie*, so in my next post I’ll be telling you all thrilling tales of my adventures across London, foraging for sustainable produce. Good thing my annual travelcard is about to renew – here I come, zones 1 to 3!

*for the rest of the month

The Beginning

Inspired by my eco hero pal Charlotte, who last year spent a month trying to shop plastic free, I’ve decided to give it a go myself.

Plastic pollution is featuring hugely in the news lately. From the Guardian:

Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl and Waitrose are among the 42 businesses so far supporting a new pledge to cut plastic packaging, which includes an aspiration that by 2025 all plastic packaging can be reused, recycled or composted.

Last month, diver Rich Horner filmed himself swimming through a LOT of plastic in Bali, and we all know that there is a garbage patch the size of Texas floating around in the Pacific. The recent Blue Planet II series also highlighted the issue; anyone who’s heart didn’t break when the whale calf died because of its mother’s poisonous milk is dead inside.

Obligatory stock image of plastic to break up the text and keep your brain engaged because the internet has ruined our attention span

Recycling is great, but it is not enough. A few years ago I went to a talk at the Royal Geographical Society entitled ‘Oceans of Plastic’ by Dr Erik van Sebille. This preview video of the lecture contains some vital, and very sad, stats on plastic pollution (RGS members and fellows can watch the full lecture through the RGS website):

• 40% of plastic produced is for packaging, more than for any other purpose
• 40% of the 78 million tonnes of plastic packaging produced goes to landfill; 14% is incinerated, producing CO2, and 32% ends up in the environment
• 14% globally is recycled, but only 2% is ‘properly’ recycled. The rest ends up in the environment

With this challenge in mind I’ve been paying more attention to food packaging, and I’ve been surprised to find that many of the products I’ve been putting in my green bin with good intentions aren’t actually recyclable. Packaging for apples? Not currently recycled. Pitta bread packaging? Not currently recycled. Toilet paper packaging? Not currently recycled! We need to reduce and reuse as well as recycle.

Damn, Asda

I’m going to be focusing on cutting out single use plastic, but will be thinking about my use of any sort of single use product – tins, cardboard and paper too.

Living in London, I’m naturally a very busy and important person. I’m also a millennial, and therefore poor. I’m expecting this whole experience to be incredibly inconvenient and expensive, and will be blogging as I go to reflect on how I’m having to change my lifestyle to accommodate going plastic free.

Last week I told a few people of my plan (which means no going back), and I was pleasantly surprised by the interest and enthusiasm I was met with, and the discussions it sparked. I’m excited to see how the next few weeks pan out!

My plan of action:

• Tomorrow until Friday 4th May – shop as normal to monitor what I’m spending and how much I recycle
• Saturday 5th May until I go on holiday on the 2nd of June – shop plastic free!

Wish me luck!