February: The month without plastics
Summary
Another intensely tough challenge for us... We did not live without plastics but we tried to minimise our waste. We ended up collecting 312 grams of waste. This is relatively good as it would mean our household produces about 3.75 kg of waste per year (with the caveat that occasional larger items would swell this number). On average, a UK household (an average of 2.37 people) in 2020 produced 21 kg of plastic waste according to this Statista report. As a result, we will donate $312 AUD to Plastics Oceans this month.
Below we summarise what we learned this month - see you in March!
Take homes
Plastics are here for a long time yet. We have not been able to eliminate even our single use items entirely this month. It is quite terrifying to scale this up across the 8 billion or so people on Earth - even given some people will have no plastic, others will use an amount that far exceeds our own. The global risk to our ecosystems is huge and ongoing. Our major planetary systems such as oceanic carbon sequestration are likely at risk.
Technological solutions are advancing, we can now recycle about 4 types of plastics completely which eliminates the need for primary plastic from carbon based fuels. Efforts to prioritise these plastics and share these recycling technologies globally are slowly progressing.
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Legislation in many countries is active, but the plastics industry is still predicted to expand through 2030. The waste is starting to exceed production as plastics that serve a purpose for longer than a year start to be retired to landfill. Space is running out.​
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Prevention is best, then re-use, then recycling. Incineration and landfill should be seen as last resorts.
Top tips
Key resources exist to help - check out these for some products ideas:
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Nearthme (Aus)
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For more information on some of the road maps toward eliminating / minimising plastic waste try these sites:
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A leading industrial partner is Viridor (UK)
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Europe's roadmap (WRAP - other regions are covered too)
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The UK's plastics pact (WRAP)
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Break free from plastics (global)
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For some ideas on the legislative changes in place, check out these bills/ laws and pledges:
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Working group report from DEFRA (UK)
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UN Treaty to 'End Plastic Pollution' (endorsed by 175 nations)
To dos
As end-game consumers, in our actions and advocacy we can do better to eliminate some plastics from our lives.
Working out our baseline use was interesting. This sets us a goal to improve upon. Some steps we can take include:
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Making plastic bricks. This can provide building blocks for us or others that might serve to reduce landfill waste.
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Choosing plastic free options wherever they exist.
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Remembering prevention is better than all other options - avoiding the use of plastic as a gold standard.
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Learning which products are made with technologically recyclable/reusable polymers or resins and sticking to those could also be beneficial. We can advocate for these recycling facilities to be established for our local rubbish (right now, we cannot recycle soft plastics locally).
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Pressing politicians and businesses to move forward with legislation and actions that reduce, re-use and then recycle plastics (Check our top tip links for some positive progress).
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Keeping ourselves as healthy as possible to avoid single use plastics for medical care could also be a potential help!
Out of our hands
The lay consumer needs a lot of support from the system to reduce plastics effectively. There are road maps that some governments and business groups have signed up to (see the top tips links). There are also promising legislative changes gaining traction in various territories. A recent UN Treaty is now endorsed which brings hope and awareness from those in power to act on the changes needed.
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There remain massive societal challenges: how can we minimise waste from public health, transport, building, electronic equipment? How can we re-use or recycle back to polymer these 'critical' plastics? Can we clean up the technology used to incinerate plastic waste to avoid the toxic emissions associated with the process? Where can we generate rapid gains - what can we stop using immediately?
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The urgency of this global problem is clear. We live in hope that the voluntary agreements (some noted in the top tips) will be upheld by governments and industry worldwide.
Plastics pose one of the greatest threats to our natural world and we are entirely reliant on their use.
So why do we use so much?
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This is an everyday for me (in the absence of thinking about how much plastic I use):
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Wake up and get a glass of water (our spring water has a PLASTIC container but we re-use it to refill the 15 litre bottle. Tap water here has fluoride added so we have chosen a different way to get drinking water - more on this in March).
Put on clothes – most are cotton, and all are second hand or gifts, but some have polyester (PLASTIC) and bras or breastfeeding tops have plastic clips (PLASTIC).
Do teeth (PLASTIC brush and paste tube). Brush hair (PLASTIC brush). Sun cream on (PLASTIC tube). I do not wear make up but this would likely add more PLASTIC to the mix given both the containers and the nanoplastic particles in the sun cream and make up products.
Make breakfast and coffee (PLASTIC on cafeteria), bread can sometimes be in a PLASTIC bag. Opening the fridge, I realise there is loads of PLASTIC here: pasta, gnocchi, yogurt pots, cheese wrap, mayo.
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Walk with our baby, the pram – albeit second hand – has PLASTICS all over it; clips, straps, toys for the trip, polyester materials etc. Swim in the sea, both our costumes have PLASTICS. Read a book while our baby naps (all good here!) … but check phone (PLASTICS in here beyond my understanding but they are there). Perhaps buy a coffee out (potential for throwaway cup with PLASTIC lining although we are pretty habituated to taking our own cups now).
Use computer (more PLASTICS involved, again beyond my comprehension).
Play with baby (PLASTIC toys and covers to books).
Eat lunch – depending on what I have there may be PLASTIC wrappers involved e.g. on pasta, burgers, fruit and veggies and even a very thin layer within tins.
Perhaps, clean the house/dishes/our clothes/nappies – cleaning produce often in PLASTIC bottles (we have refill ones but still), hoover has PLASTIC parts, washing machine has PLASTIC case.
Cook dinner (same PLASTIC potentials here as for lunch). Eat dinner.
Shower (potential for PLASTICS for shampoo and soaps here although we have the bar alternatives we will discuss later on). Read to, and settle, our baby and go to bed.
(I most certainly used the toilet multiple times too with all its PLASTIC components: the seat, the pipes, the toilet roll holder, the flushing mechanism)
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This day would be similar for me on a working day only I would do less cleaning and playing with our baby and more computer time.
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So, without mitigating, my status quo day seems to contain experiences with at least 20 sources of plastic. Some are more necessary to us than others. For this challenge – to use no plastics throughout the month – we will allow ourselves long term plastics. That means I can use the computer, I can use the phone, hairbrush the hoover, washing machine and fridge are good, the second-hand clothes and swimming costumes can stay.
But, we will try and cut out any:
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toothpaste (switch to toothpaste tablets),
- soap or shampoo products (stick with bars),
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cleaning products ( stick to refill or powder options),
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plastic wrapping food,
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coffee cup (take our own - although eating out increases the chance of plastics if the cafe or restaurant uses much),
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no take aways unless compostible containers (we are lucky here and have two options),
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ideally we will check out the ethic of cafes and restaurants if we do go out and choose those minimising their waste,
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any new plastic toys,
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no plastic-containing nappies,
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and any other short term, replaceable or unnecessary items… a tall task.
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We have already made a start on plastic-freeing ourselves... we take our own cups to coffee places, we use soap, shampoo and conditioner bars, we have refill washing up liquid and powder for clothes washing in a cardboard box ... but under the rules of this month's challenge we have a lot more to do. We will also keep hold of any plastic we do use to see how little we can accumulate over the month
We will donate this month the equivalent AUD to the weight in grams of plastic that we accumulate. The charity we have chosen is Plastic Oceans. There are a few other great options if anyone doing this challenge wants to support others - this link might help!
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Why is it so critical that we all reduce our use of plastics?
Writing the book, the challenge to wean ourselves away from plastics felt one of the most urgent and ominous system changes. The background reasoning for my concern over using plastics is summarised below:
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The planetary boundaries are a framework identifying nine absolute physical boundaries that safeguard and drive Earth’s system (Steffen, Broadgate, et al. 2015) i.e. we need to keep these in check to keep life on Earth thriving. One of these boundaries is focused on novel entities—which are dominated by plastics. It is now shown that we are well outside a safe operating space (Persson et al. 2022).
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Our oceans absorb carbon dioxide for us. Carbon dioxide is taken up by plant-like organisms (phytoplankton) in a photosynthetic process, and carbon dioxide also dissolves in water. A chemical process leads to the forming of bicarbonate, a form of carbon that doesn’t easily escape the ocean. The oceans can absorb more carbon as our human activities burn fossil fuels (plastics are produced as a by-product). As oceans accumulate more bicarbonate, they become more acidic which is leading to the death of vast areas of coral reef, and other consequences.
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In the past 30-years researchers are still unsure how much carbon dioxide is absorbed by our oceans, but we know now that human activity both shifts this rate but also the ocean currents, which also shifts the rate of carbon dioxide absorption... it is a complex network (learn more here).
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The take home is that our oceans are increasingly saturated so can no longer balance our emissions of carbon dioxide, the changes we are causing are reducing the numbers of phytoplankton in the oceans, further damaging this feedback mechanism.
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On top of this, it looks like micro- and nanoplastics that litter our waterways and oceans are being picked up by phytoplankton instead of carbon further interrupting the ocean's capability to balance our carbon-fuelled lifestyles (check out the science here).
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So far then, it seems that our addiction to plastics is causing three critical issues for our oceans:
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First, plastics in our oceans are physically killing wildlife through accidental trapping and subsequent drowning, or swallowing of plastic materials leading to starvation and deaths.
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Second, plastics in the oceans are contributing to depleted numbers of phytoplankton - a critical species that helps capture carbon dioxide in the oceans and feed millions of larger fauna across the food chain. So our impacts on these creatures could reduce all life in the seas - and researchers are reporting the declining numbers of all species studied (here are some further reading materials on this)
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The production of primary plastics (the resins and polymers needed to make any subsequent product) come from fossil fuels. This creates a parallel market for the carbon commodities that we need to move away from using (we will talk more about this in August). Plastics have, therefore, a role to play in global warming, and acidification of the oceans which leads to the death of coral reefs.
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This is why this challenge is on the list - and why it feels like one of the most important ones to me.
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On land, there are serious issues to our addiction to plastic commodities too. The sheer quantity we produce means that nearly everywhere, we are now experiencing landfill issues. We are at capacity.
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This challenge will help us figure out what we can do as consumers fairly easily, and what would need to change more generally to enable us all to have less reliance on plastic - particularly primary plastic derived from oil.
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To help with setting up for no plastics check out:
https://www.anythingbutplastic.co.uk/
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More to come soon!
February: The month without plastics
February 5th
The tough stats
We are going to start with the really tough reality of our world with plastics... Please stick with us because we will look into the technological solutions arriving or already implemented as the month progresses...
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The physical challenges of plastic waste
First, we consider the physical challenge of creating so much plastic waste. The end-of-life moment for any plastic item is generally either to be recycled, incinerated, placed in landfill, or discarded as pollution to our waterways, habitats and oceans. The Figure here demonstrates the breakdown of where plastics end up and how this is estimated to have changed over the years from 1980 to 2015 (check out Our World In Data for more)
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At a global level, cumulatively it is estimated that we surpassed the production of 8.3 billion metric tonnes of plastic in 2017 (Geyer, Jambeck, and Law 2017) - there is no sign of us slowing down since. To try and give some perspective to the sheer scale of this quantity of a material that is generally discarded at the end of its use-life, an African elephant can weigh about 4 metric tonnes... so this would be the same amount of plastics as 115 million adult African elephant. (As an aside, in 2016, less than 416,000 African elephant (savannah and forest species combined) were estimated to be left in the wild (learn more on their conservation status here).)
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An estimated 8 million metric tonnes of plastic waste litter our oceans each year, spilling into the ecosystem from over 1000 different rivers globally (Meijer et al. 2021). The main waste items found depends on where you look (see here for more), but whether you check a riverbed, or ocean floor, plastic bags, bottles and bottle tops feature prominantly, as do fishing related items, ropes and nets but also wrappers, straws and stirrers. These items take an extraordinarily long time to decompose (check out the accompanying figure) and having done so, may be causing all sorts of problems that are noted in our earliest February blog above. There are also many heartbreaking stories and photographs now of wildlife caught and killed in discarded plastic waste - the absolute number of deaths is difficult to quantify but likely in the order of hundreds of thousands annually.
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Our World In Data has put together a brilliant resource of more (often disturbing) stats on plastic pollution, in addition to the figures reprinted from the same site above, so please take a look here.
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The potential climate challenges of plastics
Next, as we noted earlier, we are concerned that there are potential longterm climate associated challenges to the plastic waste linked to how it decomposes in the environment and interacts with critical carbon capture mechanisms in our oceans. (These are noted in the section above, please take a look!) There are further likely negative health impacts of having so much plastic in our environments. Recently the presence of microplastics in the human body has been implicated in male infertility (D’Angelo and Meccariello 2021).
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The plastics financial market
Now we look to the size of the financial market surrounding plastics that is a driving force pushing this material into circulation (or rather, onto the consumers: the word circulation does not really work, plastic products are more of a conveyor belt that end up piling up as landfill or ocean waste).
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In 2019, the global plastics market size was USD 450.88 billion and rose to USD 579.7 billion in 2020, by 2021 it had grown to USD 593.00 billion with expected compound annual growth rate expansion of 3.7% from 2022 to 2028 (check it out here). So, huge consumer pressure is needed to shift ourselves away from fuelling the problem. These plastics accumulate and take decades (sometimes centuries) to decompose at the end of their use-life so will continually add to our landfill space challenges and ocean acidification unless we can recycle the products entirely (and clean up the plastics already discarded).
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The plastics industry is employing over 1.5 million people in Europe alone (2020 estimates) when considering raw materials producers, converters, recyclers and machinery manufacturers. Together, the 55,000 companies involved contributed over 30 billion Euros to European public finances (Plastics Europe 2020).
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The great challenge is to shift these giant industries to using recycled polymer and resins only (cutting out the primary plastics from fossil fuels), and to get all involved to sign up to preferentially using the types of plastics that can be recycled entirely to polymer or resin status (we will discuss this in a later post) with a minimal environmental cost. In addition to this seismic shift, there is a need to redirect jobs into other industries where it is possible to eliminate plastic products altogether from our societies. As consumers, our options to influence this enormous plastics conveyor belt are limited to selective purchasing wherever possible.
February 11th
Switching habits
We have been going at this challenge for just over a week now. We collected some plastic waste at the end of last month as a comparison to see where we are making savings. This is a slight miss match as we have a guest staying for the first two weeks of February so we are accruing a little additional waste. To our guests credit, they have gamely agreed to join in where possible with the efforts.
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Before
Week 1
A first and obvious switch is to bring our own reusable bags for our shopping. (As new parents we are a little advantaged here as we do not actually need bags with the buggy - it has ample space in a section below the baby.) The switching to a different type of shopping bag is a little more complicated than it first appears... the amount of greenhouse gas emissions used to make some products is substantially higher than those needed to make single use plastic bags, so that it requires us to use the alternative bag quite a large number of times for equivalency (check out the figure from Our World In Data). For conventional cotton bags, for example, the estimated number of times to reuse the bag is 52. This statistic does not account for degradation at the end of use-life, so it is still likely worth the switch. It makes the point though that we do not want to just replace a plastic item without considering the ultimate impacts from the superseding product.
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Food and drinks
Another switch is milk. We take oat milk because I am slightly lactose intollerant, we prefer the taste in coffees, and it has better ecological connotations than cow's milk (and most other alternatives). The good thing about oat milk is that we can make our own! And this can be plastic free (with a small caveat) if you are fortunate to have a wholesale retailers from whom to buy refills of various foods. We have a great shop called Source that supply all sorts of dried fruit, nuts, and seeds, flour, chocolates, and lentils, oils, beans and even soaps. The small caveat is that the shop uses big plastic containers and presumably gets stock in plastic containers from various farmers and manufacturers - albeit at far higher volumes from which we can decant our share. It's existance means that we can buy our products plastic-free however.
To make the oat milk we buy:
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whole organic oats
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dates
That's it... we soak the oats for a few hours in water, drain them and then mash them up a bit in the pestle and mortar. We then put them into the nutribullet (or you could use a food processor of any kind) with a few dates (with the stones removed) and some fresh water. Blitz this up and then sieve the solution. The liquid (our homemade oat milk) caught in a jug under the sieve tends to last about 3 days if we keep it in the fridge. We need to stir it prior to using any but it tastes good and you can play with the sweetness by adding more dates, honey or salt as you prefer. We also tend to make a smoothie with the left over chunkier bits caught in the sieve!
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Similarly, we have an excellent local market that we can find all sorts of fruit and veg., grown locally and free from any packaging. If there are plastic tubs or net bags on the food, we can return and reuse these each week.
So far so good. We can cut down hugely on our waste by using the refill shop, market and making our own basic products like bread and pasta. The major red flag here is time (with littler flags for energy and motivation), so this is not possible for everyone.
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Where we are falling short is when our energy levels are low and we want the convenience of foods like meat, cheese or yogurt. We also had too many snacks as evidenced in the pics above! These items are far harder to source without plastic. We do not eat very much meat and cheese and look forward to the vegan challenge later in the year and we opt for coconut yogurt, but these remain foods we have continued to eat this first week that mean we fall short. The other grey area is eating out. It is very difficult, perhaps not yet possible to find a nearby coffee place or restaurant that is truely plastic free. We are still having coffees out - and even though we bring our own mugs - the oat milk we drink in those coffees is from cartons that are not yet recyclable. We will try and step up our efforts as the weeks of February continue!
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Sanitary and health products
We have also switched to toothpaste tablets. It was a little disheartening to receive the toothpaste tablets that we ordered that were in a beautiful tin... but were wrapped in a thin plastic case regardless... but even so, this is far less plastic waste than our previous toothpaste tube.
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We can return to our refill shop for soap, shampoo and conditioner bars. We can also refill detergent for dishes and clothes, although we have preferentially chosen to get powdered washing soap for clothes that is stored in a cardboard package.
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Nappies is another space where we can save a fair bit of plastic. We have some bamboo nappies (from the excellent brand hippybottomus). We love these - it means we wash about 12-15 nappies every other day (with associated ecological costs to do with water use that we can talk about in March) but it saves a huge bulk of potential waste. Our parents' generation did this! There are plenty of plastic products marketed toward new parents - nappies, bottles, toys, all sorts of accessories. We opted for second hand toys (other than gifts from lovely friends and family) and have exclusively breastfed. Now we are moving onto foods we can use bamboo utensils, cups and bowls, so we can minimise the plastic impact from our baby too.
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We can avoid creams and make up for the month with the exception of suncream. It is tough to find a suncream without plastic. In the UK check out these options. Elsewhere, these products might help. We have one option locally - a tin version of a zinc-based sun lotion that is very thick and designed for a surfer to use on their face. However, this is not a reasonable option for our everyday use, especially if we are applying to large areas of our bodies. For babies, we have been advised to use the mineral based options.
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Cleaning
We are lucky here and can once again return to our refill shop for household cleaners. My partner works at a recycling tip so also salvages the occasional cleaning product from landfill when something unused is discarded. But there are reasonable options for us to move away from plastics here.
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This leaves our bigger items like the hoover, the washing machine, phones and computers. How to extend the useful lifelength of these types of commodities is a huge question. The useful lifelength of plastic for different industries is estimated by Our World in Data.
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As you can see on the chart here, products for different purposes are expected to last for different lengths of time on average. There may be a very interesting debate to be had here about what are the benefits of extending the useful lifelength of a product versus upgrading that commodity to a more efficient version. There is likely a trade off in the emissions produced, water usage for some items, capabilities of others.
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For now, the best option for us, as I see it, is to make sure we extend the length of time we are using our items generally and look into what parts of different products can be recycled. We could then upgrade those with recyclable opportunities to newer and more efficient options when possible and ensure minimal waste from older retired commodities. Who should bare responsibility for the cost of recycling is another interesting debate - could the manufacturer be required to contribute to this? Should users have to cover these costs?
February 16th The route ahead
About 99% of primary plastics produced annually are derivatives of fossil fuel hydrocarbon monomers such as ethylene and propylene and neither are biodegradable. In 2015, we produced an estimated 270 million tonnes of primary plastic (Plastic Pollution - Our World in Data); this total reached an estimated 368 million metric tonnes of primary (newly manufactured) plastics in 2019. That is a wopping great heap of waste...
Each year we produce more plastic waste than the primary plastic produced because the length of time that items from previous years are used exceeds a year in many cases and are now being scrapped while we continue to make new things. The current, and only, endpoints for plastics are either incineration or landfill; even when recycled, the eventual endpoint remains one of these two options. These synthetic materials do not naturally degrade.
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Therefore, the way forward is fairly clear but tough to implement. In order of importance, we must:
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First reduce our use - prevention is our critical option. Cut the use of plastics wherever we can.
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Second, we can reuse plastic items - maximising the use-life length of products to minimise our generated waste also minimises the problem of coping with the horrific volume of plastic waste we are accruing.
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After we tackle both the above, we can improve our capacity to recycle plastics.
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Then we can consider extracting energy from the remaining waste generated (but this requires incineration of plastics which can cause air pollution challenges).
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And finally, we can resort to landfilling the remaining products - recognising the finite space we have to do this which makes it a last resort.
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So how can we go about doing all this, and who is doing what?
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The UK (as an example)
At the end of last year the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) published a report (that is well worth a read) calling for the ban of all plastic waste by 2027. This would mean that this net exporting country would have to manage all waste generated by its population either through the use of landfill, incineration or recycling.
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Today, the UK sends over 60% of the generated plastic waste abroad. Some of these items end up in countries that do not have the capacity to manage the waste effectively and this contributes to the leaking of waste into waterways and our oceans. It is great that the UK committee from DEFRA have recognised the need to address, and take responsibility for, this shared problem.
Among other aims, the report asks the UK Government to:
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"Prioritis[e] efforts to reduce the volume of waste and increase the amount of plastic that is reused rather than simply recycled"
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"Roll-out [...] Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging. EPR will see producers bearing a greater proportion of the cost of disposing the material they put on the market, which should incentivise them to reduce the amount of packaging they produce and use more easily recyclable materials."
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"Explore other ways to make reuse and refill models mainstream, including charges on single-use products, mandatory reporting on companies’ plastic footprints, and [raising] public awareness" and:
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"Support [...] the plastic packaging tax [requiring] producers must ensure that 30% of the content of plastic packaging comes from recycled sources [...] and commit to increasing the recycled content requirement over time.
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The report notes current UK government aims and discusses where these may not be ambitious enough. One reason for further ambition is the huge support from the public for a change in effective plastic recycling / reuse rates - well done us, now let's keep up the pressure!
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There is also a UK Plastics Pact for businesses, a European Pact and roadmap where different European countries are invested in addressing these same challenges. There are also Pacts elsewhere in the world e.g. India. This report is the most recent we can find for Australia but may be updated by the new Government.
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Prevention
The UK report summaries the current situation around prevention in the UK as follows:
"Despite progress in reducing the use of some problematic plastics and plastic products and creating an uplift in recycled content in new plastic production, progress in tackling plastic waste appears to have slowed in recent years. Current initiatives are clearly not driving progress as effectively as possible. Some of the definitions and metrics for the targets driving change need to be improved to make them: clearer and less ambiguous; more ambitious and measurable; and more reflective of the waste hierarchy with a strong focus on reducing the amount of plastic waste created in the first place. However, with this focus comes the need to ensure that plastics are not replaced by possibly more impactful materials as plastic usage is reduced in the future."
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The European pact also sets a target for the responsible use of plastics. One aim of those involved is "to reduce virgin plastic products and packaging by at least 20% (by weight) by 2025, with half of this reduction coming from an absolute reduction in plastics."
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The Australian plan sets out to phase out the use of many non-recyclable plastics by the end of last year (please let us know if you read this and can update us on any progress!) with other types to be phased out by 2025.
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Reuse
The UK report also recognises that "achieving the widespread adoption of reusable packaging and refill would require fundamental changes to a large part of our economy and to the mindset and behaviour of companies and consumers". Our part as consumers can be in selective purchases and boycotting poorly committed companies... as well as helping to raise awareness of all these issues.
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The European target looks to ensure all plastics are either reusable or recyclable by 2025. The Australian target sees appropriate labelling enforced onto items leaving it to the consumer to change the market pressures on manufacturers!
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Recycling
The main option employed at the moment is mechanical recycling. This is a process where plastics are washed, and then either shredded or milled before being melted down and turned into pellets. The pellets can then be used to create new products. The problem is that the quality of the plastic decreases on each round of mechanical recycling so that eventually plastic products pass on to the incineration or landfill end-point.
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You might have heard of 'biodegradable' or 'compostable' plastics. These are supposed to degrade more rapidly than other plastics but the problem here is that the byproducts of the degradation are more greenhouse gas emissions. There is also confusion on the products being sold in this space so that currently, the UK report asks for careful consideration for specific times when these products could be used as an alternative.
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Technology has come a fair way in this space and we have now the option of chemical recycling. One of the leading companies in this space is Viridor. A target for this company - a founding member of the UK Plastics Pact - is to end plastic waste export from the UK. The company Report on its circularity ambition states that:
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"Viridor will end our export of plastic waste and focus on reprocessing all four major forms of plastics, working with industry and Government to achieve fully circular recycling for polyethylene terephthalate (PET), high- and low-density polyethylene (HDPE and LDPE) and polypropylene (PP) by 2025. Using [carbon dioxide] COâ‚‚ captured from our [Energy from Waste] EfW plants we will target the end of plastic dependency on fossil fuels by 2040."
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For a little background,
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Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) is one of the most recycled plastics. We use it in drinks bottles and things like yoghurt pots.
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High-density polyethylene (HDPE) is a stiffer plastic for things like shampoo bottles, soaps, milk containers or margarine tubs.
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Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) tends to be for things like bread bags, squeezy bottles and frozen food bags.
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Polypropylene (PP) makes plastic straws, plastic tape, some takeaway tubs and ketchup tubs.
All these have potential to be fully recycled with the newer technology.
Landfill and Incineration
Finally, we have to think about those types of plastic we cannot do anything with. These are the critical ones to avoid and cut down on if at all possible. These include:
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Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) that is used for cling flim, hoses, outdoor furniture and even blister packaging.
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Polystyrene (P) that makes things like plastic forks, the foamy takeaway packaging, some meat packaging and some yoghurt pots, as well as styrofoam and insulation.
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Bioplastics,
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Composite plastics that are in things like crisp wrappers
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Plastic coated wrapping paper and polycarbonate which contains Bisphenol-A (BPA)
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February 21st A difficult task
I thought I would write something more personal this week. Given everything I know about how bad plastic waste is for our world, I am still failing to eliminate it from our everyday. I still take the easier option when I determine that I need to. I still sidestep the difficult moments when I could try a little harder and cut a little more out. We had a little spillover plastic from our previous way of life (a packet for pasta or rice, the old toothpaste tube for example). We also had a guest staying and did not want to push too hard or make anyone feel uncomfortable by diligently cutting plastics completely. I also went for coffees most days so far this month so benefited from the oat milk used by these cafes (presumably in plastic cartons) plus any other plastics needed in the preparation or storage of the snacks and coffees that I consumed. This challenge is really hard.
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It is quite disheartening to witness the amount we have accrued as 3 adults and a baby over the past 3 weeks - it is not yet a bagful but I thought we would do a bit better. There are some medicinal and personal care items; contact lenses for travelling and paraceptamol packaging that is it more difficult to avoid. There are certainly some snack items we could do without (and will avoid for this last week). But all this goes to show that, ideally, we really need a systems change to ensure that any one of us can frequent shops and feel free from guilt with our purchases.
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We have agreed to try additionally hard this last week to see how well we can do when we are doing our absolute best so next week I will publish a photo of our final week of minimal plastic waste.
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In our experience, we - as the lay community - really need help - from governance, business and legislation - when it comes to keeping our plastic waste low. It is good to see some road maps to plastic waste reductions appearing in different parts of the world. In fact, more than 170 countries have pledged to 'significantly reduce' plastic use by 2030 (for more read on here). The term 'significantly reduce' is ambiguous though so it would be better if concrete goals could be set. Moving in this direction, many countries or regions of countries now have legislation banning plastic bags or single-use commodities including Rwanda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Canada, the UK, and regions of the EU, the USA, China and Australia among other territories.
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The USA has a Plastic Waste Reduction and Recycling Act introduced in June 2020 which notes its aim to make the US recycling market more competitive. This indicates that as more territories aim to achieve circular economies for waste, others will follow. The UK introduced a Plastic Packaging Tax in April 2022 to ensure that any plastics manufactured in, or imported into, the UK must consist of at least 30% recycled plastics. Similarly, the objective of this tax states that it aims to:
"... provide a clear economic incentive for businesses to use recycled plastic in the manufacture of plastic packaging, which will create greater demand for this material. In turn this will stimulate increased levels of recycling and collection of plastic waste, diverting it away from landfill or incineration."
Both these developments show a way forward; to incentivise the great system changes we feel are needed, generating markets for investors may help.
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The UK organisation WRAP sets out to establish pacts between businesses, governments and industry that bring able the scale of change we need. WRAP is international now. The UK has a road map for the signatories of the UK plastic pact. The pact states that by 2023 all members must have aligned flexible plastic packaging to industrial agreed standards which should make them all (preferably) mechanically or (at the least) non-mechanically recyclable. All consumers should have access to drop off points for recycling these flexible plastics and the infrastructure to process them should be established... According to the road map report, the aim for the end of 2022 was to be able to recycle 10% of the plastics placed on the market at front of store collection points. This sounds low and I do not know if it was achieved... but at least it is a quantifiable start.​
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There are Plastics Pacts elsewhere too (check them out here).
February 26th How we did...
Pictured within the green blocks are our collected recyclable plastic waste for February. We have mixed feelings on this bulk waste... we are a little disappointed at the amount - although it is relatively a small batch for 3 adults and a baby over a month - and clearly we could have cut out some of the snack items. Yet, at least this is recyclable. The problem is the technology near to us is currently only able to recycle these items to a lower quality plastic product. In the absence of our own will power, given our addiction to the convenience of these items ... we need systemic change to help us eliminate our waste... how did you do?
In the dashed red blocks are the items we collected that we cannot recycle. This is our contribution directly to landfill. This is not all - over the next couple of years we are likely going to need to donate toys, a cot and a pram to others - all of which have an eventual destiny with landfill (unless the technology saves us).
We absolve our personal guilt a little bit given almost all our things are second hand (a perk of a partner working in recycling with access to goods!) [Arggghh - I am already falling into making excuses!], but still - the linear pathway of these commodities does not bode well when you start to scale up bulk waste if everyone lives as expensively as we do. ... We are likely on the lower end of waste generators in our community which is scary given how much there is in these photos.
Take home 1: We need help throughout the plastics pathway to reduce our collective waste. Ideally, the manufacturer could do all they can to eliminate plastic wrapping wherever possible so we can avoid buying it; there could be legislative change such as no more plastic wrapping for foods generally - we could use cloth bags or bamboo tupperwear to collect foods like tofu, meats and cheeses or breads, yoghurts and nuts. The roadmaps from many businesses and governments are heading this way. Advocacy can help speed the journey.
One hot tip came from a lovely cousin: we can make plastic bricks! These can be used to build anything - we are likely going to make flower beds with our waste... you can check out how to do this here.
Take home 2: Travelling plastic free can be really tough. Our visitor needed contact lens' which created a bit of waste (we can use these for our bricks). There is also heaps of wasted plastic via snack products we all like to take with us, as well as that provided on planes, trains or ships depending on the mode of transport. A simple saver is to take your own cup and cutlery for these types of journeys and wherever possible your own selected snacks too.
I had a slight illness this month - a sore throat and tiredness - leading me to take a COVID-19 test. The whole test is made of plastics however, leaving us thinking about what are essential single use plastics and how to cope with this waste?
Public health Plastics
Plastics are critical for our public health sector as things stand.
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Microplastics help deliver drugs to the body (Patel et al. 2009).
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Plastic equipment helps avoid disease transmission. This may be personal protective gear, injections or surgical equipment.
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Many rapid diagnostic tests diagnose diseases, allow diagnosis and treatment in all sorts of environments, saving lives.