Let's talk about plastic...
Convenient, durable and low-cost. But now it threatens to outweigh fish in the ocean and micro plastics are in our blood. How did we get here, and what to do?
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When scientists first discovered plastic, its convenience, durability and low cost were hailed as game changing. Fast-forward 70 odd years and the wonder material is wreaking havoc. The problem is, most of it isn't biodegradable. So 400 million tonnes of the stuff are produced every year (40% of which is single-use — plastic we'll use once before it's binned) and it doesn't rot, like paper or food. Instead it hangs around in the environment for hundreds more years, polluting landfill and clogging our oceans.
Despite this, we're using more of it every year.
The thing is, because it doesn’t rot, almost every single piece of plastic ever produced still exists, breaking down over time into smaller and smaller pieces until it becomes microplastics (unless it's been incinerated, causing noxious smoke fumes instead). These enter the food chain (1 in three fish caught for human consumption contain plastic), and therefore our bodies. And even if you don't eat fish, you'll still be breathing them in. They've even been found in the placentas of unborn babies.
So this isn’t just about baby turtles getting plastic rings around their necks, or recycling, this is a very real threat to your health too.
According to Evangelos Danopoulos, of Hull York Medical School, UK, microplastics cause specific types of harm — cell death, allergic response, and damage to cell walls. As he puts it, “We should be concerned. Right now, there isn’t really a way to protect ourselves.” Especially as damaged cells can often be the precursor to something else. Worse. So that plastic ketchup bottle? Or fancy teabag? You might want to rethink it.
What to do
Use less of it. A lot less! Focusing particularly on single use plastics. After all, if you buy a plastic bag and use it repeatedly, then it's not adding to landfill. But anything you throw away, isn't going away anywhere at all.
But, I often hear the refrain, what's the point of me cutting back when the big supermarkets or manufacturer's continue to pump this stuff out? It's a good question. Clearly change has to happen at the top of the tree. But in the interim, the point is which pathway do your actions support?
Every time we choose a sustainable material, we are choosing to be part of a solution. Ultimately, if consumers don't buy, then manufacturer's will be forced to change, especially when eco-friendly alternatives exist. So you can directly advocate for change with your actions and purchases. And if we all do something, however small, that can add up to a whole lot of change.
On the flip side, if we all do nothing, we know exactly where we're headed. And I don’t know about you, but I’d like to be able to look my son in the eye and say that I really did try to play my part.
In the meantime, key for making #lessplastic habits stick is to introduce gradual changes. Perhaps swap out one thing a month? You might be surprised at how much you can cut back on without really thinking about it, or noticing a difference. But refuse or reduce by re-using first, recycling should be your last option.
Here's my top ways to ditch the plastic... many of which will save you money too!
Choose loose veg and fruit at the supermarket, not bagged. Or, sign up for veg box deliveries that minimise and recycle packaging. I started using Riverford about three months ago and my monthly food bill went down (I was worried it’d be too expensive!), while the quality of my veggies has soared.
Buy a stainless steel re-usable water bottle. You’ll save yourself a fortune! Especially don’t give kids plastic water bottles. BPA (the chemical that makes plastic bendy) may have been outed as a nasty, but for sure it’ll just have been replaced with something equally noxious. Just ditch plastic completely.
Add a matching stainless steel lunchbox for yourself, or your kids. I love the Elephant Box brand. You can find cheaper, but they won’t last, or they leak, or the clips break.
Don't buy drinks in plastic bottles. But if you must, never leave them in the sun (or in your car), heat speeds up the microplastic leakage into your beverage.
For the same reason, don't put anything plastic in the dishwasher.
Don’t buy anything in a takeaway cup unless you’re going to go back to the café and put it in a dedicated recycling bin, assuming it has one. Every day seven million of these cups are thrown away with only 1 in 400 recycled. And they can’t go in regular kerbside bins because they have thin plastic linings, they’re not just cardboard. So thinking about it, order coffee to go and you’ll also be getting yet another side order of microplastics too.
Use only wooden chopping boards.
Buy loose tea, or tea bags clearly marked as home compostable (see below). Many brands use polypropylene, a sealing plastic, to keep bags from falling apart, or the bags themselves are made from a form of plastic, either way they can leach billions of microplastics into your tea with every dunk.
Buy cleaning supplies in bulk and refill at zero-waste stores — one whole set of bottles you’ll never have to pay for again.
Avoid black plastic, it's almost never recycled.
In the supermarket try to prioritise goods packaged in glass, tins, cardboard or recyclable Tetrapaks.
Use bees-waxed cloth, or a plate, to protect food in the fridge, never clingfilm. In fact, please just dump clingfilm completely. It is the ultimate single-use disaster and should be outlawed.
Use paper sandwich bags in lunch boxes.
If you love crisps, as I’m afraid I do, buy only the big bags, then split them yourself into portion sizes for lunch boxes (I put them in a screw top Stainless steel pot). The empty packets can (in theory) be recycled at major supermarkets.
Choose all-metal cutlery, no plastic handles, even for kids
Make sure your washing up gloves are actual natural rubber, not plastic. Synthetic rubber comes from petroleum by-products — think neoprene and car tyres. Silicone is a form of synthetic rubber too, but one that's chemically stable at high temperatures, so preferable for cookware.
Use glass screw top jars to store dried food ingredients. Make sure the seals are rubber though, not plastic. Or re-use jam jars, no need to buy new.
Consider bar soap and shampoo, not liquid in plastic bottles, unless you refill them.
Ditch the basic yellow washing up sponges. They’re made from non-recyclable polyester and nylon and every time you use one, microplastics wash straight into the water systems and ultimately the sea (they’re too small to be sieved out by the treatment plants). I use the Zero Waste Club home biodegradable sponges made from wood pulp, also available from Tesco (£2.50 for two).
If washing synthetic clothing like fleeces, think shorter, colder washes with a slower spin and use a lint catching bag.
Always carry a reusable canvas shopping bag.
Use newspaper for poop scooping!
Switch to a green energy supplier. Nothing changes in your home. No engineer visits. Just who bills you and where/how your energy is sourced. Octopus even offers the lowest standing charges of all the major players!
PS did you know that most chewing gum is essentially plastic doped with flavouring and colouring! Plastic-free alternatives exist. Seek them out.
Watch out for compostables
Plastic pollution has led to a surge in green packaging – but some still degrade into micro plastics or require industrial conditions to breakdown. So, does that bag clearly say home compostable? If so, great, it's made from renewable raw materials, and breaks down at low temperatures. Many types are even certified to completely break down in marine environments, so they won't cause harm if they do mistakenly end up in the ocean. And you can cheerfully throw it on your compost heap. BUT, if it says biodegradable or industrially compostable, this either takes much longer to decompose (in the case of biodegradable) or requires high temperatures to break it down, meaning they won't biodegrade if they end up in landfill or in the ocean. So not really that green at all.
Why is plastic so hard to recycle?
There are lots of additives in plastic products, reinforcements, fillers, and colourants. Recycling companies don’t usually know what they're getting, and in general, different kinds of plastic cannot be combined. Only one type, polyethylene terepthalate (PET) — used for milk and drinks bottles — can usefully (ie profitably) be made into new things. But even very small amounts of PVC plastic can significantly degrade PET.
Sorting and separating out the recyclable material is labour-intensive and expensive. As Tim Gutowski, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT puts it, “When you compare that with pumping oil out of the ground, using its established production and distribution system, it’s hard for recycling to compete. From the manufacturers’ point of view, oil’s a safer bet.”
The blunt fact is that as long as it remains cheaper to create new plastics from fossil fuels rather than from bioplastics or recycling, we're going to be stuck with plastic garbage islands floating in our oceans. So economics trumps environment. Again. Even though it seems to have skipped certain politician’s attention that if we destroy the planet, no-one has a job. And surely one of the great pandemic learnings was that when change is thrust upon us, we can pivot quicker than we think.
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