Use 10 Percent Less

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Recycling

Compostable Crisp Packets

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We don’t think about crisp packets too often do we? We just enjoy the crisps, without realising that almost all crisp packets are not recyclable and will end up in landfill (or worse!) for a very long time. The good news is that a British company called Two Farmers has come up with a way of creating compostable crisp packets, which is fantastic, and they taste great too!

Compostable Crisp Packets

It’s amazing that a small start-up company in the UK has been able to beat all the big manufacturers to a compostable crisp packet. Amazing, but understandable. We’ll see later what’s really going on here.

On the Two Farmers website, they say this about their compostable crisp packets (I have no affiliation with Two Farmers – I just enjoy their crisps);

“Eco-Friendly Packaging
In a pioneering move for the crisp industry we package our crisps in 100% compostable bags. These will completely break down in a home composting environment in 26 weeks. We also package into recyclable tins. Just another way in which we give back to the countryside.”

It’s great to see that these crisp packets will break down in a simple home composting situation – no need for some sort of “industrial” composting to make them break down. Apparently, the packets are made from sustainably-grown eucalyptus wood pulp.

7000 plastic packets every minute!

There has been a lot of pressure put on major crisp manufacturers, like Walkers, to ditch non-recyclable packaging. Walkers has said that they will be 100% recyclable, compostable or biodegradable by 2025, but this isn’t good enough. Apparently, Walkers make 7,000 non-recyclable crisp packets every minute, and they will make 28 billion more of them by 2025. Walkers have started their own recycling program, but this seems pretty lame and I can’t see it being successful. It appears to be just window dressing when they really could be tackling the problem head-on.

If the small Two Farmers startup company can make compostable crisp packets right now, why is Walkers putting it off until 2025? It’s not hard to understand…

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Mobility Lab and Amazon Plastic Packaging

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I was completely shocked recently when I ordered a “Mobility Lab” mouse from Amazon and the package arrived with so much plastic packaging. It’s really awful, so unnecessary and  none of it recyclable. In this case, Mobility Lab and Amazon plastic packaging is so bad, they should both be ashamed, and governments need to step in and stop such usage of plastic.

In the images below you can see that seven independent pieces of plastic were used to package the mouse. Really over the top. Not good Mobility Lab and not good Amazon!

I’d purchased the “Mobility Lab ML301884 1600 DPI Wired Optical Mouse for Mac and PC – White” from Amazon. I’m a little disappointed that I bought a new mouse made out of plastic and I didn’t try to find a second-hand one somewhere, but at least I hope the mouse will be used for a long time and won’t be discarded any time soon.

But the amount of unnecessary plastic packaging that came with the mouse is just crazy. Mobility Lab added five pieces of plastic packaging! They could have got away with none with just a little effort. Then Amazon added two more pieces, and again both were not necessary.

The real problem is that it’s just too cheap to use plastic for packaging like this, but it’s quickly suffocating the world. Governments need to step in a ban new plastic. At the very least, they need to put high taxes on new plastic production and use the money for tax rebates for companies working on plastic recycling methods. Maybe that would stop Mobility Lab and Amazon plastic packaging overuse.

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Harrogate Spring Water and recycling

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I was flying on a short flight in Europe recently and, I’m sorry to say, that I needed some water so I bought one (as you have to do on flights these days) from the flight crew. I know, it’s in a plastic bottle that’s just going to get thrown away (sorry planet!). The bottle I received was from Harrogate Spring Water and I was surprised to learn that it was 50% recycled.

harrogate spring waterThis made me feel somewhat better as Harrogate Spring Water was using 50% materials that had already been recycled. That’s great and they need applause for that. If everyone did that it would be a great step forward.

However of course, we’d like companies to go even further. Why can’t they move to 100% recycled plastic? I’m sure one of the arguments would be the cost and that this might make them uncompetitive compared to other companies who just don’t care about the environment. This is exactly why I believe there should be a total ban on new plastics (as I discussed in my post – Ban New Plastic). This would be the most effective way to protect the world, by ensuring that we don’t create any more new plastic – we’ve already created more than enough.

 

harrogate spring waterWe could go even further and claim that any government that does not ban the creation of new plastics (excluding any compostable plastics of course) is blatantly failing in its duty to protect the people of their country and the world. This might sound harsh, but I think it’s completely fair. The time to act is now. This is not saying we can’t use plastic, just that we’ll have to recycle the plastics we already have when we do want to use it.

For now, let’s applaud Harrogate Spring Water for voluntarily using 50% recycled plastic in their water bottles (as does Wenlock Spring Water). That’s a great move and we need to challenge all companies to do the same and to strive for the magic 100% recycled point.

Sustainable Packaging

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I bought some pool chemicals online a couple a weeks ago from a company called UK Pool Store and I was pleasantly surprised that there was no plastic in the packaging. They’d used just some paper based padding to protect the items. Unfortunately, these chemical products came in plastic containers, but that’s another story – everyone really has to use recycled plastics for containers like these, and that should be the law.

sustainable packaging
To be used again!

At home, we regularly send packages of artwork as a result of our fabhappy.com site, but we always use recycled products for the packaging. Every time we order something online, we keep the box and the materials they used for the packaging, and make sure they are used at least one time more.

 

sustainable packaging
Fully recycled!

When we have to buy something like packing tape, we use greenstat.co.uk to purchase recycled products. We’ve purchased their fully recycled plastic packing tape, their paper based packing tape and their fully recycled plastic bubble wrap, and we’ve been very happy with the quality and usefulness of these.

sustainable packaging
Fully recycled!

So it is possible to use recycled products for sustainable packaging, but it might be just a little bit harder, and therefore people will tend not to do it. That’s why such a requirement should be law. As I said in Ban New Plastic, the only plastics that should be legally allowed now are recycled plastics. We’ve made enough already and people just have to be forced to recycle what we have if they want to use plastics. There’s no reason that recycling should be “optional” or just “encouraged”. That’s a joke.

So thanks to companies like UK Pool Stores for not using plastic in their packaging (but let’s make the product containers out of recycled plastic, hey?), and The Green Stationery Company for making recycled options available to us. Sustainable packing is very possible. We don’t have to pollute the world even more just through packaging.

Wenlock Spring Water

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It’s nice to find good companies, trying to do the right thing for the world occasionally. Recently, I was on a train trip in the UK and bought a bottle of water, and got a pleasant surprise from the company called Wenlock Spring.

Generally, I don’t like buying water in a plastic bottle because it’s just adding more waste plastic into the world, but sometimes you just have to (do I really??). In this case, I was glad to see the comments on the bottle from Wenlock Spring (i hope all these comments are for real).

wenlock spring

The label says they’ve made the plastic for the bottle from 50% recycled plastic. That’s 50% less than I’d like, but 50% more than most plastic bottles. So, good for Wenlock Spring!

It also says that 99% of the materials on there site are recycled. Again, great!

And, finally, they say that 46% of the energy they use is produced right on the their Wenlock Spring site. That’s really good.

So, this company “Wenlock Spring” appear to be providing bottled water in a less troublesome way for the world overall. I really applaud their efforts and hope that we all look for companies like this and support them.

It would be really good if they (and other companies of course) could get to the point of making their plastic bottles from 100% recycled plastic, and produce 100% of their electricity needs themselves, on their own site. Then we’d have a truly sustainable business, and that’s what the world urgently needs.

[Read more…] about Wenlock Spring Water

Canvas Bags

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‘Canvas Bags’ – a fun song and video from Tim Minchin. This was posted back in 2011 but it’s still just as relevant today.

This song reminds us that we, the consumers, have the ability to change everything. All we have to do is refuse to use conventional plastics and the world will change. It will have to. One way for us to do this is to simply stop using plastic for carry bags, and refusing it when anyone in a shop offers us a plastic shopping bag.

I love the theatre and irreverence that Tim Minchin brings to this topic through this song. It simultaneously bears an important message and is a lot of fun.

Canvas Bags – Full Transcript

Take your canvas bags
When you go
To the supermarket
Why use plastic ones when you know
You know the world can’t take it

Take your canvas bags
When you go
To the supermarket market market yeah yeah
Don’t you use those plastic ones
No, no, no
Don’t you know that you’ll feel better for it

Take your canvas bags
Take your canvas bags
Take your canvas bags
To the supermarket

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Plastic Not Currently Recycled

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It wasn’t a good thing to begin with (ie. eating tortilla chips) but then I turned the bag around and I was shocked. The plastic bag had written on it “recyclenow.com” and then “BAG – PLASTIC not currently recycled”.

How can this be legal? How can a company be allowed to make a plastic that’s not currently recyclable? That would be so easy to stop.

Here are some of the steps I often think could help solve the plastic problem; [Read more…] about Plastic Not Currently Recycled