Root- toodle-oodle- toot

Its time once again to blow my own trumpet…. and what a fine fartling noise it makes

Last Year in my war against plastic tatters I gave up the following

December
Coathangers

November
breakfast cereals that are plastic wrapped

Hairbrushes

Combs

October

greetings cards – in plastic wrappers

trick or treat bags

party bags – for children

September

plastic wrapped buns and cakes

clingfilm

August

Tobacco
dish cleaning brushes
pan scrubs
Yogurt

July….

icecream and ice lollies in plastic wrappers or tubs.

ice cream

Fish & Chips in plastic trays – ask for them wrapped in paper
Fake bake self tan in plastic bottles – I make my own

June
plant pots with plants – bought from the garden center can be recycled.
Seed pot plastic tray things replaced by home made paper pots

May
Tonic water in plastic bottles I buy in cans but have plans to make my own

Liquid Cleaners such as
TOILET CLEANER,
LAUNDRY LIQUID,
MULTISURFACE CLEANER,

And Laundry products such as FABRIC SOFTENER,

Conditioner for my hair replaced by the vinegar rinse. It really works

April
Cream cheesein plastic tubs – I have compostable ones.

March
Lip Balm in plastic tubes or pots – I make my own

Febuary
Disposable pens I have a fountain pen for best 

mad cornstarch biodegradable pens for everyday
Q tips with plastic stalks – you can get paper

January
Bread in plastic of course – not just bread.

September boycot

My ongoing solution to nasty plastic pollution is to boycott unnecessary plastic products and source plastic free solutions.

This month I have given up 

• plastic wrapped buns and cakes
• clingfilm

In the last 20 months I have given up all these.

I failed at…yes its time to see me fall face first into the custard pie of plastic product abuse. To see what promises I broke this month click right here

I was inspired by these ….

•  The Fusers  – they fuse together sevral flimsy plastic bags together to create one strong sheet that can then be sewn into all manner of things
• The knitters knit their old plastic bags up into all sorts of fantastic things
• The Squirel Bafflers fool those furry bird seed stealers with this cunning foil.
• In the building trade plastic bottles and candy wrappers have been used to make bricks
  

Learning Zone

Dont know your polyethylene from your polystierine – fret no more the answer is here

 

 

Bye bye pre wrapped buns

This month I am giving up on cakes. At least the ones covered in plastic. Who would want to do this to pudding. Its just wrong. If buns need to be wrapped in plastic and I really dont see why they should then it should be a biodegradable plastic.

 But why when there are plastic free alternatives are available from bun shops.

August

Well August has been a very exciting month. Which has cheered me up no end. July it has to be admitted was gloomy – lots of pictures of plastic on the beaches like this and more. Lots of depressing facts about how it gets there and how it is killing marine life. Not to mention the problems of plastic entering the food chain via the little fishes.And the really scary trash votex

But while it might seem overwhelming, disposable plastic products havn’t been around that long – about 50 years or so. Before that we managed without them. In those days children could go beach combing and not come back with fishing net full of panty liners. Lets make it that way again.

THIS MONTH THERE ALL SORTS OF SUPER THINGS TO DO TO MAKE THE WORLD AND ITS BEACHES A LITTLE NICER – and lots of people thinking and talking about the problems of plastic.

Beach cleanups

Once again the unsung heros will be out there cleaning up the beaches. Why not join them this year – click here for a list – if you know of any others please do add to it

Join My Boycot

My solution to nasty things in nets is as ever to boycott unnecessary plastic products – cut consumption and I just bet the plastic industry start to promote solutions – do nothing get nothing.

This month I have given up

Tobacco
dish cleaning brushes
pan scrubs
Yogurt

In the last 20 months I have given up all these.

Be Inspired By These

 Christine Jeavans decided to give up plastic for a month – see the BBC blog – to see how she got  on – DO note my blog is amongst those listed on her blog roll.

Waste Reducers All over the world people are reducing their waste to zero – yes thats zero. Check them out they are amazing

Creative Recycling

Plastic recycling – hows it done – click here to see

Turning plastic rubbish into picnic benches

To see the yogurt pot bathroom click here

Fusing plastic and making bags follow the link

 

Get Stuff For Being Good

To promote the good cause these altruistic people have organised be green get goodies initiative- pledge to do the right thing and be rewarded for it – go on you know you want to.

Do Something

Keep up the pressure for a plastic bag ban in California here
And support these other exciting anti plastic campaigns here including the fabulous boys in the boat made from rubbish

Banning Plastic Rubbish

the good news this week comes from Seattle-
London, Ontario city council last week voted to cease sales of bottled water at municipal buildings and facilities including parks and community centres.
To see the full story follow the link

A Really Special Treat

You know that Pam likes to keep things short and sweet but this month I have revisited my reasons for going plastic free. For a good long read try my uber post – yes I know – I am too kind. Just scroll down and there it is.

The Pratfalls

Yes its time to see me fall face first into the custard pie of plastic product abuse. To see what promises I broke this month click right here

20 months assessment

In the light of sudden interest in the plastic debate I felt it was time to revisit my thoughts on plastic disposables and packaging. For the last 20 months I have been boycotting plastic items and sourcing sustainable alternatives. My reasons were pretty simple – a gut reaction to all the rubbish I saw around me. But along the way I have had to think about all sorts of other things – composting- growing your own- waste management – to name but a few. In light of all this additional information my rules have devleped. Heres an update.

Plastic is cheap, easily formed, light, easily transportable and incredibly useful and is used for just about everything. Especially as throwaway packaging.

As such allows us access to a marvellous array of products at a price we can afford.

It is in fact a huge advance on conventional forms of packaging- the heavy glass, the resource hungry and easily ripped paper and expensive steel.

As with all forms of packaging has freed us, especially us women, from the need to make everything from home grown root vegetables yanked from the ground and cooked for days.

What’s not to like?

Plastic doesn’t biodegrade;

It cant go on the compost heap like paper and be transformed by the magic of nature into plant food.

It can’t rust away like a tin can its small rusty parts going to sustain the next generation of trees.

Plastic is always plastic. It might over time break into smaller pieces but those pieces are not absorbed into the natural cycles.

Throw it in the sea it will float around for ever – unless it chokes a marine mammal.

Bury it in the ground and it will sit there for millennia and we are running out of landfill space.

Getting rid of plastic is a specialist operation involving either burning or recycling.

Plastic can be easily recycled. That is one of its wonderful features. It can be used over and over again but recycling has to be well organised and depends on a well educated conscientious user group who are prepared to wash and sort their rubbish. Well there’s the first problem. It also requires a recycling plant. So while recycling is part of the solution it does not make plastic disposable products acceptable.

If plastic, throw away items just get thrown away and not recycled or burnt, they are with us forever. Not surprisingly plastic litter is on the increase. Already the problems of plastic pollution are enormous – if we don’t stop producing so much rubbish we are going to be in big kahuna – and I mean really soon.

Recycling might be fine for countries that can provide or afford a recycling service – not so great for those that don’t have the waste removal facilities to deal with it. Plastic pollution in countries like India and Africa is really horrendous. Can I drink Cola from a plastic bottle because we can dispose of the bottle but insist it cant be sold that way in Africa because they cant? I don’t think so. My only real option is to challenge selling Cola in plastic bottles world wide which I do by way of boycott.

Just an aside but it used to be that Cola collected their glass bottles and reused them. In fact they paid you for bringing them back. Now they don’t have to bother. The cost of clearing up coke bottles falls on local government and on me the tax payer. Well b=33=cks to that.

Promoting the use of recycling maintains the idea that this is a easily disposed of product. There is no such thing as a throw away product and nor should there be. A product such as a sturdy plastic bottle which can be used again should be used again. Refill rather than recycle is my mantra. I am more than happy to have my plastic bottle refilled with Ecover toilet cleaner.

But even though it can be recycled most plastic actually is not. It’s not yet cost effective. What is collected for recycling depends where you live. Kirklees will only collect bottles and of course the supermarkets collect bags.

The other option is burning. Burning waste is a problematic issue which requires large specialist equipment for it to be done safely. Yes plastic can be burnt and the heat generated used productively … but .. plastic comes from oil. As such it is finite resource. When you think just how useful plastic is, should we be burning it. I would have thought computer keyboards or recycled, non-rotting sea side board walks might be a better option.

Whether burning or recycling some one else has to do it at specially built locations sometimes miles if not nations away. I want to take responsibility for my own rubbish . I don’t want to produce bin loads that have to be shipped off and disposed of by some one else. Should the bin men go on strike or the basis of society crumble I want to be reasonably self reliant. Taking control of my own waste disposal is one way I can do that. But for that to be possible I need waste I can dispose of myself. I don’t think burning plastic in my barbeque will endear me to the neighbours and as for recycling – enough said. On the other hand with a worm bin and a compost bin I can recycle my own biodegradable waste into compost which I use to grow bumper tomatoes.

So I try to avoid buying products that comes in packaging that needs to go elsewhere to be recycled – that goes for glass too. I think its such a waste that perfectly good bottles have to be recycled when they could be reused.

But there is a list of preferences I prefer glass packaging for food and drink to plastic because while, like plastic it is with us forever, glass vessels it can be sterilised and reused. Hopefully one day they will be as the norm. I mean why can’t we bottle wine in this country in reused bottles? Bring it in in a big tank and bottle it here. Is that a bonkers idea? But I digress.

I prefer tins to plastic or tetra packs because I know that the recycling rates are so much better, the plants so much closer and it will if the worst were to happen and it ends up in the sea it will biodegrade.

But I try to avoid any packaging that has to be recycled before they can be reused. Obviously it is not always possible – I eat jam out of glass jars, I buy tinned sardines and I have to buy some plastic wrapped products. But then I don’t have the time to make everything I need myself, I cant wean my husband off them and it is impossible to buy salt in plastic free packaging – at least round our way. .

So try to limit what I buy to what I consider essential. Obviously my idea of what is essential is open to debate – I am certainly not an ascetic rather the opposite – but I do love the environment and would hate to see it damaged beyond repair. In short m my aim is not to give up the things I like but enjoy them in a sustainable way.

I do believe that if we aren’t too greedy or stupid we could all live a good life on this wonderful planet. Though again my interpretation of greedy and stupid is again debateable.

Which is why I decided to post my actions on the internet.

These are my plastic refusenik rules and I buy products that meet these criteria;

1 – avoid making rubbish in the first place
By not buying heavily packaged goods
Shunning unnecessary throwaway products.
Reusing
Refilling

2 – to deal with my own rubbish
Which means I have to choose products that come in biodegradable packaging

3 – choose products that can be recycled
Pretty much as it sounds but also I will buy recycled products to help create a market.

4 – to find out more about plastic
There are indications that plastic packaging might not be good for you. Reports consistantly suggest that unhealthy plastic chemicals leach from the wrapper into the product.

I hate plastic pots so….

for several months now I have been experimenting with making my own yogurt. I had heard of how you could make it in a flask but I just ended up with curds and whey and an evil smelling flask.

Then the husband AKA  village boy remembered how they used to make it back in the place of his birth, the town with no road no electricity and no gas ( they just got them in 2003 when we went to visit). 

His recipie  involved a big pan of hot milk and lots of blankets.Obviously the move to the city  ruined him. He just ended up with curds and whey and evil smelling blankets.

So I bought me an Easy Yo Yogurt maker – - really easy -just mix the contents of the sachet with water – yes thats right – the plastic foil sachet that came in the plastic packed box. Didnt think it through. Not best pleased – it did make very good yogurt though. If only they sold the mix in a jar – or cardboard box. Ho hum back to the drawing board.

Finally got me an electric yogurt maker from Lakeland – mail order.

The yogurt is made in a plastic container but for those of you worried about 5. PP (Polypropylene). This is BPA free for those of you worried about leacning chemicals.

It works really well and after several trials I now feel confident enough to give up buying yogurt.

Please note not all are yogurt making noddies – if you care to peruse the comments you will find out how to make yogurt using hot water and how to use the Easy Yo yogurt maker without purchasing more sachets

 Find other plastic free products   with the   A-Z  plastic free index

July

Summer time and the living is easy … there is rock, fish and chips, knobbly knees and kiss me quick hats, fake bake and the ever optomistic sun tan lotion… the great British summer is upon us.

To celebrate that fact, this month has a sea side theme. I will be digging out my wind break, filling the thermos and planning some jolly good plastic free days out.

Why plastic free? click here to see lots of washed up plastic debris – I think that says it all.

Click here to see what I have given up this month

This month

I have given up….

icecream and lollies in plastic wrappers or tubs. Only cones or cardboard packaging

Fish & Chips in plastic trays – ask for them wrapped in paper

Fake bake self tan in plastic bottles – I make my own

Better still make your own plant pots

Flimsy plastic seedling trays are as Mr Flighty quite rightly points out an abombination. A couple of uses and the are fit for the bin. What a waste

So dont use them. Make your own pots out of newspaper instead. Fill them with local compost and plant your seed.

Once the seedlings have grown plant pot and seed in the ground.

Its so much easier then trying to empty those silly plastic pot and the plant roots are less disturbed.

Better for plants and the environment.

The square pots featured above are made from folding newspaper in a origami style as featured on Erics page

Or make them out of newspaper and a jam jar

I dont like these as much – the square ones sit neatly in a tray . However there is certainly less folding and they are quicker

Origami Plant Pots

In the spring, many gardeners choose to grow their plants from
seed. This normally involves using plastic flower pots and trays.
Instead, why not try and make our origami plant pots out of
newspaper.
What to do…

1 Take a drinking glass or can and a sheet of newspaper.

2 Fold the newspaper into a strip approximately 15 cm wide, so
that the strip has several layers to it.

3 Lay the strip on a work surface. Take the glass or can and
position the end of the glass so that it is 5cm in from the edge of
the paper. Roll the strip of paper around the glass, you may want
to use a small piece of masking tape to stick the remaining fl ap
of paper down.

4 Fold in the overlapping paper so that the end of
the glass is covered.

5 Stand the glass on it’s end pushing down the
paper from within the pot. You may also use a
small piece of tape to secure the bottom.

Once you have made your pots, fill with peat
free compost and plant your seeds. For extra
stability stand your pots together in a tray. Once
the seedling has sprouted two sets of leaves,
make a few holes in the sides of the container and
then plant it into the ground.

http://www.recycleforhampshire.org.uk/schools/pdfs/pack_minimisation.pdf