Reducing plastic usage

7_week_wonder

As a long time mainly lurker on this board I've been reading this thread with interest. And now I'd welcome some thoughts on a practical problem: my trusted Lock&Locks have been used so much that the seals are broken in a couple of them and twice this week my soup has leaked into the bottom of my work bag
So now I'm looking to replace the tubs with something else - but what would people suggest?

I like to make a vat of soup at the weekend, portion it up and then take a pot from the fridge each day and heat it up in the office microwave.I travel on public transport and am a bit clumsy at the best of times so I can't rely on the container stay upright on my way to work All suggestions for replacement pots or alternative solutions gratefully received!

Fiftys1

Thanks for the link Catarina - pleased to say I have already signed this one and so has my OH.

Also a petition on 'Eco thrifty living' to stop the use of plastic micro beads in cosmetic products. 10000 signatures required for a government response.

No milk delivery in glass where I live since local milkman retired a few years ago so I have to buy in plastic. Recently a new delivery started up but in plastic bottles only so no advantage. The guy canvassing for customers insisted that no one delivers in glass any more which I Informed him was not true. Less than 5 miles from me relatives do still have this fantastic service.

Fiftys1

7 week wonder - how about a thermos flask to carry your soup in? Either cold and pour in to a bowl to microwave at work or warm up before you leave home.

MummyEm

Interesting thread. I too am trying to reduce our plastic usage and also waste generally. I am also a follower of bea Johnson and several other zero waste bloggers.

Don't have a huge amount to add but think the thing to remember is there is always a cost to cheaper items. Another interesting site to look up is 'the story of stuff'. The videos are particularly good for explaining to children or the unenlightened !

Caterina

Fiftys1 I have also signed the microbeads petition, it is awful that so little is known about the horrors contained in some cosmetics. I have known about microbeads for a long time but when I spoke to people about it they would go "yeh, yeh" and roll their eyes, like to say "Here she goes again, the harbinger of environmental doom". people really don't want to hear it. Very troubling.

7 week wonder I second the idea of a thermos flask, wide mouthed so you can also take stews. And start saving your jam, coffee and pickles glass jars, then you can store the (cooled) soup in them and freeze it.

Edited to add: a good thermos flask will retain the heat from the morning to lunchtime and in any case you cannot put it in the microwave because it is metal, so if you heat the soup at home it saves you from having to tip it into a bowl at work, you can have it directly from the flask. When DH was still working I often sent him to work with a thermos full of hot soup, a chunk of buttered bread, a piece of fruit and a bag of mixed nuts or a flapjack, he loved these lunches, preferred them to sandwiches by far.

MummyEm I agree, the Story of Stuff videos are really well made and interesting.

kboss2010

Reducing plastic is a thing I struggle with too. I buy most of my shopping from Aldi for cost reasons so fruit and veg mostly comes with plastic wrapping, yoghurts come in pots, milk in plastic etc. etc.

I reduce usage by using EVERYTHING and not wasting anything I.e. buying large bottles of milk rather than lots of small ones, squeezing the most out of toothpaste tubes, shower gels etc and rinsing them out and using the washings too. I also squash my rubbish in bins to use fewer bin bags but you have to buy the sturdy ones for this.

Caterina

Kboss2010, the key word here is reducing, I think it is the way to go for most people and it sounds like you are doing as well as you can.

Having tried to go zero plastic I can assure you that it is almost impossible and at best extremely expensive, or extremely hard work. Just think how everything would have to be be made from scratch, looking for basic materials or ingredients that themselves were unpackaged, or bought from an artisan maker, craft person, farmer etc...

The ideal is lovely, but IMHO unattainable while we live in modern society. Especially living in an urban situation, where we don't have a farm shop (for unpackaged food).

However there are so many things that can be done and minimising the use is one, which we all seem to be doing to the best of our ability.

This is a growing movement and I am sure that it will become bigger, so that sooner or later we will be able to find non plastic alternatives to many things.

Keep up the good work!

Ben84

Caterina wrote: »

Ben84 thank you for your contribution, I think you have a point about some of the advantages of plastic in general terms. Like everything, it has its pros and cons. It is the overuse, though, the all-pervasive presence in every aspect of life, the toxicity and hormonal disruption, the VOCs, the single use, these downfalls are too big for me to overlook. However I would not advocate getting rid of all plastic just for the sake of it, but gradually replace obsolete/worn plastic items with more salubrious and natural materials where possible. Reusing a shopping bag many times makes perfect sense, I have a dwindling stock which I use carefully to wrap bread (over the paper bag) to store in the freezer, or as bin liners then empty all the rubbish in the one big bag, saving the individual bags in the small bins etc...

Reduction and careful use are my goals for the time being, I would just go round the bend if I had to try and be a zero plastic purist!

Hi Caterina, a lot of interesting points are coming up in this thread.

From what I've seen, plastics generally use less energy and water than an item to do the same task made of paper, metal or glass. This is definitely good for the environment. However, some, although not all, plastics also involve environmentally unfriendly chemicals like BPA, which is also dubious for human health. However, BPA is a good example of how it gets complex, as it's also widely used in the coatings of metal cans and the metal lids of jars/bottles. Paper making can also emit large amounts of dioxin through the bleaching processes. Non-plastic materials are not without their chemical pollution problems either. Glass at least seems to be free of these and when discarded it's inert. Glass however is hugely energy intensive to make and bulky/heavy to transport, which costs more energy, so more pollution from oil extracting, refining and from vehicles.

The pollution profiles of each material varies widely, and it's really difficult to know the exact details. And even when we do, how do you compare say BPA pollution against CO2 savings? It just becomes subjective at some point. For better or worse, the complexity of it all has largely made me a fan of plastics as everything I've seen does at least show them to save a lot of energy/resources compared to other materials. When unpackaged isn't an option and I have a choice between glass or plastic, I usually choose plastic because of the clear resource savings.

Ironically, although plastic is often seen as one of the big examples of modern environmental damage, we'd probably be damaging the environment more if we lived the same disposable lifestyles without plastics. On the other hand however, perhaps we'd be reusing stuff and minimally packaging a lot more in a plastic free world? It's difficult to say if plastics have helped or made things worse. Have they turned us in to wasteful people, or helped make wasteful people more energy and resource efficient? But that's all hypothetical, and when I'm out shopping and trying to make positive choices as I'm surrounded by disposable stuff, I tend to lean more towards plastics. I think they're lighter on the environment, but still not good for it.

Ben84

Fiftys1 wrote: »

Also a petition on 'Eco thrifty living' to stop the use of plastic micro beads in cosmetic products. 10000 signatures required for a government response.

This is interesting. Those plastic beads are commonly used in exfoliating type products, and polypropylene (or some other plastic) will be somewhere in the ingredients list. They're not great however as they're so small they just pass through the sewage plant and in to the environment. Of course, they're not biodegradable. Taking them out of products is a good idea, and alternative exfoliating particles can be made from things like ground nut shells, which should be quite benign in the environment.

Unfortunately, a lot of tiny plastic particles also escape in to the environment from plastic manufacturing, as many plastics are sold in this form to manufacturers who heat and extrude them or blow them in to moulds. This is one of the downsides to plastics, and a distinctly plastic related problem.

Caterina

Hi Ben84,

You always bring a very interesting and balanced view to the plastic vs non plastic debate. It is indeed a very difficult thing to balance all factors and make a fully informed decision. You are right that it might ultimately be a question of personal choice (over a scientifically sound reasoning, perhaps).

Just a couple of points: glass is 100% recyclable into other glass of equal quality, whereas plastics degrade in quality during the recycling process and eventually become unusable and go to landfill. Regarding microbeads, I am sure that a bit of online research will provide information on the damage that these tiny pieces of plastic enter ecosystems and eventually can even end up being eaten by humans, via the eating of fish. The plastic particles that are dispersed in the environment by other plastic usage also are an undesirable factor of the overuse of plastics in every aspect of modern life. Again, it is not use per se, but overuse that is causing so many problems in so many ways.

This is indeed a very complex issue and I am very glad that there is a debate and a willingness from many people to get more awareness of the pros and cons.

Edited to add: many people who are trying to avoid BPA contamination of food are rejecting some tinned food because of it. I believe that the more basic tins, eg tomatoes, are plain metal, whereas the premium ones are plastic lined. Again, it comes to personal choice as to how much "inconvenience" - for want of a better word - someone is willing to go through, in order to avoid exposure. Personally I still use the odd tin but for the most part I make my own sauces with fresh tomatoes and baked beans from scratch. However I am retired and have the time and am aware that not everybody can go to these lengths.