In this chapter, we’ll tackle some of the habits, behaviours and special occasions that need a rethink in order to unlink them from plastic. We also need to rethink our approach when we’re relying on organisations or venues outside of our homes and normal routines. It would all be so easy if we stayed inside, cocooned at home, planning for the next shopping trip or recycling day. The more bland, predictable and robotic your lifestyle, the easier it is to eliminate a lot of plastic. But who wants to live like that? There are high days and holy days, holidays and adventures to pursue, and these too can be approached as opportunities to cut out the plastic.
BREAK BAD HABITS
Put two bins in your bathroom I’m not talking wheelie bins – for most of us, space is at a premium in the bathroom, and if you’re really short on space, try a small bin with two compartments. Label one for recyclables: loo roll tubes, empty bottles and tubs; the other for non-recyclables: wipes and cotton buds (with and without plastic stems), contact lenses – all of which in the UK are habitually flushed down the loo. Why we are even tempted to do this, I will never know. Wipes – which I repeat, contain plastic! – are the principle cause of emergency call-outs to plumbers, as they can easily get caught and block the pipe. Flushing them is playing Russian roulette with your loo. Why, why, why? Perhaps it’s because we are not frank enough about this: Australians have no qualms about educating their kids that only the 3Ps – poo, pee and paper (loo paper) – should ever go in the toilet. If you really want to reinforce this message, write a sign and hang it above the loo. Marine experts consider anything other than the 3Ps to be litter.
Wean yourself off the wet wipe This is one addiction we need to rethink as a matter of urgency. The degradability of wet wipes is hotly contested: for years, the personal care giants have insisted that they are strictly tested for flushability. Countless tests by campaign groups have shown that although they can start to break up in the loo after flushing, wipes don’t successfully disintegrate to the same degree as loo paper. This is hardly surprising because they contain plastic polymers which, along with plastic cotton buds and contact lenses (which also contain plastic) cannot always be recovered in waste-water treatment plants. Instead they escape into our waterways with devastating consequences for the environment.
Conservationists in London found just under 5,500 wet wipes that had amassed and congealed to form a bank in the Thames riverbed.75 When the shape of the riverbed of one of the great rivers of the world is being altered by the thousands of throwaway wet wipes that we use for mere seconds, we really have to rethink our priorities. Change to a good old-fashioned flannel, use cut squares of muslin or reusable cotton pads that can be washed.
Buy fully compostable teabags Forty per cent of UK households keep a compost heap. This is potentially good news. Composting is a great, transformative way of reusing some of your food waste at home, so I thoroughly approve. Teabags, however, surprisingly, are unsuitable for home composting. Almost all the mainstream tea brands use a plastic sealant, polypropylene, to stop the bags from disintegrating in your teapot – they won’t break down in the compost either, therefore, so will contaminate it. Seek out a fully compostable teabag or switch to tea leaves. Teapigs (teapigs.co.uk) call their pyramid-shaped bags ‘tea temples’. They’re made from a natural carbohydrate, cornstarch. The label is made from paper and even the ink on the label is vegetable-based. This means they are fully biodegradable.
Check garment labels I’ve briefly mentioned the emerging problem of microfibre pollution. Every day, thousands of microfibres from certain synthetic fabrics escape into the waterways from a single cycle in the washing machine. The garment manufacturers, clothing brands, policymakers and scientists need to come up with some smart solutions very soon, but already the state of California is working on legislation concerning washing and care instructions on clothing labels.
Potentially, garments that contain 50 per cent and over of synthetic fibres will have to carry a warning label. Consumers would therefore be alerted to the potential harm of microfibres and would follow a recommendation to hand-wash garments – without the agitation of a machine-wash cycle the garments shed fewer fibres.
One of the reasons we’re attracted to synthetic fibres is because they’re low-maintenance, so few of us will relish the prospect of having to start washing them by hand! Fleece fibre – sometimes made from recycled bottles – is known to be a heavy shedder as the fibres are quick to loosen. (The fleece is also, in my book, a fashion disaster as well as an ecological one! If there’s a silver lining to the microfibre cloud, could it be the end of the fleece?)
So think before you buy, and invest in natural fibres instead. Wool, cotton, hemp and linen have all lost market share to synthetics in recent years. It is time to buck the trend – for the sake of the oceans.
LOOK OUT FOR HIDDEN PLASTICS
Wet wipes are a good example of a ‘hidden’ plastic. Many people don’t even realise they contain polymers. The same can be said of single-use coffee cups, that we’ve talked about elsewhere. But the ones that shock me most include chewing gum (yes, this contains polymer); aluminium cans (a thin layer of plastic around the rim is used to prevent the tin from corroding); and teabags (see here). Knowing that these items contain plastic, we need to rethink our relationship with them and how we dispose of them.
RETHINK POLICIES
Lobby the airlines Some airlines are working on the issue of plastics and are receptive to exchanges on experiences. Although to a climate campaigner this is a secondary issue, given that you shouldn’t be flying in the first place and generating greenhouse gas emissions.
RETHINK THE HOLIDAYS
Use a bucket and spade library Like his fellow Margate resident Daniel Webb, Dan Thompson is an energetic plastic warrior – there must be something in the air down there! There is definitely something in the water: plastic, lots of it. When Dan Thompson spotted a plethora of abandoned buckets and spades in the town following a sunny bank holiday, instead of getting angry he made a large wooden box and decanted the beach toys into them. Now visitors to the seaside can borrow a bucket and spade from the Bucket Box at The Bus Cafe (thebuscafe.co.uk), instead of buying new from Poundland. It’s a local solution we can take inspiration from.
PLASTIC-FREE FESTIVITIES
Throw plastic-free parties Celebrations have become heavily associated with plastic. A plastic-free party may, on the surface, sound like party-pooping: view it instead as a chance to have fun and get creative.
Call time on plastic cups and throwaway glasses, and those brightly decorated, so-called ‘paper’ cups and party plates, which are most often coated in plastic. Trust your guests with real glasses and china plates, or at least reusable tumblers and plates made of a durable heavy-duty acrylic or melamine plastic. Although both of these come with drawbacks, they can at least have long, useful picnic lives and be reused for years.
Straws must be paper, unless your guests carry their own (FYI jeweller to the stars Stephen Webster sells a reusable silver straw for £140, if you’re looking for a collectable that fits into the swankiest parties).
Balloons If you must use balloons, they must never be released into the sky. Deflated and deposited by the wind, these are pernicious forms of wildlife pollution. There are biodegradable balloons on the market, but avoid these too. Some boast that they biodegrade as quickly as an oak leaf. But oak leaves don’t biodegrade particularly quickly; it can take a few years, and in that time wildfowl or other species could easily have ingested the balloon. If balloons are to be used, make sure they are burst at the end of the night (a job for anyone who is a natural Grinch) and disposed of in the rubbish – they will be landfilled or incinerated.
Glitter is also a children’s party flashpoint. Explaining to a four-year-old why it must be confiscated is not easy. If you do find yourself in this situation, feel free to borrow my strategy and explain that glitter is a ready-made microplastic and that penguins and other creatures might mistake it for food. Most children love penguins even more than glitter. Fortunately, you can now buy Eco Glitter, biodegradable glitter that microorganisms metabolise in the sewage system. Thank God, we can still shimmer.
Swap wrapping paper for a sustainable gift wrap Wrapping paper is another ‘hidden’ plastic: looks like paper, feels like paper, but increasingly it is plastic-coated. Wragwrap.com is a reusable and recycled fabric gift wrap in loads of different sizes, prints and colourways.
Unwrap Easter by switching to Easter eggs in cardboard or tins Easter eggs have become synonymous with overwrapping and the excessive use of moulded plastic. The average Easter egg contains 22 g of plastic packaging (so they too push up your plastic profile).
RETHINK POLICIES
Lobby the airlines Some are working on the issue of plastics and are receptive to exchanges on experiences. Although to a climate campaigner this is a secondary issue, given that you shouldn’t be flying in the first place and generating greenhouse gas emissions.
Free-from-plastic festivals, football matches and other live entertainment You will know that you’ve adjusted your thinking when you check a venue’s policy on plastic before you book to see your favourite artist! Once you’re on the plastic crusade, you really can’t switch off. I don’t mean this to sound harsh or threatening; more of a friendly warning.
Occasions when you’re likely to experience a mass of single-use disposable items can be disconcerting. Concerts and football matches are a case in point. I used not to notice that everyone got through several single-use plastic pint glasses and that they were shovelled into waste trucks afterwards: now it seems ludicrous. If every person was holding a plastic spade and threw it down on the floor afterwards I’d be pretty angry. Why would I make an exception for a plastic beaker?
This bothers me so much now that I look for festivals that have signed up to kick out single-use plastics. Sixty of the largest independent festivals, including Bestival and Kendal Calling, have committed to getting #drasticonplastic. Most are starting by banning straws almost immediately, but will quickly shift to reusable plastic beakers instead of disposable cups. At half a century old, and arguably one of the most famous festivals in the world, Glastonbury has led the charge on plastic, vowing to kick out plastic water bottles from 2019.
If not all of the big event organisers go this far, a festival should at least have a radical recycling policy in place. This year’s Barclaycard BST festival uses cups made of HDPE plastic, collected, sorted and recycled into plastic hoardings and dispensers. By next year the aim is to turn the festival’s plastic waste back into cups – that’s closed-loop recycling. The sort of thinking I can get behind!