Plastic , plastic everywhere....

How Christmas 2018, a full black bin and a bottle of wine triggered some new year’s resolutions about kicking the plastic habit.

The Thought Process

So, gradually, ever so slowly, I’ve been developing a bit of a guilty conscience over the years about generally existing. It may be something to do with growing up during an age where man made environmental problems have become a soundtrack to our daily lives. Environmental highlights growing up were deforestation of the rainforests and acid rain, teenage years was the ozone layer and adulthood was the blossoming of Climate Change. And plastic has been the latest guilt fest, though plastic waste has been one of those environmental problems that has always been lurking in the background.

Just being a fairly average person in the UK means I take a hefty toll on the world’s natural resources to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. Some is necessary (food, water, shelter etc) but some not so much (slight Lego compulsion, general crisp addiction etc). Add a husband and two small children to the mix and the toll mounts up, and Christmas this year was the tipping point to start trying to lessen it.

Lots and lots of plastic was going into our grey wheelie bin destined for the landfill this December, as it got fuller from excessive eating and the silly amount of packaging on the kids’ new toys (seriously, why do I need a screwdriver to release Aurora from her plastic prison?). This triggered a long, wine fuelled conversation between me and Mr Harrison. Okay, so some plastic could be recycled, but a lot of the plastic recycled doesn’t get used again for the same use (e.g. does a bottle get turned into a new bottle? Probably not). Presumably there’s a lot of energy needed to recycle, which has its own carbon footprint and impacts. And how and where does it all get recycled anyway? Regardless of the recycling element there was still an awful lot of our rubbish going into a mystery landfill somewhere. And another thing - why did we use so much plastic anyway? No wait, we don’t use the plastic, it’s the supermarkets and shops that use the plastic (recyclable or otherwise) for the stuff we buy. Hmmm……

What we’re going to do about it

Plastic is a wonder material and modern life wouldn’t be the way it is without it. But our throw away relationship with it needs a lot of work. Hence this year’s new year resolution – purchase fewer things with plastic, and, if we do need to buy something plastic, try and be as sustainable as possible. Plus, learn more about this wonder material and treat it better.

Now, we’re not going cold turkey immediately. Like some drug addicts, we need to be weaned off the plastic. As working parents, I’m not sure Mr Harrison and I have infinite time and cash resources to dedicate hunting down non-plastic alternatives full time, but we will do what we can, when we can.

Over the coming weeks (months if we can keep the momentum going!), as we run out of something, I’ll post if we’ve found a way around the plastic, and if not, what we did instead. As a lover of all things spreadsheet and flow chart based, I’ve whipped up a flowchart of how to approach new buys….

Cause you can never have enough flow charts!

Now just need to tell the kids what we are up to...