大象传媒

In relation to your cheese finding, I have always wondered, and some research may hopefully yield some results, about the seepage of after production chemicals from plastic into the food they envelope. I know there was just a report regarding the dangerous volume of exuded chemicals from plastic shower curtains. It only makes sense to me that this same effect is happening with our food.

couldnt you have used the coffee cup you aquired earlier to quench your thirst with local ale? or in your quest for avoiding plastic have you forgotten how to recycle?

Wax is a petrochemical product just like plastic - except there will be far more of it on your cheese than the equivalent cling film.

What a waste of space this article is. Plastic is here to stay, so if you don't like it, tough. You can always set fire to plastic when you have finished with it.

Hi Chris,
I think you have done wonderfully. As your 18 month old learned to walk, what did you do when he stumbled and fell?

Did you criticise him or congratulate him on what he had achieved?

I'm going to guess you went for the latter and that is what you must do for yourself.

To get through a day out and only succumb to a balloon on a plastic stick and a coffee cup (that caught you out anyway) is a fantastic achievement, when you think back to the 600+ plastic items you were accumulating three short days ago!

We take our own reusable containers to the deli and they cut cheese off the large slices and put them in our box for us. No plastic waste for us to dispose of !

As for kids, as a Mother I'd say you did the right thing - it's ok for us to have our ideals, but it's difficult to explain them to young children and there is so much temptation out there.

My daughter is 7 so I can explain my choices to her now and this helps to inform her too. But of course I will 'give in' to plastic for her on occasions so that she doesn't grow up totally alienated from her peers or in therapy as a teenager!

Tomorrow is another day and I'm sure you'll do brilliantly.

Hello Chris

Well done for your non-plastic experiment. There's probably a book in it if you keep enough diary notes.

As a seasoned festival-goer and morris musician may I make a suggestion? Carry a pewter tankard for your beer. It keeps your drink cool and is easy to clean afterwards.
And here's an idea for the future ... once your plastic free experiment is over why not try another "green" experiment? How about a "nil-by-bin" month? In other words try a complete month where you have NOTHING to throw away (composting is allowed however!)

Good Luck!

John Howard Norfolk
(aka Whitethorn Morris)

PS I didn't like the tone of the comment posted earlier suggesting you burn your plastic but hopefully you are wise enough to ignore it.

I can't understand this whole episode!

It sounds as if you think there is something wrong with 'plastic' (which is a word covering a vast range of materials). Do you rip all the plastic out of your mode of transport before using it? Or house? What about the plastic sewer pipes you use every day?

If you really don't like modern lifestyles, and are looking for a 'green' experiment, perhaps you should try going without something like medicine for a while?

To#5theoriginalmrsgreen

Beautifully expressed!

During any experiment there are bound to be some mishaps. That's how we learn. I think Chris is doing a very good thing and her experiences in avoiding plastic will improve as she learns to improvise.

As is sometimes said in the US, You go, girl!
That's a cheer to encourage your efforts.

I am not sure the balloon really counts, considering that it was for your son, although presumably you are hoping to eliminate household plastic consumption, not just personal plastic consumption.
As for the coffee cup, you should have asked beforehand whether it contained plastic - normally (from my experience as a vegetarian when eating out), people should be happy to help (if not then boycott them!).

"Wax is a petrochemical product just like plastic"

Actually it can be naturally produced - i.e. beeswax or plant wax.

It's symptomatic of the 大象传媒's blindness and arrogance that my licence fee is going to pay for this article which is not only vacuous and dull but represents a political, not moral, standpoint with which most ordinary people would find themselves diametically opposed.

Chris - the cheese you bought? According to the Beeb's own h2g2 site (Guide ID: A778197 - 'Waxing a cheese') :-

'Commercially made cheese wax is similar to candle wax, but has a slightly different formula which makes it more flexible. The application is the same as before, and some cheesemakers also recommend using a plastic coating made of PVA (Polyvinyl Acetate) underneath the wax for a better seal and greater adherence of the wax'

So you could be using plastic there after all. You most definitely are using a material nearly as bad as plastic (wax) in terms of its carbon footprint which doesn't have a recycling route unlike plastic - unless you are planning to turn it into a candle? If you do that, you are then rather inefficiently incinerating it to provide a modicum of light better generated by use of a low-energy lightbulb.

The use of a small piece of plastic film would have been a better environmental outcome here.

"I think Chris is doing a very good thing and her experiences in avoiding plastic will improve as she learns to improvise."

Why? Why do you think this person is doing a 'good thing'? Would you say that if her article were about avoiding 'metal' for a month or 'man-made stone' or, and one can only hope, 'oxygen'?

Just noted the comment about the leather tankard, by the way.

Now that *is* a material which carries a high carbon cost with it. Consider where the leather came from - a by-product of a process with a high environmental impact (farming), processed through a secondary process with a high impact (slaughter) and then through a tertiary process with a high impact (tannery/leathermaking).

Plastic, glass and steel will have a modest impact in comparison. In fact, the DEFRA report I referred to in yesterdays entry states that textile wastes (including leather) have the highest carbon footprint of all wastes commonly occurring in the municipal waste stream.

Why the negativity folks? Just because an experiment can't be 100% sucessful doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted or applauded when it is. Someone sets out to try and reduce her plastic consumption for a month and you condemn her for having plastic pipes in the household plumbing? What are you afraid of? Way to go Chris!

#13hubertgrove

It IS a good thing because she is drawing attention to profligate use of plastics that are not being recycled.

To Adejones:

I welcome your information. It gives me something to consider as I try to "reduce my carbon foot print."

This is an interesting trial and worthwhile trial, I would encourage you not to become disheartened because you have found occasions already where you have had to use plastic items - it was bound to happen. I think that your decision to keep the plastic items that you have used until the end of the month is the best way forward because you will be able to illustrate what should be a marked reduction in your use of plastic over the period.

Good luck with the rest of the month, I hope that when you have completed the trial you will be able to share some of your findings on how easy and how difficult some aspects of day to day life are when a concerted effort to reduce dependence on something we all appear to have taken for granted.

Paul
Essex

Plastic and wax may be very similar - indeed polythene is more-or-less a very thick wax. Cling film is different (PVC) but all the same you might be better trying to find out where the wax came from. Wax today is probably from oil (ie oil from oil wells). Of course it used to be from various 'natural' (ie more recently living) places like whales - not really better perhaps!

And PS - I suspect there was a lot more wax than there would have been plastic - did you recyle it?

Have you nothing better to do! I tried this ages ago! but I appear to be typing on a plastic keyboard, sitting in a car with plastic in it, shoes, clothes, resistors, microchips, capacitors, etc... etc... p.s. I think you find coffee is shipped in a ship containing plastic.....
yawn!

to # 1

This is correct, you can get a phenomenon known as 'leaching' whereby additives in the plastics transfer into the foods - typically fatty ones which contain similar molecular groupings - Cheese is notorious.

Since the 70's (I believe) all manufacturers of cling film and plastics which come into contact with food replaced their existing polymer stabilisers (necessary to prevent degradation due to light, heat...) with vitamin E.

Vitamin E is an excellent polymer stabiliser and happens to be non-toxic, perhaps even beneficial* (more evidence required!).

Indeed all of the 'promotional' adverts telling you that your margarine contains vitamin E are to get around the fact that it will have leached from the packaging! It is only there to protect the plastic!

It is not your fault that you stumbled a little...

Congratulations so far.
I can't understand why you wouldn't take a stainless steel flask (or 2) with hot water for your coffee!
Also to help with your day to day coffee when you are out, Starbucks lets you take your own mug in to be filled!
Keep up the good work!

Britain is already a big landfill and taking some action to cut down on waste is required. It seems like the purpose of this experiment is way too difficult to grasp for some people. Strange. One would've thought they were well acquainted with the landfill already.

As a Brit abroad (in Germany), it is truly shocking to return to the UK now and see just how much plastic packaging is thoughtlessly thrown away.

The solution is so simple and everyday. For example, here there's a trade mark scheme ('Der Gruene punkt', or the Green Dot) which runs like this .. manufacturers must pay a tax to put a symbol on packaging. This pays for a sheme to collect all the packaging and recycle it. Packaging with the trademark on is then collected separately (2 bins instead of 1).

As other british expats have already commented, it seems to be working quite well without much ado in Germany, Belgium, .... any others? But continental ideas are greeted with deepest suspicion in the UK, as I have found out quite often since moving here.

Duracellbunny wrote 'Britain is already a big landfill and taking some action to cut down on waste is required. It seems like the purpose of this experiment is way too difficult to grasp for some people.'

This isn't actually the case. We produce a massive amount of waste in the UK - but a very small proportion of this ends up in landfill. The large majority of our waste arisings come from the construction and demolition waste stream - and recycling rates in this sector are over 80%.

Even in the municipal sector (our worst performing sector) we see average recycling rates around 32-35% across the UK, with some areas already over the 70% level.

[Google for 'St Arvans recycling rate' - this village in Monmouthshire is at 77% recycling at the moment. It's an exemplar that could easily be followed with a bit of effort.]

Landfill voidspace has declined markedly in the last 5 years. We have a lot less of them than we used to.

#26

I'm happy to hear that. Nothing woul be better. I based some of my information on a 大象传媒 News article from 2007 (haven't seen figures for 2008):

"[Local Government Association chairman Sandy Bruce-Lockhart] added: "Britain is the dustbin of Europe with more rubbish being thrown into landfill than any other country on the continent.""

Good news:
"The Local Government Association (LGA) study found some [councils] had already exceeded their [recycling] targets for 2010. "

I can't believe you're going to all the trouble to do this but then give in to something as disposable as a balloon for your child. Would it have been so bad for him to go without? To me that really symbolises so much of what's wrong with the world today - things that shouldn't be acceptable are ok if they're done 'for the children'. Not that taking a balloon is necessarily unacceptable (although it is wasteful I think), but you set your own rules and then you broke them. If you're serious about this then surely things for your child have to be treated no differently than anything else, otherwise what's the point.

@7 - Dodgy-Geezer

I don't think you read the reasoning behind this experiment - have a look at the link posted to the reasons why this experiment is taking place. You'll find that plastics are basically destroying our environment. You may not be able to see obvious signs of that where you live, but it's most certainly a massive problem worldwide.

It's not that plastics are bad in general - in fact, polystyrene cups are more environmentally friendly than paper - it's just the sheer volume of plastic we are throwing away. It's simply staggering.

The idea is not to banish plastics, but to dramatically cut down on how much we use and to also increase the amount which can be recycled.

I say we may need to resort to guerrilla tactics in the UK and here's how:-

Take a good pair of scissors with you to your local supermarket. Any product which you deem to have too much packaging will then require some pruning.
If, for instance, it's a cabbage wrapped in a double layer of plastic sitting in a plastic tray, just cut the price off and leave the rest of the packaging on the shelf.

Yes, I'm joking, but we need to make the supermarkets aware.

On the other side of the fence, we need to be educated by the supermarkets as to how the packaging keeps our food fresher for longer and what sacrifices we will need to make in terms of convenience if there is less packaging.

Bottom line, the only way to turn the tide of plastic is inconvenience!

"4. At 5:43pm on 03 Aug 2008, clovisguy wrote:
What a waste of space this article is. Plastic is here to stay, so if you don't like it, tough. You can always set fire to plastic when you have finished with it."

>>> Is this a serious comment? I hope not... I suggest you read the reasons for the article before you let your fingers loose on your plastic keyboard (which you shall no doubt be burning at some point).


"11. At 6:37pm on 03 Aug 2008, hubertgrove wrote:
It's symptomatic of the 大象传媒's blindness and arrogance that my licence fee is going to pay for this article which is not only vacuous and dull but represents a political, not moral, standpoint with which most ordinary people would find themselves diametically opposed."

>>> Mmm, on the "vacuous and dull" scale, your comment is off the scale compared to the article. At least it's informative and interesting - two things your comment can never be accused of.

It seems to me that anything which challenges people's attitudes and threatens to make them think or (gasp) change their habits is summarily dismissed by certain types. Open your minds!

In the US, there was a time when straberries and other fresh fruits and vegetables were packaged in little wooden baskets that are reusable. They are still around, but not used in the suburban grocery stores in our area.
I just read about using bamboo plates and silverware instead of plastic. A little pricey, but enviromentally friendly.
I applaude your efforts and appreciate knowing I'm not the only one feeling smothered by plastic.

To Adejones:

I have a question for you. Where I live, a grocery uses some containers that look like plastic but are made from some kind of vegetable material (soybeans?). They are biodegradable but we can wash and return them to the store for recycle. Do you know of this material? What may be the energy costs associated with its use?

Thanks

Jdquilt

A lot of farmers markets use them and they can be returned to the market for reuse.

Arizonagal - just googled your query, as it is something I have been pondering for a while. Wikipedia states 'Various researchers have undertaken extensive life cycle assessments of biodegradable polymers to determine whether these materials are more energy efficient than polymers made by conventional fossil fuel-based means. Research done by Gerngross, et al estimates that the fossil fuel energy required to produce a kilogram of polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) is 50.4 MJ/kg - this does not take into account the feedstock energy, which can be obtained from non-fossil fuel based methods... In contrast, polypropylene and high density polyethylene require 85.9 and 73.7 MJ/kg respectively, but these values include the embedded energy of the feedstock because it is based on fossil fuel.

I think the answer here is 'we need more data' - I wouldn't be backing biodegradeable plastic simply because it is biodegradeable just yet - I need to see proof that the whole lifecycle isn't worse.

I live in a country where a whopping 48% of solid waste is recycled. Not a bad effort. My girlfriend and I are very concerned about what we buy and where it will end up. In Toronto there is a gray bin for paper, cardboard and used tissues. The blue bin has the glass and EASILY USABLE plastics. The green bin is for everything biodegradable from egg shells to doggie poop.

What ends up in the trash? PACKAGING!!! Yep, after a fortnight we are overwhelmed with plastic boxes, covers and inserts. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (there is no equivalent to this organization anywhere in Europe) has dropped plastic bags now. Bravo! Maybe we can get the "mom and pop" retailers to do the same. Lord knows, we can spare a few trees, as long as they're turned back into compost.

Anyways, I applaud the efforts of the reporter and will continue to read with interest. Maybe just one small voice, added to the rest of us, can make a difference.

28. Kraze42

Clearly YOU do NOT have children. If you did, you would understand that you have to choose your battles. Explaining to a toddler that they can not have a balloon because Mommy is conducting a No Plastic for a month experiment is just NOT a feasible option. Toddlers do not understand this level of reasoning, and most parents would do just about anything to avoid a tantrum, especially in public. I am certain that Chris is teaching her children about the environment and recycling, but in the real world everything does not need to be a lesson!

#34Adejones

Thank you so much!

I will be careful of using this material until there is more information. I had concerns that crops which could be used for food might be going into packaging when there are so many going hungry in the world.

#36M78934

Well said!

At 18 months old, it is not exactly the time to preach complex environmental concepts. It is enough to show good example and let the little ones have an innocent treat.

It is not easy to break a lifelong habit, but you have taken the first steps to achieving your goal. It is impossible to eliminate all plastics, so if you continue this project, it will make a difference.
The plastic cap on the aluminum water bottle is acceptable because it is reusable. My computer is plastic, should I throw it away? I recommend that you also use your own containers for take-away food. I do and no shop has turned me down.

I calculated my own ecological footprint to see roughly how much waste I'm producing with my current lifestyle. It tells me how many 'Earths' will be required if everyone lived like me.

I created a scenario to see how much difference will it make if I recycled all plastics, I was surprised to see there isn't any significant impact. There is a slight decrease but the main culprits are things like air travel, heating and transportation of food.

I'm slighlty surprised at the negativity in this: even if you don't agree with the politics behind the project, it is still an 'interesting news feature': nothing more, nothing less.

The beer tent issue brings up a question - is plastic or glass more biodegrabable? At a guess I'd say glass but I'm not aware of an answer to this? Glass also, if washed, I guess is likely to be more reusable than easly-deformed plastic?

SM78934 wrote:
28. Kraze42

most parents would do just about anything to avoid a tantrum, in the real world everything does not need to be a lesson!

aquarizonagal wrote:
#SM78934

It is enough to show good example and let the little ones have an innocent treat.

Ahhhh... so the next time the offspring of strictly Vegetarian parunts is having a hissy fit because the other children are enjoying a nice hot dog, is it alright to give him a sausage as an "innocent treat" to avoid disturbing the peace with his tantrum (I have never yet met a parent that cares whether the public are annoyed at their child's noise) and until he is old enough to understand why mummy and daddy think it is wrong to eat dead animal?

And aside from the balloon, I wonder whether all the kid's plastic toys at home were hidden away as part of the experiment

Duhhhh

If you want to find your own leather tankard I saw somewhere at the Ludlow medieval fair that makes leather tankards and wine goblets, their website is www.hidebound.co.uk they are lined with a naturally produced resin, so no plastic on them, and I think you can get them with wooden bases too.

All these comments about cutting out plastic being pointless, and suggesting she cuts out stone or metal or strips plastic out of pipes / vehicles etc. are completely missing the point.

It is the use of plastic for DISPOSABLE items that is the problem: not only is the material is incredibly over-engineered for its purpose (i.e. it will be used once, and then sit in a landfill for hundreds of years), but it causes immense harm to wildlife, which is often killed by getting tangled in it or trying to eat it.

There is no need to use such a long-lasting material for one-off purposes: containers could either be re-used (and made of hard plastic or other material - the nature of the material is less important), or made of materials like cardboard or paper that biodegrade quickly. Surely this is a 'moral' position which no one can (rationally) disagree with, not a 'political' one as some have suggested?

Where there is beer tent, you must bring a glass, personally I take a metal tankard...

I've been keeping up with your "mission" and it has made great reading. Never realised it would be so hard just to go about life without plastic.

While at uni a couple of years ago my friends and I invented a whole series of "challenges" where for either a week or weekend we would try and avoid item X. Not for any ideological reason, just for a challenge. Things we avoided (but only one at a time): Mobile Phones, Petrol, Meat etc. it was all good fun to be honest. Most of us managed all the tasks but I'm not sure if any of us could go without using plastic. I think I'll suggest it down the pub tonight in your honour Chris.

It's an interesting experiment and hopefully people will take appropriate lessons from this.

I work for a plastics company and some of the propaganda can really be overwhelming.

However, what we need to remember is not that plastics are bad but how they are treated. If plastics are recycled properly their lifecycles far outway any environmental impact their creation may have.

Plastics due to their low weight and ability to keep food fresh leads to far less waste whether that be of the food itself or from fuel consumption etc.
Although optimal packaging has yet to beintroduced for most products.

If the plastic were recycled properly then these benefits would be realised.

So as with most problems in this world it isn't the product that is the issue but the way people treat them.

I'd like to try living in a world without people for a month, I'm sure it'd survive very well!

Another point of interest is your search for a 'paper' cup. This will also be coated by a thin layer of plastic.

As for other types of cups, life cycle analysis of office cups suggest that overall ceramic mugs are much worse than disposable (plastic or 'paper') as many people use once and wash individually - the environmental impact of this washing process far outweighs any other factors!

Chris's campaign against plastic is all very admirable but, as far as I can see, it's a distraction from the point. The main point being that most people would find it extremely difficult to do without plastics (even just 'new' plastics) in their everyday lives. One thing that seems to have escaped many commenters is that Chris - and I mean no criticism, just observation - is in a rather advantageous position here, in that she is presumably paid to write this content and therefore can make a living, or at least part of one, from such experiments as this, whether they're ultimately successful or not. For her, it seems, spending time looking for alternatives to plastics isn't a problem because she is doing her job by doing so. Most of us don't have that opportunity, and are forced to manage our lives - complete with packaging - around careers or other commitments that don't leave us the time to spend looking for alternatives.

The truth is that the problem really isn't that individuals are choosing to use too much plastic. That's an easy way to package it (ahem) for those wanting to make us all feel guilty about our contribution to climate change (and yes, I do believe in 'anthropogenic' climate change - although it's still amazing that I have to say that as though I'm professing a religious belief). Government and media are falling over themselves to make individuals take the rap for global warming and pollution, because neither has the political will to challenge those who're causing the real problems: the mighty corporations who overuse plasics because they're convenient for their own purposes. (And why should politicians challenge the merchants? After all, it's the business world that pays their campaign costs, and who gives them lucrative directorships.)

We buy plastics because we're sold plastics. It's as simple as that. We throw things away because things are designed and sold to be disposable. The food we buy usually has a one- or two-day use-by date on it. Maybe this is for health reasons, but I suspect that to a great extent it's to ensure we buy more frequently, and therefore give the companies more money. The corporate world doesn't *want* us using things built to last, because that cuts into its profits. Plastic is cheap to produce. So they make money. And when our country is largely controlled by a few leviathan businesses, what choice do we really have but to comply? Yes, as Chris is presumably trying to show, the alternatives are there - but they're far from convenient, and that, I think, is how the business world wants it.

If the 大象传媒 and other media manufacturers-of-guilt *really* wanted to do something to tackle climate change and the negative effects of the throwaway society on the environment, they'd confront the commercial world that has created the problem. They'd confront government and the local authorities who pay lip-service to the environment, apparently only where they can use it to bully more money out of us (think fuel taxes, fines for incorrect green-bin use, and so on).

I'm all for living cleanly. I like my planet and even if I didn't 'believe in' climate change, I'd still want to try to keep it clean. But I do think that before we all get too wrapped up in self-flagellation over our guilt as individuals, we should probably take these greater authorities to task for their lack of genuine desire to address these problems.

One thing they did this year at the Cambridge Folk Festival was a deposit system for the plastic glasses. 拢2 for the plastic or 拢3.50 for the grander glass pint mugs refundable at the end of the day or keep for latter. This was to encourage re-use and seemed to do the trick.

"I don't think you read the reasoning behind this experiment - have a look at the link posted to the reasons why this experiment is taking place. You'll find that plastics are basically destroying our environment. "

"It is the use of plastic for DISPOSABLE items that is the problem: not only is the material is incredibly over-engineered for its purpose (i.e. it will be used once, and then sit in a landfill for hundreds of years.."

"The plastic cap on the aluminum water bottle is acceptable because it is reusable.."



Will it surprise you to find that I DID read the reasoning behind this experiment (and found it petty and vacuous)?

ALL items are disposable - it's simply the time period that varies. That water bottle plastic cap will find its way to the landfill site eventually - it will just take a bit longer.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with plastics, or landfill. We grew trees, made items out of wood and they rotted. Now we mine oil, make items out of plastic, and return them to the ground from whence they came, where they decompose. The natural cycle is complete, as it always is.

The one highlight I enjoy while reading these ill-informed and frequently malicious comments is the lack of understanding exhibited. For instance, the idea that balloon latex is somehow 'safe' because tree sap is used in its manufacture. So are thiurams, mercaptobenzothiazole, carbamate, thioureas and dithiocarbamates. In fact, since it is made from chemically coagulated proteins, it is frequently the cause of allergic reactions.

I particularly enjoyed the question: "is plastic or glass more biodegradable? At a guess I'd say glass but I'm not aware of an answer to this". Robdurbar seems to be unaware that glass will last hundreds of thousands of years? But I assume he thinks that Glass is 'good' and Plastic is 'bad' so Glass must therefore be all the good words, like biodegradeable. Honestly, is this the level at which you people think?


Nccrow bleats "Surely this (avoiding the use of plastics) is a 'moral' position which no one can (rationally) disagree with.." How can the words 'moral' and 'rational' be used in this way?

Dodgygeezer writes 'I particularly enjoyed the question: "is plastic or glass more biodegradable? At a guess I'd say glass but I'm not aware of an answer to this". Robdurbar seems to be unaware that glass will last hundreds of thousands of years? But I assume he thinks that Glass is 'good' and Plastic is 'bad' so Glass must therefore be all the good words, like biodegradeable. Honestly, is this the level at which you people think?'

The question here is not whether something is biodegradeable or not. It's much more complex than that. Plastic has a higher energy cost of production than glass, for example - but is much more lightweight when used for equivalent applications. The recyclability of glass and plastic are similar if you engineer the processes appropriately, although recycling plastic brings better benefits (and a lower energy cost) than recycling glass. Glass is more reusable than plastic, although you have to sterilise it to do so - which in turn takes quite a bit of energy. Neither are particularly biodegradeable, although plastic will degrade over timescales shorter than glass. Both are more appropriate than the other for particular applications.

In fact at Cambridge folk festival you couldn't buy beer in disposable plastic cups at all - although you could save a little money by buying it in four-pint plastic milk jugs. However if you just wanted one pint you had a choice:

Pay a 拢2 deposit for a more sturdy plastic pint cup with the festival logo, and re-use it as much us you like, and either return for your money back or keep it as a souvenir

Pay 拢3.50 for one of the glass festival tankards which has a different design each year, and is in fact the only glass allowed within the arena since they're pretty much unbreakable. These too are returnable although most people like to keep them, and they're also a bit less inclined to fall over when you put them down on the grass.

You were encouraged to re-use your glass without rinsing where possible, as it takes 1/4 pint of water per rinse.

The coffee cups appeared to be cardboard, although they did have plastic lids. Many (though not all) of the plates at the food stalls were paper, and the coffee stirrers and forks were wooden. There were recycling bins by every general waste bin.

And the pimms was sold by the plastic jug with a 拢5 deposit - would using one of these be OK since it is returned?

I'm surprised at the ignorance here.

Yes, we have plastic pipes in the pluming. But it will stay there for a long time you see? Similarly the platic in my car etc etc.

Ehat chriss is trying to do is cut down on the EXCESS plastic, the bags you don't need, the cups the bottles.

This stuff ends up in landfill. THis is bad, we don;t want our green and pleasent land covered in them do we?

Kraze and fabMojito, well said. Maybe the plastic-free experiment could have also been used to teach Junior that he can't get his own way?
As for the comments about plastic inside ships, cars, etc, well they're missing the point. What the blog author is getting at is the overuse of packaging and plastic bags - i.e. disposable plastic and I agree with her in that respect - although maybe if she was really environmentally conscious then she might have thought twice about having a child, bearing in mind the sheer numbers of people are the reason the environment is in the mess it is.

*sigh* perhaps it is the culture of deliberate misunderstanding of child psychology that is the reason this society is in the mess it is?

An 18mo doesn't have any clue, and nor should they, IMO, about 'having their own way' and the less 'us and them' is involved in raising children the less 'us and them' will arise as they grow into adulthood and shape our future society. Be nice to your children, they will choose your nursing home.

Anyway, back to the topic. It's really interesting having AdeJones here with profssional knowledge of the situation. I wonder what you think of offgassing? Which materials cause least damage to individuals' health? (disregarding the environmental issues and lifecycle etc)

This attempt at reducing ones plastic consumption is typical of the rather ignorant pursuit of the 'warm feeling' most people are looking when believing they are "doing their bit".

Plastic packaging (which I suspect is the bit annoying the journalist here) is actually fantastically carbon efficient, when compared to other formas of packaging. It's efficient to produce, light weight to transport, robust and so minimises waste and is easily recyclable. It's also fantastically versaitile and can be easily formed into a multitude of different shapes and sizes.

Let's imagine a world with little or no packaging. Wait! It already exists - try India where more than 60% of their food is wasted before it reaches a shop. Compare this with the UK where as little as 3%-5% is wasted. Why? Because packaging helps protect and transport the food we buy.

The piece complains about the lack of 'loose' strawberries. This is typical of the ignorant belief that all produce should be loose. Food waste in loose produce can double once the packaging is removed. Take the cucumber example, Coop being quoted as selling an "au natural" one with no shrink film. It last for two / three days. Compare this with a shrink-wrapped one that lasts for up to fourteen days.

Food Waste is by far the bigger more serious environmental problem we face and contributes significantly more to global warming than packaging waste does. As consumers we just dont 'link' food waste to environment, yet.

Likewise we dont link our cheap flights and aimless miles of driving, or central heating, or lack of insulation to the environment. Instead we focus upon a 'totem' that is packaging and assume it must be strangling the planet and therefore if we use less then we mus be "doing our bit". How wrong can we be..........

Unless we actually wake up to the facts and recognise the real impacts we are all having in our everyday lives and stop focusing upon pointless 'red herrings' then we aint going to get anywhere in digging ourselves out of the mess we have created.

The 大象传媒 really ought to know better.

Taskis, #48:

"We buy plastics because we're sold plastics. It's as simple as that. We throw things away because things are designed and sold to be disposable ..... The corporate world doesn't *want* us using things built to last, because that cuts into its profits."

EXACTLY!

Someone has to stand up to the corporations, but I can't see New Labour (aka Tory 2nd XI) doing anything about it.

#57

Plastics are used (you are sold them) because they are the most appropriate and carbon efficient material for a particular product.

It has nothing to do with corporations profits.

Trogette wrote 'Anyway, back to the topic. It's really interesting having AdeJones here with profssional knowledge of the situation. I wonder what you think of offgassing? Which materials cause least damage to individuals' health? (disregarding the environmental issues and lifecycle etc)'

Why thank you Trogette :-)

Not sure what you mean here by offgassing though? Could you clarify for me - do you mean emissions from recovery options (ie. burning residual waste), emissions from disposal (ie. degradation in landfill) - or do you mean desorption of plastic into the (mainly indoor) environment from plastic product? I suspect the latter here?

I don't really have a view on it, as it isn't something I've looked at in years - used to be an env.health bod years and years back, and dealt with a few cases of sensitivity to various building products - most noticeable case was a worker in a unit next door to a small manufacturing process that made styrene resin products. Absolutely stank, it did - yet the people working with it all day (in much higher dosages) didn't smell it any more. Made my eyes run and made me feel ill after a couple of minutes there. We ended up making them drastically improve their ventilation. This material went into product which got sold for use in DIY. [Worktops etc] Styrene is reasonably volatile, and I shouldn't wonder if some of these products didn't 'offgas' after installation.

My personal view is that such products aren't terribly good in the home, as you tend to have ideal conditions for high exposure to products that are breaking down - you have a warm environment with poor ventilation, thus exacerbating problems. It's why I'm no fan of chipboard, for example - due to the formaldehyde used in the formulation, and the possibility of this leaching out over time.

Shouldn't think it's an issue with hard plastic packaging though. That stuff is reasonably inert.

All plastic packaging produced and on the market today and in contact with the food is technically tested and anlaysed and thereby certified as 'food safe' under strict EU guidelines and legislation.

You would not want to eat the stuff, but then again I am sure you are not planning to. In terms of using it as it designed to be used then every single piece of it would be certified as food safe.

Can't say the same chipboard though, you're right. Although I for one struggle to get my chipboard boxes to hold stews and curry without leaking long enough to get them frozen ;-)

"Dodgygeezer writes 'I particularly enjoyed the question: "is plastic or glass more biodegradable? At a guess I'd say glass .."

The question here is not whether something is biodegradeable or not. It's much more complex than that. Plastic has a higher energy cost..."
AdeJones


Obviously AdeJones is a politician. The question here is the one that was asked. And the one that I answered. Not the different one she made up.

If she wants to answer another question, she may, by all means, but she should NOT imply that I have got anything wrong...

Dodgygeezer wrote -'Obviously AdeJones is a politician. The question here is the one that was asked. And the one that I answered. Not the different one she made up.'

Nope, not a politician. The question that was asked makes no sense. The answer I gave brings out the real issue.

Interesting article, it certainly made me take my time and look for myself.

In the local covered market in Oxford, a few things are in plastic punnets. Some stores offer a plastic bag, but many people have their own. If you look carefully, although there are wooden crates/boxes, containing imported fruit/Veg, they are sitting on a layer of thin plastic foam.

The Tesco in Abingdon have stopped having Plastic carry bags at the checkouts, in an attempt to appear greener. but the small clear bags provided for the loose goods, are plastic.

What about bio-degradeable plastics, are they an accepted alternative?

Glass is certainly easier to recycle, there are many more glass banks than plastic banks. My local council can only accept certain plastics in the recycling collection scheme. Many local shopping centres/stores have a bin for other plastics (not bottle plastics).

Milk bottles delivered by Milkman have always been recycled/washed. In the past I earned pocket money collecting Pop Bottles when the delivery lorry used to call. (1960s/70s)

Thanks for answering, Ade :-)

I think I meant leeching, as in this particular instance the main topic is food packaging. I am not particularly interested in what is labelled safe as much as what levels of risk might actually be involved, as the two things are not always the same...

I think, without scientific basis, that if water from a plastic bottle tastes different to water from a metal bottle or the tap there must be some level of 'soaking up' of *something* from the bottle.

Re #11 hubertgrove - lighten up!!

This is may not change the world tomorrow but at least Chris is doing something to draw attention to a growing problem.