Use 10 Percent Less

All things must change when the consumer changes

plastic

Soap without plastic

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It’s hard to avoid plastic in general in today’s world, and it’s especially hard to find soap without plastic. Somehow, we’ve managed to convince ourselves that soap comes from the factories of large corporations and comes in disposable, plastic, pump-action bottles. That’s crazy!

Soap is actually pretty simple stuff and you can definitely buy it without the need for any plastic. We should all really get our soap without plastic pollution as part of the transaction.

I’m glad to see that more and more soaps are available in packaging that does not include plastic. It is possible to buy soap without plastic. All that’s needed is for the soap to be wrapped inside some paper and put in a simple cardboard box. Not even that is needed, but that’s a perfectly safe solution.

Examples of soap without plastic

One place that I’ve been buying soap from for the past 2-3 years is Maharishi Ayurveda (I have no affiliation with them, I just like their products) because they have nice, natural soaps. This example here is a “Vata” (lemongrass) soap from Maharishi Ayurveda that I really like.

Another example of some nice soaps I’ve bought recently have come from Trevarno Skincare (I have no affiliation with them either) who make some very nice natural soaps. They do make plenty of things in plastics as well, but the soaps I’ve bought from them have been very simply packaged in almost only a single piece of cardboard.

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Recycled Bucket – from tyre rubber

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Back in October, I argued that governments should Ban New Plastic because we can’t just keep bringing new plastic into the world until it suffocates. We’ve already made so much plastic that we shouldn’t need any more as we should be able to just recycle what we have. Well, one example of what can be done presented itself to me recently when I bought a recycled bucket made from old car tyres.

recycled bucket

This bucket was made by Faulks & Cox Ltd under their brand Tyre Rubber and is made from recycled tyre offcuts. Not only has this bucket avoided the need for making new plastic, it really is a very good bucket. It’s the strongest bucket I’ve used (apart from galvanised steel buckets, but this tyre rubber bucket feels just as strong) and I feel very confident using it no matter what load is in it. That’s very different to some of those cheap plastic buckets that break from time to time (and just have to be thrown in the trash) when they’re loaded up.

On their website, Faulks & Cox Ltd describe the following advantages of their Tyre Rubber range;

The Tyre Rubber™ brand has a range of 35 rubber buckets, baskets, mangers and bins that feature:

– Made from recycled tyre off-cuts
– Strong beyond words
– UV & Frost Proof
– Safe for growing food
– Safe for animal water / feed
– Non-Toxic

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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.

Ban New Plastic

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One of the things that’s worrying me more and more as each day goes by is plastic. It’s everywhere and there are more and more reports on TV (and everywhere) about the huge problems disposed plastic is causing for the world. So, I keep wondering why the world can’t just ban new plastic. That might sound extreme, but it makes plenty of sense to me and it would definitely work.

I’m not talking about banning plastic completely, which would be impossible. But what if, from today onwards, all the plastic used by corporations had to be recycled?

Plastic is a huge problem

I was astonished when I read this article on The Economist – Only 9% of the world’s plastic is recycled. For me, the key details in this article are;

  • (obviously!) only 9% of the world’s plastic is recycled
  • Since the 1950’s, we have created 4.9 billions tonnes of plastic that is still in circulation (that is, not recycled or burned)
  • Our seas hold as many as 51 trillion microplastic particles

This graph from the article created some alarm for me;

ban new plastic

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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.

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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