大象传媒

Great tips shared by some wonderful people all across the world. Thank you Chris, for a great blog.

I've really enjoyed reading your experiences over the past month and feel sure you have inspired many people to look at their waste in a different way.

The best thing we have done to reduce our plastic consumption is to take reusable containers to places like butchers and deli counters. Even supermarkets have been obliging us with this. This means we can buy meat, fish and salady items with no packaging to dispose of.

'Do Some Baking: Lots of baked goods that usually come packed in plastic can be made easily at home. Favorite examples include cookies and bread.'

There's lots of good reasons to bake bread at home. I'm not sure that the environmental impacts of doing so are any lower than buying it from a store though. You still have to buy in the ingredients (packaged mainly in paper with its higher environmental impacts than plastic), and then turn it into bread using a less energy efficient process than your average bakery oven.

Bakeries, on the other hand, take delivery of flour from mills in bulk containers, and have a lower impact per unit than you can achieve at home.

So by trying to avoid plastic bread wrappers, you could be making things worse...

That said, home made bread definitely tastes nicer :-)

#1 - Good comment there. I like the 'reuse' angle. In this instance, it's clearly the best option to take.

I fully support Mrs Green's approach. She is a fantastic advocate for Zero Waste, along with her family.

The bloggers you have described are some of the many good people, worldwide, who share our goals.

My favourite tip from Beth, among many, is the use of baking soda, instead of deodorant sprays.

It seems to me that we are paranoid about plastics. We want to get rid of them. Why? Just for the sake of getting rid of plastics or is there some higher reason? What is it?
Reducing volume of landfill: Plastics constitute a small fraction of landfill volume, the largest constituent is paper. Substituting paper for plastics increases the volume. True, paper is biodegradable but unless it finds its way into a composting facility the biodegradability is no good; unstable landfill, release of methane and leachate are serious problems. I am swamped with paper I did not solicit or need. It comes with my mail, with the newspaper and is left on my doorstep. If we reduced this excess we would liberate more room in the landfill than we would by removing all plastics. Are we doing something about that? From reading the mail we ignore this.
Pollution of the environment: Here we have to distinguish between garbage and litter. The albatross could feed on a toothbrush because someone carelessly threw it away instead of putting it into garbage. The real problem is with the litterbugs. Why do people litter? Either because they don鈥檛 care or because there are no proper disposal facilities. Providing proper disposal facilities educating people and charging them for littering seems to me more sensible than banning plastics. Do we push in this direction? I think not. Plastics do not decompose in landfills; therefore they cannot pollute the ground, air or water. So where is the problem?
Recycling: The issue is more complicated than people realize. Some items such as the PET bottles are easy to recycle because they are recognizable and there is a market for recycled PET. Most of the packaging however is PE. There are many grades of PE used,
and it is na茂ve to think that we just take a used shopping bag, stick it into a machine and out comes a new bag. Also the recycling is labor and energy intensive and market for recycled PE is limited; it cannot be used for food packaging for example (you would not want your food wrapped in a recycled bag which was reused for picking dog poo). Recycling paper is also associated with sizeable pollution.
Overwrapping: Much of it is done to minimize shoplifting or tampering with the goods, hence it is a people caused problem. Proper packaging also protects the goods so using inadequate packaging may decrease garbage caused by the packaging and increase garbage by spoiled goods.
Incineration: The negative perception of incineration is more an emotional than rational reaction. In fact modern incinerators pollute less than your fireplace, produce useful energy (reduce pollution) and reduce the refuse volume considerably. The remnants contain only the elements which were in the garbage already. Plastics burn cleanly and contain a lot of energy.
So what to do? Look at the bigger picture and think about the ultimate goal. Abolishing plastics may be the means but not the goal. Educate yourself, visit the waste disposal facilities, and talk to the people in the know. Educate others. Look at other options and alternatives which would get you bigger bang for the buck. For example are there enough waste containers on the streets, are there composting facilities in our community, etc etc.
Use your energy where it can do some good.

#5Venousek

Have you looked in your waste bin recently. Take away recyclables and food waste as we have all done previously and you are left with plastic packaging waste mostly. That is why we concentrate on avoiding its use.

Read the blogs above and get a true picture of the damage plastic does to ocean life.

#2 In my neck of the woods (San Francisco Bay Area) we have many artisan bakeries that sell fresh bread in paper rather than plastic. And yes, while paper is also a resource we need to conserve, at least it's recyclable or compostable at the end of its useful life, unlike plastic which is only possibly "downcyclable."

While baking and cooking your own food can be satisfying in so many great ways, I do agree that from a purely waste standpoint, it's not always the most efficient. The packaging for the small quantities of ingredients we each buy to cook at home adds up to a lot more waste than the bulk packaging that commercial operations buy.

UNLESS we can buy ingredients from bulk bins where we bring our own reusable containers. I'm sure that Life Less Plastic is buying flour and other bread-making ingredients without any packaging waste at all.

Hi Chris,
I live in the country near Florence in Italy, and I've really enjoyed reading your blog over the past 30 days.
I hope you won't be deleting this blog after the end of August, as there are lots of ideas, questions, answers and tips where we all can start from in order to change our habits. Just one example: in my car there are six empty half-liter water bottles (yes, six! One of these days I'll remember to throw them in the "recycle your plastic here!" container in front of my house). Well, first thing I'll do tomorrow morning will be buying a reusable water bottle.
Thank you for this great blog!

#7

Hi Beth,

Containers are the future. It will take time for the necessary changes to occur.

Some posters here advocate plastic, under the guise of "environmental concern".

Dear Chris

Leave Only Footprints Not Ten Tips

Sorry not to get your request for 10 plastic free tips till too late.

Much stamping of feet and great disappointment at missing this opportunity to promote the joys of plastic rubbish boycotting (its good clean fun).

Not saying I could improve on the above tips. I couldn't, they are fantastic as are the blogs. However as they are American some of the advice is obviously only US of A appropriate.

So I would just like to add that I have sourced a number of local, plastic free products and services, useful for the UK based

Go plastic refusenik.

I enjoyed reading your blog. You must be glad to get back to the world of crisps - how I miss them.

x Polythene Pam

i had a thought if your having a plastic free month (or tying too) what are you using to post your blog with as your keyboard and mouse and some parts of your pc are made of plastic..

#9 - Some posters here advocate plastic because it has a much lower impact than many of the alternatives. Plastic isn't the problem - the failure to recycle it and close the loop is. It's one of the main tenets of 'Zero Waste' is 'closing the loop'. You should know this.

#12

Plastic is not 100% recycled, far from it. Using that as an argument is complete nonsense.

When plastic packaging waste is no more, sustainability will be greatly advanced.

#13 - nothing is 100% recycled. Using this as a counter-argument is complete nonsense.

Plastic, if you can close the loop, is more sustainable than many of the alternatives. Sustainability will not be advanced by removing plastic from the chain of utility. Go look the carbon footprints of the various options, and then come back and debate this in a mature fashion.

"Ask yourself, what did they do 50 years ago before plastic was around. The answer is usually there."

Yes, absolutely agree. However, 50 years ago we also didn't enjoy commodities we enjoy today. I agree also that there is a lot of unnecessary plastic waste.

About baking and cooking at home: 50 years ago, or before plastic became widely consumed, mostly the family unit consisted of men working and women staying at home, or holding "women" jobs (secretaries, sales, assistants, teachers) were they had 'part time/flexible schedule to allow for taking care of the family.

Today plastic packaging is somewhat necessary for those of us who do not wish to consume GM foods, or those with extra preservatives, flavor enhancers, etc.... For those of us who wish to work, and take our food to the work place (without acquiring back problems), and they are air tight which prevents leaking! Aluminum containers are not a good alternative, because they can leach aluminum into your food and can increase risks for Alzheimer's disease. Computers, medical equipment need to be made of plastic (as many of us have previously discusses). There are many advantages of plastic use, and probably the reason we use it very often.

Now I am not a plastic advocate, but I do think there is need to be careful when we take 'suggestions' from blogs in the US, i.e. ZeroWaste Inc., who are corporations with a financial interest on the issue.

#15 - I agree with you, but not on the aluminium issue - the Alzheimers Society have looked at this extensively, and consider the risk to be extremely small.

You are spot on on the issue of plastic packaging though. The material is not the issue - the failure to capture it all and return it to the chain of utility is. Do this properly, and plastic is a sustainable material - more so than paper/card, for example.

# 16-- Yes you are correct. I just didn't mention this again. I had mention this in the early days of the blog to no avail. So yes, the issue is the recycling technology where it stands today.

My point on this post though was that we can cut plastics but we are not doing ourselves nor the environment any favours, because often plastic is the better alternative. Also, a lot of these Green, or Anti-Plastic groups have a financial interest in promoting other alternatives. They also sell their own trendy cotton bags, green cones and so on. Also, a majority of these 'enthusiasts' often urge us to go back and live in the past. Something that as an environmental scientist I just can't agree with out of principle.

My impression has been that recycling plastic isn't much of a justification for its use, because it can only be partially recycled, and recycled plastic is "downcycled", not reused for the same thing. And the downcycled products are maybe just thrown away after they wear out.
This may change. But the article says that #2, HDPE, the most often recycled plastic, is downcycled, and explains the limitations of recycling plastic in general. Much better not to use it in the first place. Says it's harder to recycle than glass or metal.
Laura

PET and HDPE aren't always downcycled these days - a new processing plant has just opened in Dagenham, east London, which can recycle those two materials back into food grade plastic.

So a milk bottle could become a new milk bottle (or, to be precise it could become a percentage of a new milk bottle as 100% recycled does not always have the same strength qualities as, say, 40% recycled, 60% virgin plastic.)

More details here


However, this is only a small proportion of plastic recycling at the moment but it does show it's possible and the demand is there.

#14

I advocate plastic use where there is no waste, true cradle to cradle.

#15

This is nonsense. In the US, as I have already explained to you, business is trying to establish full sustainability. This is a fantastic thing. You are trying to blacken the good name of Zero Waste.

Zero Waste is a worldwide movement of people from all walks of life. The numbers are growing every day. Why dont you join us? Sustainability is the future, not Plastic Packaging Waste!

Chris,

It's 31st August.

It's 4 o'clock.

You have just 8 hours left.

Congratulations!!! It's a monumental achievement.

#19 - Chris - this plant is the first of a number in the pipeline. Expect quite a changed landscape in relation to plastic recycling infrastructure in the next 2/3 years.

Your point about downcycling is well made - we need to avoid this, as the carbon benefits are lost. Have you ever looked at 'upcycling' btw? That's the future direction of travel. [Upcycling is the use of a recyclable material to make a higher value end product.]

is an interesting article. This lot take waste glass from the beverage industry and produces glass tiles using a cold fusion process. Upcycling in action!

#20 - you'll find more innovation in the EU than you will in the USA when it comes to Zero Waste. Look at recycling rates across the EU compared to those in the USA if you don't believe me. Hydroscooby is right.

#23

Rubbish. Zero Waste is across the world. In the USA, Europe, Australasia, Japan, The Middle East.

To denigrate the USA which leads in Zero Waste in the business world is stupid. Their excellent business attitude has given them the lead. Hopefully, UK business will catch- on and catch up.

Negative comments on Zero Waste, by plastic packaging types and fellow travellers, will have Zero effect on the sustainable bandwagon.

#24 - Look at the recycling rates in the USA compared to the EU. While you are at it, look which countries have the highest ecological footprint per capita. Try the WWF One Planet Living report for starters.



After that, you could peruse the American EPA report for 2006, which gives a recycling rate of 32.5% for the USA.



Then you could have a look at the better EU recyclers for the same year.

Netherlands: 65%
Austria: 59%
Germany: 58%
Belgium: 52%
Sweden: 41%
Denmark: 41%
Luxembourg: 36%

Hence my contention that you will find more innovation in the EU than you will in the USA when it comes to recycling and zero waste.

Still think that my comments were 'rubbish'? As I told you - go and read up on the subject a little more. It'll open your eyes. Considering that we have historically tried to emulate the Americans when it comes to consumerism - what makes you think that they have any answers when it comes to stopping this? Why not follow our less consumerist neighbour states and learn from them instead?

#24 - johnhcrf

To elevate the USA to the role of environmental responsibility leaders is probably one of the funniest things I have ever heard in my life. Have you really not seen (or the read the book) 'An Inconvenient Truth', Al Gore?


Carbon Emmisons per person, per annum (US Tons):-

EU: 2.3t
U.S: 5.6t

-Source: 'An Inconvenient Truth'


The EU, and UK most definitely lead this. The UK coomercial sector has by far the most aggressive waste reduction programmes of anywhere in the world. I have explained this many time over the last few weeks, again and again. Why do you choose not to hear it John?

Yes, we still have such a long way to go, but we should rightly be proud of what we are doing in the UK.

# 20: We are at the end of the month and you still call people "packaging waste types". I'm not a plastic type, I simply see reason, and facts behind the issues.

As far as joining you and your movement, is something I am not willing to do, because I would be joining a corporation with financial goals. I am not a waster, I compost, and I don't buy packaged products whenever I can, I don't throw food away, and I do use cotton bags at the supermarket. I do all that is feasible, and I am a member of several environmental organizations. I help through research and technology, and forming an objective opinion.

There have been several posted links regarding the efficiency of recycling and waste collection systems in the EU, so have AdeJones and others. Why don't you read them? At least try reading "an incovenient thruth" and the G8 report to see how well the US does in helping the environment.

Chris Jeavans writes:
"So a milk bottle could become a new milk bottle (or, to be precise it could become a percentage of a new milk bottle as 100% recycled does not always have the same strength qualities as, say, 40% recycled, 60% virgin plastic.)"

This still implies plastic waste. Only 40% of the plastic could be recycled this way (if more than 40% were returned for recycling they'd have to start throwing it away).

I remember a hearing about plastic bag recycling at the grocery store. The bags were recycled once and the recycled bags tore very easily ...
Laura

#28 - Loreav

Marks and Spencer already have 100% rPET milk bottles on sale. These 'technically' perform very well I believe. All supermarkets are pushing hard for recycled content in plastics - the issue, as has been debated here at length is the avilability of high volumes of feedstock. This feedstock shortage shortage is down to sketchy LA recycling strategies and performance as well as relatively low consumer participation.

The UK still only recycles 1 in 3 plastic bottles. yes it is increasing but it is still too low.

Also, in my experience 'recycled content' does not mean 'inferior performance.

Individual bags for fruit and veg in supermarkets are not there to ensure your apples don't touch your oranges: they're there to make the cashiers life easier at the checkout, when they have to weigh your purchases to see how much to charge you. It's difficult if all the differently priced items are all together in one bag, and they are also to prevent them handling your food.

It's down to the supermarkets to supply paper rather than plastic bags, or take your own.

#30 - Graphis

"It's down to the supermarkets to supply paper rather than plastic bags, or take your own".


The subject of plastic bag vs. paper bag has already been debated, at some length. 'Environmentally' (from a carbon perspective) plastic bags win, every time.

Paper is extremely energy-intensive to produce and extremely heavy and bulky to ship. You get far less paper bags on a pallet, so therefore less per vehicle / container. If you are getting less bags on a vehicle then you're clearly consuming far more fuel (additional road miles) to transport them.

Imagine how many 'produce' bags are used in this country every year, then imagine the amount of vehicles used to ship them around, then times that number by 23! Paper bags are not best, in this case, or that of carrier bags actually.

You are however quite right in saying we should use reusable containers / bags, much as we do with 'bags for life'. Removal is far better than jumping to something that 'feels better'. Yes, bags make it easier for the cashier but no supermarket is going to bother too much when you put your produce through in your container. It's a fairly minor inconvenience.

#28 - Loreav

"This still implies plastic waste. Only 40% of the plastic could be recycled this way (if more than 40% were returned for recycling they'd have to start throwing it away)."


Just re-read your earlier and 'twigged' what you mean.......

I think you are assuming we only recycle 40% because we cannot handle any more without affecting performance. This is not the case.

The 40% refers to the percentage of post-consumer waste (PCW) recycled content that is used, therefore in this case 60% virgin polymer. However these percentages can and are flexed for various materials and applications anywhere up to and including 100%, as the Marks and Spencer example illustrates.

100% of material collected is recycled. The percentage of the PCW recyclate 'blended' with the virgin polymer can be varied on any scale to meet the users requirements - supply of PCW feedstock allowing.

Does this explain - am I making sense?
It works in my head at least!

No, what I'm saying is that there's a certain demand for plastic, and a certain supply of recycled plastic.
If all the plastic were recycled, there wouldn't be any "room" for the new plastic.
So any situation where new plastic is used has to involve throwing away plastic.
Anyways, people aren't going to be recycling plastic perfectly. Lots of bottles by the roadside and in the trash. Since it's a substance that lasts for a long, long time, that is a big disadvantage to plastic. Not so awful if someone throws a paper bag away in the wilderness, it'll decay.
Laura

Suppose the demand for plastic is constant over time.
If all of the plastic used (of a certain type) is recycled, then the supply of recycled plastic is the same as the demand for plastic.
So, unless the plastic used is 100% recycled, plastic is going to be thrown away. By consumers or by the recycler.
That wouldn't necessarily happen if the demand is rapidly increasing - but we're hoping that won't happen - hoping the opposite, actually, that people react against using plastic.

#33 - Loreav - demand for recycled plastic feedstock presently vastly exceeds supply. I'm aware of companies who can't source their requirements in the UK shipping material in from several hundred miles away to make product.

Capture rates are never going to reach 100%, but we can get a lot closer than we are now. The same is true for any other packaging material.

#31 idontmuchbut

'..The subject of plastic bag vs. paper bag has already been debated, at some length. 'Environmentally' (from a carbon perspective) plastic bags win, every time...'

I'm not sure this question was resolved satisfactorily. This was shown to be true where the plastic bag is recycled, but what about the following cases:

1 - Plastic Bag is used for energy (from waste)
2 - Plastic Bag is simply thrown onto a landfill site

Assume in both cases that the paper alternative is recycled or composted.

I'd like to know the answer as it will affect my shopping habits! :)

#36 - CurlySteve

Re' paper bags vs. plastic

I have a call out to a very good contact who has the definitive answer on this. He is due to call me back in the morning so I will post a proper response then, if I may.

ANYONE

Where have all the live threads gone that were still under debate? Why have all the old threads that were dead been dragged back up again?

Answers on a postcard.

#36 - from basic info :-

1. Energy cost of manufacture of polyethylene film is less than that of PET (bottle plastic), but it is still significant. Figures I have sourced for HDPE are 74MJ/kg. Assuming that LDPE (film) is similar, and the recycling costs are similar to PET (0.5MJ/kg), then :-

1kg will cost you 74MJ to make.
It has a calorific value of c. 43MJ/kg.
But in an EfW plant, you'll realise between 20% (traditional mass burn for electricity only) to 80% (theoretical level for several technologies for heat only) of this energy. So c. 9 - 34MJ/kg returned.

For paper? Energy cost of manufacture is less - embodied energy is c. 20MJ/kg. Calorific value is around 10.5MJ/kg. The same limitations apply. But to recycle this paper? A typical rule of thumb is 25% of the embodied energy rather than the less than 1% for plastic.

Now to bring all this to an individual bag...

Carrier bag - weight 5g - energy cost = 74*0.005 = 0.37MJ
Energy value = 43*0.095 = 0.215MJ
Recycling cost = 0.5MJ/kg, so per bag = 0.0025MJ

Equivalent paper bag - weight c. 30g - energy cost = 20*0.03 = 0.6MJ
energy value = 10.5*0.03 = 0.315MJ
recycling cost = '25% of manufacturing cost', so c.20*0.25 = 5MJ/kg
per bag = 0.15MJ

Clearly, per bag because of the greater mass, paper bags take more energy to make. They give slightly more energy per unit due to their greater mass, but they take a lot more energy to recycle. They also have a limited recycling life, due to fibre degradation.

Now if you compost said bag, you are looking at the CO2 release from 30g of composting paper against the combustion release of 5g of plastic - but then you have to subtract from this the offset burden from combusting that plastic in that it replaces x g of fossil fuel. It's mind-bogglingly complex to work out :-)

2. Bag on a landfill site?

You've lost the embodied energy, but you offset against this the avoided emissions. The bag sits there for a long period of time doing nothing. Meanwhile, your paper bag is giving you CO2 emissions if it is composted - or using up energy if it is recycled, as you don't get anything for nothing.

This is the sort of thing you could write a long paper on and still not draw a positive conclusion either way. Which is why the move to ban plastic bags mystifies me, as they clearly aren't necessarily any worse than the obvious disposable alternative. Far better to retain them and recycle them, or replace them with something reusable with a low energy cost of production (those heavy duty bags are likely to take much less energy to produce than those nice jute bags, for example...)

#38

Maybe because it made the front page of the 大象传媒 news website today:



Chris has summed it all up nicely and even the wooden toothbrush gets a mention. :)

I could tempt fate and throw in another potential plastic avoider - a rubber toothbrush! But I won't.

It has been quiet today. Where has everyone gone? And where will we go now for our blog addiction? :(

#39 AdeJones

I know for a fact the EA commissioned a piece of PIRA LCA research along this same route, asking the same questions. Plastic bags if re-used or even re-cycled were significantly better than their paper cousins.

Needless to say the PIRA research was not what the EA wanted hear and they promptly 'buried' and never published the findings.

Fast forward two years..........

Gordon Brown crusades against the environmental evil of the single use disposable carrier, threatening legislation in the process.

I have never seen anything to support the 'belief' that paper bags are any better environmentally than plastic bags.

I will post insight from my contact tomorrow.

#39 AdeJones

Thanks for the info. Yes it does look mind-boggingly complex!

It's easy to get the feeling with media hype, etc. that plastic is the enemy and that all is doom and gloom, but reading the posts on this blog over the last month has revealed a lot more going on behind the scenes. I'm more hopeful about my waste than I was in July, and also determined to make an effort to cut some out (plastic or paper or whatever, just try not to acquire it - easier said than done).

Good news where I live (Wiltshire). Hot off the kerbside collection they began earlier in the year, they're going to add plastic (types 1-3) later this year, so I won't need to drive it to the supermarket. And the Local Authority has just signed a contract to ship most of its waste to Slough for EFW.

You mentioned an EFW plant - is this essentially the same as CHP?

I prefer the jute bags as they have cushioned handles :) (plastic ones tend to dig in).

Thanks again for your informative posts.

#42 - there are many different forms of EfW plant. They differ by technology (mass burn is traditional, gasification [3 different kinds] and pyrolysis are advanced), and by output (the least efficient is waste used to generate electricity only at c.20% efficient, through CHP - where you generate electricity at c.10% efficiency, but you get another 50% or so of the usable energy as heat for domestic or industrial users, up to heat-only, where up to 80% of the available energy can be utilised.]

The Slough plant? Not known to me, but a quick Google shows it to be a standard mass-burn plant of c.400kt pa capacity. This will operate at around 20% net efficiency, the heat will be wasted - and if we engineer out the waste stream further up the hierarchy (by increasing recycling etc) will find itself without enough feedstock in years to come. I have no idea of the cost, but I'd be surprised if there was change from 拢100 million to build such a plant.

(Just googled - it's 拢160 million.)

They won't be using the heat, as the electricity output from this plant will be c.34MW but the usable heat output will be c.140MW. It's easy to pump 34MW per hour to the grid, but an awful lot more difficult to pump 140MW per hour to industrial and domestic users. It needs an awful lot of infrastructure to transport and use that much heat, and these large EfW plants take the easy way out, which is to supply electricity to the grid and forget about the wasted heat. In this regard, they are no different to your average coal fired power station, except that they are even less efficient. A real wasted opportunity imo.

I much prefer plants at the opposite end of the spectrum.

In Wiltshire, there's a company who have developed a pyrolysis plant which runs at 8kt pa capacity (far more scalable), and which costs about 拢0.8 million so I gather. You could build many of these for less than the cost of one centralised plant, and give dispersed energy generation solutions left right and centre - and as each plant operates at a much more modest scale, it's easy to utilise the much smaller heat production at local users than it is to build a large district heating ring. Dispersed energy generation is also far more future proof, because if you start designing out the waste feedstock upstream, all you do is close down individual small plants, instead of struggling to feed one large one. It allows for a gradual reduction in capacity - and these plants are also flexible enough to take biomass when you engineer out the waste. It's a no-brainer in my opinion.

I think that in future we will see these smaller plants become more popular, and this should result in the number of larger facilities becoming quite limited. I personally think that the larger facilities have a role, but only in large urban centres where you can find a use for the heat. It doesn't make sense for a rural county to truck material a long way for energy recovery to a centralised plant when they can use small local infrastructure instead.

The plastic bag v paper bag issue is slightly separate to the plastic bag "bans".

Encouraging people to bring reusable bags is, in part, about saving resources by avoiding disposability itself.

It would not matter if the bag they bring is a plastic carrier bag as long as it is being reused.

However littering is also a big issue with plastic bags - and that is one reason why people dislike them and prefer paper bags.

Safeguarding the environment is not only about climate change, important though that is, it's about things like pleasant-looking surroundings which also impact on people's quality of life.

#44 - yet all packaging waste [including bags] represents less than 4% of all litter.


'All forms of packaging combined make up about 4% of litter
according to ENCAMS, the group behind the Keep Britain
Tidy campaign. By contrast, cigarette-related litter constitutes
34% of all litter, and chewing gum 61%.'



If we are to ban plastic bags because they contribute to litter, we must with more urgency ban :-

crisps
chocolate
soft drinks
chewing gum
cigarettes

because they are all either components of litter, or their packaging is.

Fine by me - with the exception of chocolate, I don't indulge in the rest, but I think you'd have a fight on your hands if you wanted any of them banned on aesthetic grounds :-)

You are right about re-use and the fact that it doesn't matter if it is a plastic bag you are using so long as it is reused - provided you have a suitable closed-loop recycling route lined up to ensure its material remains in the chain of utility at the end of its life, the impacts are very low.

#43

It does strike me as being a bit odd to transport 50,000 tonnes of rubbish each year 80 miles across country. It's a shame - the dispersed energy solution you describe sounds much better. I expect there's also less electricity wastage on the grid as it's local.

The LA did mention in their literature that landfill would run out in 2012, so that's obviously their primary motivation - shift it elsewhere. They're also introducing green bins (at a cost) for garden waste to be composted on local farms (though not for kitchen waste for which they're advocating home composting - that rules out AD for now).

Does CHP require new builds or can it be installed in an existing location? i.e. do you foresee new housing estates/industrial estates being supplied with heat/power from small local CHPs?

Just out of interest, what happens in summer when no heat is required?

#46 - CHP can be installed anywhere (the heat-only plant at Lerwick was installed into an existing urban infrastructure) ,but you get a good deal of upheaval with this.

The point you raise about summer is also well made. Where it is used on a wide scale (ie. Denmark), there is a sophisticated large-scale district heating ring serving commerce, industry and domestic consumers, each with different demands throughout the year so that there is always a baseload demand. This is sized so that it can be met in summer by a network of EfW plants alone - and in winter, first biomass plants come on line as well, and finally fossil-fuel plants.

That's the large-scale solution.

The other large-scale solution is to find an existing large industrial energy user, and match the plant to it. Certain processes (ie. food processing, refineries - and data storage hubs and refrigerated warehousing, curiously enough) have large heat requirements. [In the case of the data storage hubs and refrigerated warehousing, it's a cooling demand that they actually have - but it is more efficient to provide cooling via absorption chillers which use heat than it is by using electric chillers. So they can be big heat sinks. It's all counterintuitive, this stuff!]

The downside is that you are reliant on one or a handful of users to take all of your heat? What happens if they go bust? The answer is that hopefully you'll be helping them not to, as you are insulating them against rising energy costs in an uncertain market and improving their competitiveness as a result of all this.

But I prefer the small-scale dispersed generation solution myself, because you spread your risk, provide more flexible capacity, and take the heat where it is needed rather than build up an extensive distribution network.

I expect that you are right about the LA's motivation. Most of them want the easiest solution and are dead worried about landfill void shortage. So they tend to sign up to such options as a result. Ironically, they'll all also have carbon reduction targets which they'll be trying to meet by various programmes elsewhere - and some of the biggest carbon savings are achievable through such dispersed infrastructure use...

#44 - Chris_Jeavens

"Encouraging people to bring reusable bags is, in part, about saving resources by avoiding disposability itself. It would not matter if the bag they bring is a plastic carrier bag as long as it is being reused".

- I could not agree more. re-use is far better overall.




"However littering is also a big issue with plastic bags - and that is one reason why people dislike them and prefer paper bags".

- Littering is a social / behavioural issue and not one that is solvable by switching to paper nags. The material that a bag is made from is completely irrelavant and does not alter the fact that some lazy chav has seen fit to leave it where they finished with it.

You cannot pin 'littering' on plastic.

#36 - CurlySteve
# 39 - AdeJones

Caught up with my contact today who tellms me that carbon comparison work he has stopped short of disposal, which is hugely frustrating. Up until that point plastic bags were winning hands down!

However he did say that he thought Carrefour (French Supermarket) had recently done the same piece but 'cradle to grave'. I will try through another contact tomorrow to get hold of the Carrefour findings. I have a cunning plan!!

More to follow........

#35 My point remains the same. It's conservation of mass.
If you must use new plastic (maybe mixed with recycled) for some purposes - like milk bottles - and the demand for plastic stays roughly the same -
that means that plastic is being thrown away. By either the consumer or the recycler.
If 30% of the plastic is recycled, then plastic is being thrown away at 70% of the rate that it would be thrown away if there's no recycling.
It is an atrocious thing that we as a civilization are doing - producing this waste that lasts almost forever. Recycling only scales down the problem a little.
Laura

#50 - granted, but you can't expect a move to 100% recycling overnight. In reality, you'll never get to 100% recycling for any material - even gold and platinum have been historically wasted (albeit in very small quantities) and look at their inherent value and recyclability!

The direction of travel over the next few years though should see us 'closing the loop' much more than we have, to the point at which 70-80% of the plastic is routinely being recycled. Lifecycle assessments undertaken to set waste management options for local authority waste plans presuppose a high recycling rate for various waste streams, as this is the aspiration right across the UK. There is infrastructure coming on line to make this a reality. After all - if you are a manufacturer faced with the option of making product from virgin plastic at 拢1000 a tonne or equivalent quality recycled product at 拢650-拢700 a tonne plus the large inherent carbon savings - my money is on the recycled product. My guess is that the new plastic industry (which is a niche offshoot of the oil industry when you look at it in global terms) will be buying into recycled plastic in a big way where they aren't already helping to fund this.

#48

True, but plastic stays around a lot longer than paper. I don't know how long, but if these links are to be believed paper takes about 2-4 weeks to decompose, plastic 10-1000 years (not sure anyone knows exactly how long it takes).





Assuming a mid point of 100 years, that's 1300 times longer than paper. In other words, during the lifetime of 1 plastic bag you can discard 1300 paper ones.

(Didn't know this blog was still open to comments - great that it is :))

#52 - Do a google for 'The Garbage Project' or 'landfill archeology'. There are cases of people retrieving readable newspapers from American landfills that are over 50 years old.

If your landfill isn't that wet (and not all of them are), then you encapsulate a lot of this stuff for a long time. So the differential isn't as great as you'd believe.

Also, you need to factor in the impacts of discarding those bags, as a plastic bag in a landfill really doesn't do very much. A paper bag will rot in the anaerobic conditions and give you biogas. Which is 60% methane. You won't ever capture more than about 85-90% of it, and the rest will vent to atmosphere (the EU capture rate average is less than 50% according to recent research.)

That biogas has 23x the climate change potential of CO2. 1 tonne of organic waste will give you around 100m3 in landfill over time, subject to decay curves etc [in optimised AD, you'll get more - but landfill degradation isn't optimised.]

The other 40% of biogas is largely composed of CO2.

You have to factor in these impacts too.

#53

Landfill yes, but if thrown away as litter the plastic will last a lot longer.


#50 Loreav - that's a very good point. Not just thrown away either, could end up in the ocean.

Follow this train of events:

I recycle a plastic bottle.

A certain percentage is used for lower-grade plastic.

This plastic is used to wrap food.

The food is sold to a developing nation without decent landfill or recycling facilities.

The plastic is discarded and ends up in the ocean.

#54 - but if you follow that chain of events, most things you could recycle could end up dumped like that. So why bother recycling?

A facile example, but you see where I'm coming from here? You have to divorce the material and the need to recycle it from the 'but x could happen' argument. The material and the need to recycle it aren't the problem here - it's ensuring that it is used appropriately.

As regards the impact of plastic thrown away as litter - again, it is not the material that is the issue, but the littering. Besides, packaging waste [including plastic bags] represents only 4% of litter.

Hi Chris,

we just published a very similar post with 2 days difference! I have a few more plastic-free blogs in mine though.



I write this when you have already finished, so congratulations on your big achievement...

it would be great if you could do a last post in a month, see how the experiment has really affected your normal life

thanks a lot

This is a very timely article and it has been something our family has been struggling with for the past year - how to green our home and kitchen and to make decisions which involve less plastic. We have been able to change up our lunch and kitchenware with reusable containers. Some are better than others! These lunch bowls have worked will for my boys from Happy Tiffin - Again, it's difficult to keep consistant but it's nice to have options.