The War against plastic waste
392 replies
55.5K views
Quick links
Essential Money | Who & Where are you? | Work & Benefits | Household and travel | Shopping & Freebies | About MSE | The MoneySavers Arms | Covid-19 & Coronavirus Support
Essential Money | Who & Where are you? | Work & Benefits | Household and travel | Shopping & Freebies | About MSE | The MoneySavers Arms | Covid-19 & Coronavirus Support
Replies
I am now the possessor of a wooden toothbrush, bought whilst away on training & thinking "I keep buying these dashed things" so I took the extra step & raided Planet Organic on the Tottenham Court Road. I was very nearly seduced by their Last Straw, a telescoping straw in a pretty capsule case to go on a key-ring (never did wholly grasp where the brush was supposed to go) but thought I Have Two Packs of ordinary metal straws already which I am not using enough & went to examine their dental range. (Also what they call Titanium refers to the colour not the stainless steel metal.) They are doing a Buy One, Get One Half Price so I'm sorted.
And I got a bamboo carrycase off eBay from China (oh the shame & guilt), as the store didn't do cases. I even got a glass & tin lidded jar of toothpaste to chivvy me in the eco direction.
I have to say the string bags are working out Brilliantly - even if it takes a bit of practice loading them & you really can't conceal purchases terribly easily. (I had sanitary stuff encapsulated in fruit - and that's next on my to investigate & sort list. You can pay over £20 for three reusable pads, which seems madness when you can both make your own & chose the fabrics etc!)
I shall review the ready-to-rag summer frocks to see if they have any near teatowel sized pieces so I can make a wrap that will double as a tablecloth for my desk. The Good Housekeeping method for making your own wraps is here.
A bit off the topic:
Just yesterday I've read a post about artificial grass and was shocked that people use it insted of natural lawn in their yards and wash it with chemicals. They just get rid of grass and spoil the soil and ground water I suppose. It's all just becase they are too lazy to mow.
I'm in shock:mad:
Even quite small changes would be useful, to modify a thought from Mr Tesco... and there must be people out there who have thought of ways which we could all use.
Every plastic toothbrush ever made in the world since the 1950s is still somewhere on the planet... and yet these have existed all along:
https://www.google.com/search?q=wooden+toothbrushes&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiYmL6i4srjAhVxs3EKHd4_BpcQ_AUIEigC&biw=1440&bih=757
I think this is where it starts to tip into hairy shirt for me, where plastic becomes vilified I probably use between four and six toothbrush heads a year on my waste so around 24 max for my household im happy enough with that.
Yes I use an electric toothbrush myself and bought many heads ages ago. Before I run out I'm going to buy a compatible head set that instead of coming in the plastic as well are packed in cardboard. There are unfortunately some areas due to a disability and having less energy that I have difficulty doing. I would much prefer the bamboo brush even with it's nylon bristles as less plastic overall but my dental hygyine would suffer greatly.
Waiting for a bamboo head that is compatible with my toothbrush...
There are facilities you can send the heads to and they recycle them but recycling in my view is not the goal with plastic, although a good thing to do, it is reducing it as much as possible.
Using a wooden toothbrush, even with nylon bristles, dispenses with 98% of the plastic input...
... and I suspect this industry-pushed mantra of 'electric (yet more energy use) being better than manual' is over-stated - my dentist is perfectly happy with manual provided it's done properly.
This is just one, relatively minor issue but it's typical of the syndrome where gullible consumers swallow the marketing... and the use of plastic products... uncritically and even unthinkingly.
It's hard to break out of old ways... the number of people I see in the checkout queue still not bothering to bring a bag with them and reaching, glazed look on their faces, for yet another carrier as they spout rubbish into their mobiles...