How clean is your beach?

This is the plastic that Bron and I collected during our Sunday afternoon walk on the beach a couple of weeks ago.




This pile represents less than an hour of selective picking by the two of us – we left behind the big stuff, the water bottles and crisp packets and the things that I wasn’t prepared to touch without a nice, sanitary pair of (plastic?) gloves. And so this pile represents just the tip of the iceberg.


How clean is clean?

The beach that we collected this from – Fistral in Newquay, Cornwall – is a clean, tidy, well cared for beach. And yet look at what we found. As soon as you start to look a little closer, it’s right there staring at you.


Mermaid’s Tears

I think what surprised me the most were the nurdles. Perhaps more commonly known as mermaid’s tears, these are basically how raw plastic is transported: little plastic pellets that can then be melted down and melted together to make plastic items. I've included a five pence piece in this picture to give you an idea of their size. They’re tiny, they easily blend in with the sand, and you only notice them once you really start to look hard – and then they’re everywhere. It’s no wonder creatures so often mistake them for food.


And Bottle Tops

Aside from the nurdles, the other type of plastic that seemed to show up more than any other were these cover lids from, probably, bottles of water.



Collecting this plastic was certainly an interesting and useful exercise, but Bron asked me the ultimate question:

'What are you going to do with it now?'

I've had to put it in our bin, unfortunately - it really is not too nice and I'm sorry, but I don't want it lying around the house forever. I know I'm just adding to the waste pile, but my reasoning is that at least it'll be marginally better there than kicking around on the beach.

Praise be to Archie Browns!

We have an almost unspoken deal in our household that one person cooks and the other washes up. We don’t have a dishwasher, so we wash our dishes the old fashioned way: fairy liquid and a green scourer. Although it’s not actually that old fashioned when I come to think of it: the scourers come from the shop in plastic wrapping, the fairy liquid in a plastic bottle. And giving up doing the washing up isn’t exactly an option at the end of the day, no matter how much I wish it was.

Thank goodness for Archie Brown’s, then. This wonderful little health store and vegetarian café opened up in Truro about a year ago. Before I decided to give up plastic I’d never been there, but in my search for plastic alternatives it was an obvious place to visit. The main ethic behind the store is to be eco and ethically friendly, so they sell a range of products from ethical make-up and beauty products to gluten free pasta, health supplements, and local veg.

Most of what they stock comes in plastic packaging, but the most beautiful thing I’ve discovered they do is Refills. Yes, Refills with a capital R. This is such a simple idea and I wish, wish, wish that there were more shops out there that do it and with a greater variety of products. As for Archie Brown’s, they do refills for cleaning products – laundry detergent, toilet cleaner, washing up liquid.

A few weeks back, when I first discovered them, I bought two plastic litre-sized bottles of their ‘Bio D’ washing up liquid. Yes, plastic, I know, but I’ve no intention of putting these bottles in the bin or the recycling because I’ll be taking back each bottle once it’s emptied and having it refilled from the tank in store. Wonderful! Not only does this save on packaging, but it’s cheaper too, and they only use ecological products such as Bio D, Ecoleaf, and Ecover.

And as for the green scourers? Lakeland saved me there: I bought a pack of four Lancashire cloths which came wrapped in a simple cardboard band. No plastic packaging and every time they start to get manky, instead of throwing them in the bin and opening a new packet, I simply stick them in the washing machine and start again.

Disaster! No More Ice Cream!

The Death of Ice Cream?

Noooo! I have just discovered that what I thought was a paper wrapping around my daily choc ice isn’t paper at all. It looks like paper, it feels like paper, and it tears like paper, but according to the box it’s actually plastic. And I thought choc ices were safe. What on earth am I going to do now?

The thought of going without ice cream after my dinner each evening feels me with so much dread I’m sure I’m having palpitations. Beads of sweat are breaking out on my forehead and my hands have started to shake.

To Ben and Jerry’s – or not ?

I can’t buy supermarket brand ice cream or brands like Carte D’or as they’re all in plastic tubs. Haagen Dazs has a plastic lid and even Ben and Jerry’s (mmm, my mouth is watering just thinking about their Baked Alaska) is a no-no. The tub may look like card, and although most of it is, paper and ice cream don’t really mix that well, so it’s coated in a virtually invisible layer of polyethylene to stop it from leaking. I guess that’s the same reason why the choc ices I’ve been buying are wrapped in plastic rather than paper, too.

Looking at Ben and Jerry’s website, though, I’m very impressed with the environmental attempts. Despite the plastic coating, their tubs are made of 90% renewable paper stock, they use water based inks for printing, and in their ‘scoop shops’ they’ve switched to corn-based cold drinks cups that are compostable. It’s not rocket science, and there’s still lots more that they can do, but at least they’re thinking about it and they’re trying. Which is more than I can say for Haagan Dazs – take a look at their website and there’s nothing about their environmental policies or their packaging.

So, are there any options left - at all?

In the meantime, though, on my last shopping trip I found myself staring, glassy-eyed at the range of ice cream and lolly goodness arrayed in the freezers in front of me. None if which I should allow myself to buy. Ice cream is out, Magnums are out, choc ices are now out. The supermarket brand cornettos say they use mixed materials for their wrappings, which probably means the same cup of tea as the Ben and Jerry tubs.

‘Oh, but they’re sooo yummy,’ the little voice in my head says.

‘But you mustn’t!’ my conscience rallies.

‘They’re not entirely plastic, though,’ the other voice says. ‘So it’s not all bad. Maybe buy them just this once more, and make them last a really long time so you can wean yourself off gradually…’

‘Dammit!’ the good voice says, as I look in the trolley again. ‘How did those cornettos sneak in there?’

What Happened to my Toothbrush?

It is nearly four weeks since I ordered a ‘Natural Toothbrush’ to try – made from the root of the Araak tree rather than plastic (see my previous post, I'm a Pink Toothbrush). But there is no sign of it. I was so excited about trying this out, and now it doesn’t look I’m going to be able to.

Searching for the toothbrush truth

Well, I thought, I’ve got a copy of the receipt, I’ll just email them with my order number and find out what’s happened.

But: no reply, not a peep.

Humph.

Ok, so I’ll check out the website, make sure I’ve emailed the right address.

But the website no longer exists! Every which way I try to find it, whether through Google or typing the address into my browser, I get the same, stomach-dropping error message.

I check my bank statement. And yes, the payment has been deducted. But still no toothbrush, and no contact from the people I ordered it from.

Bigger humph.

So now what?

Have I been duped, I wonder? I can live with letting the £5 fee go - though I think it's more than a bit cheeky to take my money and then disappear off the edge of the planet - but what am I going to do about getting a new toothbrush now?

The Olive Problem

Mmmm, olives are yummy. At least, I think they are – I know not everyone out there would necessarily agree.

There was a time when I bought fresh olives every week and would put them in my sandwich for lunch (I highly recommend them with a bit of Boursin and lettuce on tiger bread), but since July I've had to resist the temptation because, if you want them fresh, they come in little plastic tubs. It’s a bit like the takeaway issue (see my earlier post, Evil Take-out) – the tubs aren’t bad, you can clean them and reuse them, but they never last that long and always wind up in the bin eventually.

The Lunchbox Problem
My lunchbox as a whole has gone through quite a metamorphosis since I started giving up plastic. From a cling-film wrapped sandwich, a couple of Muller Star baby yoghurts, and a mars bar, it now generally consists of a couple of pieces of bread and… well, actually, and nothing. Maybe that explains why I'm always hungry! I’ll add butter or some cheese to the bread when I get to work (I have a little stash going in the staff room fridge), then go and get a pastry from Baker Tom or the farmer’s market for something sweet.

Bread and cheese is all well and good, but it does get a little dull after a while. I looked up from my plate the other day to find everyone else in the staff room laughing at me. Apparently, watching me cut up the end of my slightly dried out goat’s cheese into evermore smaller pieces, and then laying them very carefully and precisely onto my measly looking slice of bread is the new and best entertainment in town. So hopefully you can understand it if I tell you I’ve been craving olives lately.

The Olive Solution
But how to have olives without the plastic?

Every Wednesday and Saturday the Farmer’s Market arrives in Truro. Not only do they have the best cake stall ever (The Cornish Mill and Bakehouse), but also the best olive stand. I don’t know their name, but they sell a variety of fresh olives, feta, and baklava. Mmmm.

So yesterday I went along to the olive stall well prepared.

‘I have a weird request.’ This is my standard opening statement to a lot of people these days.

‘I’d like to buy some olives, but would you mind if I used my own tub?’

Easy peasy. Apparently quite a few people bring along their own tubs. Yay! So yesterday I got to have bread and cheese and olives for lunch. Oh, and a chocolate brownie from the cake stall too.

The Eden Project

On a recent visit to the Eden Project I was interested to see how they use plastic. I can’t help it, I’m starting to notice it everywhere. But the Eden Project was a real conundrum for me – there are some really interesting examples of where they are thinking about waste and plastic, and the opportunity to make the most of their waste and use alternatives to generally accepted practices.


WEEE
Here is the WEEE Man. ‘WEEE’ is Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment. He’s basically made of the electrical stuff we chuck away when it stops working properly, from mobile phones to electronic mixers, to washing machines. You may not be able to see it all that clearly from the picture, but a whole chunk of what he’s made of is also plastic. Pretty scary.


Plastic Alternatives
I found this little display really interesting – a pity that it is tucked away in a part of the garden that I’m sure the majority of visitors miss. Picture yourself inside your car: how much of what you can see is made of plastic? So it’s interesting that designers are starting to think about alternatives – even if it’s mostly only from an economical point of view.

So, lots of good things that Eden is thinking about and drawing our attention to.

But then…
When you get to their shop there’s lots more examples of thoughtful and alternative ideas. But maybe the manufacturers haven’t entirely thought this process through. Here are just two examples.


1. The Eco Stapler. Doesn’t use staples and so cuts down on wastage. Great, but look at the amount of packaging they’ve put around it!


2. The Indy Bag. Encourage people to stop accepting plastic bags from stores, but take their own reusable ones. Great, but don’t sell them wrapped in a plastic bag!

Not quite as ecological as they set out to be, methinks.

Why I Hate Plastic

Wondering why I'm trying to give up plastic? What's so bad about plastic, after all?

Well, take a look at these videos on YouTube to see why, The World's Biggest Garbage Patch and Modern Marvels: Pacific Gyre

Or read this article in Tuesday's New York Times, Afloat in the Ocean, by Lindsey Hoshaw. Below is the second paragraph from Lidsey's article to give you a taster.

"Light bulbs, bottle caps, toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks and tiny pieces of plastic, each the size of a grain of rice, inhabit the Pacific garbage patch, an area of widely dispersed trash that doubles in size every decade and is now believed to be roughly twice the size of Texas. But one research organization estimates that the garbage now actually pervades the Pacific, though most of it is caught in what oceanographers call a gyre like this one — an area of heavy currents and slack winds that keep the trash swirling in a giant whirlpool."

I can only hope it scares you enough to think about giving up plastic yourself. For me, it serves as a stark reminder for why I should keep putting in the effort.