Like so many other aspects of ethical living, everything has to be weighed up for whether it’s sustainable in the long term – making yourself super anxious about every last shred of clingfilm is not kind and KINDNESS must be at the heart of all our efforts to improve life on our planet, reducing our impact on all the other inhabitants and creating more flow and joined-up thinking in our daily living. And because it is OUR daily living, that means intersectional awareness – the busy working parents can’t afford as much time as the pensioner, who might struggle washing out every milk bottle, the chronically mentally ill might not be able to think about any of these issues as they struggle to stay balanced as yet more deathly policies are handed down by the Tories. People with loved ones in hospital, prison, detention centre, dying on sanctions… plastic will only matter again when those crises are over. We all need to give and share space to others and ourselves on what we can or will take on. The financial implications of switching some products are a good example – I have bought bamboo toothbrushes from China because they are very affordable [50p each] and using a local quick-grow, carbon offsetting product, which is shipped here, not flown. Many people who use eBay can manage that – they can’t afford £6 deodorant. I used my birthday money, because that worked for me. So this post is very much sharing what worked for me, and encouraging anyone in the right space to consider what might work for them.
Briefly, I learned lots about my plastic consumption, some exciting new alternatives to plastic packaged products and also some new-to-me recycling possibilities. Well worth doing!
In all, I was left with about 950g of plastic in this 5 week month – I forgot to weigh all the milk bottles, so there’s a bit of guessing in there, but that’s pretty close. Next month should be quite a lot less!
How it broke down:
can’t be re used or recycled 229g : wrapped sweets 30g, cling film 44g, brittle plastic 48g, veg wrap 48g, blister packs for medications 38g, toothpaste tube 21g,
30g of this I have found plastic-free substitutes for – some of the veg and sweetie packaging I hope to reduce by more mindful choices and seasonal cooking.However, there’s a hardcore 60g in medication wrapping and toothpaste tube that isn’t going to shift – most toothpastes make me sneeze or my gums itch [allergies] and I have stockpiled at least 6 tubes to futureproof myself should this brand ‘improve’ its recipe too…
can be re-used but then goes to landfill: bubble wrap 18g,
re-using, then recycling 150g eg large margarine tubs 150g
recycling via Sainsbury’s plastic carrier collection point 97g stretchy plastic eg bread bags 50g and cereal liners 47g
recycling via Council bin 460g [grand total 707g]
123g of these were easily substituted – see bathroom buys!
I decided to see what I could change easily and was delighted to find that some things are far more affordable than they were a few years ago. Everybody has to make their own decision on what mix of ethical priorities works for them, so some of these won’t work for others.
Bamboo toothbrushes: these used to cost about £3.50 and aren’t always easy to find outside healthfood shops. I won’t buy from Holland and Barrett because I remember when I found out they were owned by Dewhurst the butchers! I think they’ve changed hands again since, but I still avoid them. So, I looked online and was completely won over when I found RAINBOW bristle bamboo brushes for 50p each! They are from China, which will be unacceptable for some people, but I understand some farm shops carry a UK version and some Waitroses. I also can’t put pig bristles in my mouth, so am hoping a hemp plastic will eventually replace the nylon bristles on the bamboo bristles I chose.
Now I use old toothbrushes to clean grout etc but eventually you have to throw them away and that’s 18g of longlife plastic 😦 The bamboo brush comes with nylon bristles, but only about 2 grams, which you can cut off after use and turn the handle into a plant label! Yay! I also bought a bamboo hairbrush which is very gentle on my scalp.
Another easy bathroom win is the switch to shampoo and soap bars – more people are making these and it’s worth checking out Conscious Crafties
https://www.consciouscrafties.com/?s=shampoo+bar&post_type=product
or on ebay I found some lovely products by Funky Soap http://www.funkysoapshop.com/ whose approach matches mine perfectly, ‘green’ palm oil, no parabens, no sulphates [kill the daphne that fish eat] which a lot of the cheaper bars include, to make foam.
I’ve tried the malva and citrus shampoo and citrus soap so far and my hair has loads of shine and volume, and my scalp and skin feel better – I get very dry skin/psoriasis as part of the fibromyalgia. I like the mild scent, I feel clean and fresh and not too invasive of other’s space, but there are a huge variety of flavours available, including Castile l think, which is plain.
Deodorant was also simple to replace [thanks to eagle-eyed Cherise who spotted a voucher code] – Kutis Skincare make different flavours, the Citrus is lovely and works well on me, and I bought a Rosemary and Lemon for myself too, and Rose and Grapefruit as a gift. That would have been £18, gulp, but the voucher helped. I can’t tell you how long it will last yet, but after a week I don’t seem very far down 😉 £6 is dear for me, but they are handmade by a small business in Wales and I really like the way they’re presented. https://www.facebook.com/kutisskincare/photos/a.188407244823952.1073741829.153250998339577/587856678212338/?type=3&sales_promo_bypass_snowlift=1&sales_promo_id=10154976299955614&sales_promo_referrer
I’m not sure if the cardboard container would be too aromatic to put in a compost bin, but you could certainly soak it with other card to make paper pulp and papier mache. It will definitely bio degrade anyway.
Onto the kitchen!
This was harder, partly because I can’t do my own shopping most of the time. I order online from Morrisons [who are VERY good about taking back plastic bags and you get a credit, so more people will do it] and occasionally from Wilko so that my homehelp can go straight to Customer Services to collect [they have a bad habit of wrapping everything in huge clingfilm] and sometimes manage a few things at Lidl [near my counselling appointment] or the corner shop.
Vegetables are wrapped in irritating amounts of plastic – Iceland [Frozen Stores and Supermarket, not the country 😉 ] has just announced it will go plastic-free on its own veg but aren’t very local for me or either of my homehelps. I get the Morrisons Wonky Veg Box, which is fantastic value at £3, none of the veg are wrapped and the box folds up easily, and then I use it to send cans and rice etc to the foodbank at Himmah. Frozen veg however comes in stretchy plastic bags [like bread bags] and these, oh frabjous day! I have discovered can be recycled at Sainsbury’s. Obviously, wash the bread and veg bags out and turn them inside out to dry, so no nasties get in. These can be handed in with carriers at the collection point in EVERY Sainsbury’s 🙂 Happy rollie dance!
That won’t work for salad, but it’s a good start. You can grow salad leaves fairly easily on a windowsill or sprout seeds, and maybe make a trip to a proper greengrocer who uses paper bags [or provide paper bags, or recycle the plastic bags you’re given.] This is where the tailoring begins again, what will work for you, may not for another.
Sugar – Silver Spoon British beet sugar comes in paper bags which can go in compost or recyling, and coming from the UK involves less fuelmiles. Fairtrade brown sugar sometimes comes in that thin plastic film, which might be cellophane [which IS biodegradable] and comes from plant cellulose. Could be worth a petition campaign to Billingtons etc to make clear if their plastic is cellophane or if they could swap back to boxes. [I remember when brown sugar came in boxes!] I’ve also tweaked some recipes so that I use molasses [comes in a jar] or golden syrup/ black treacle [comes in a tin.]
Some things can be solved by buying in bulk, so that the plastic container you’re left with becomes very useful – eg vegan margarine comes in 2kg tubs, which is a useful size if I am giving cookies to the free cafe [it also reassures vegans that I really did use the dearer marg 😉 ] or freezing large amounts of things. The 1kg tubs are also more useful than the 500g for families freezing soups and sauces, and this goes for yoghurt too.
Bread – as I said earlier, Sainsbury’s take CLEAN bread bags and other stretchy plastic in the plastic carrier bag recycling point.
Boiled sweets – I really like butter mintoes, however they come individually wrapped in cellophane/film, in a plastic bag. Luckily when I went to Lidl last time they had tinned travel sweets, which aren’t wrapped , in Eis [acid drop] and ACE [vitamin a,c,e] flavours. There is a plastic seal, but the tins can be re-purposed for candles etc or recycled.
Chocolate – the more expensive fairtrade brands come in card and foil, the worst offenders are the foil coated plastic individually wrapped multipacks eg Cadbury’s. As Cadbury’s [Kraft] forced their fairtrade farmers last year to accept a drop in wages while insisting on keeping the f/t logo [grrr] this is a good time to consider buying full on f/t chocolate all the time if you can afford it, or buying biscuits. Biscuit wrappers can be recycled via Ellie’s Fund https://www.facebook.com/emptybabywipeseastyorkshire/ among many other unusual things – see their info!
CONCLUSIONS:
by following the challenge I have made a shift of 15% by simply researching alternatives – 153g  may not sound like much, but 123g is completely away from plastic, so not even sending items to recycling. Then there are reductions in what will go to recycling by repurposing eg using 2kg tubs of margarine for plant pots/watering tubs for homegrown tomatoes etc, for gifting food to the free cafes [otherwise I have to use clingfilm] and though they will perhaps put them straight in recycling, I hope someone thrifty will think, ooh, handy freezer tub 😉Â
One very positive effect of taking part in the challenge has been to create a ripple effect – at least 4 more people have joined in because of conversations/Fbk info posts I’ve shared, and because I have given people soap, shampoo bars and toothbrushes there has been a lot of happy chatter rather than earnest lecturing. This was a less happy aspect that came up, I am very aware of how lacking in intersectional awareness many eco-conscious people are, some very middle class attitudes towards approaching the workers in scoop stores came up in one group – these are people who either work on zero hour contracts or below the living wage, and that includes the owners of the business, standing for very long hours. Check your privilege before you ‘demand’ an alternative to a plastic bag that Market or Supermarket regulations may mean they are supposed to use. Instead, take some clean/new paper bags along with you and ask if goods can be weighed into those. They can be composted afterwards, but asking someone to refill your margarine tub or cloth bag which may be covered in cat fur as far as the staff know, is just unreasonable. Bakeries will often do this because they can reach around to drop a loaf in, but anything where your container touches a scale or could shed anything on open food is asking for someone worried about hygiene to report them. Small, local businesses rely on local goodwill and operate on tiny margins. Don’t feel people are being unreasonable when they find your request too difficult. There are plenty of small, local and even ONLINE businesses that are set up to provide plastic-free packaging, support them instead. In Nottingham UK, we have the Food Assembly and Sneinton Vegan Market, where you can take your own container, and PlasticFree Pantry is an online business who can deliver to Food Assembly if that’s easier than waiting in. Ask around, and go with the flow, pushing market traders is counter-productive and just plain rude.
So, overall, I feel it’s been very successful, though because there are things I can’t work around, I have decided to do a plastic ‘offset’, the way travellers make a carbon offset. I am researching an ocean cleaning charity to make a donation to, and I have bought 20 of the bamboo toothbrushes, and gifted some to friends and some to the Himmah foodbank. I’m also considering being a collection point for biros and other pens/felt tips etc for Ellie’s Fund, but I need to think if I have spoons and space – you have to save 1600 to send off at once! They recycle items like biscuit and plastic wipe packets by collecting bulk amounts and then sending using a special postage label to a company who then credits their fund for research into brain tumours. The lovely mum of a very dear friend is currently affected by this, and my own granpa died of a brain tumour, so I feel very inclined to support them if l can make it work in my bijou flat 😉
This kind of joined up thinking, recycling making money for a research charity, or San Francisco’s street collections of refuse now producing enormous amounts of compost for local farms/ eco projects are exactly what we need to turn our society’s addiction to throwing things away into mindful re-purposing.
December 31, 2019
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