In Turning the Tide on Plastic, Lucy suggests that the first step on the road to changing the world is to record the things that we throw away. Just the act
of self-assessment can jolt you into action! So I did two things: I kept a diary
of all the plastic things I threw away over two weeks and I counted up all of my
single-use plastic items.
For years, making environmentally friendly choices has been lingering at the back of my mind, so I didn't think my results would be too horrific. But this little audit showed that I need to bring it to the very front of my mind in order to make any difference at all.
Plastic audit
Here we go. Full disclosure.
I have no less – and probably more – than FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETEEN plastic items in my life, most of which are single-use. And 332 of these items are in the bathroom. (Yes, I do have a big cupboard.) This isn't counting individual cotton buds, which we know get tangled up in the tails of poor sea horses. But it is counting these things:
1 plastic eyeliner
2 shower caps
3 hair conditioners
4 bathroom cleaning sprays
5 lip balms
6 food packets in the freezer
7 shampoos
8 shower gels
9 packets of bath salts
10 bottles of contact lense solution
... and a shocking...
55 nail varnishes!
79 tampons!
I hereby set myself a challenge: in six months I want to halve that amount. So that's 210 plastic items that I will be replacing with something else. Wish me luck, I think that might be very difficult indeed. Is there such thing as plastic-free floss? I'm about to find out.
Plastic diary
As for the plastic diary, that yielded similarly eye-opening results. I only counted the bits of plastic that went in the bin: the un-recyclables. Among other things, this included:
1 bit of sticky tape
4 of those plastic windows from envelopes
5 toilet paper / kitchen roll bags
6 cereal bar wrappers
23 bits of food packaging
23 items relating to my period
I threw away 84 things over 14 days, which is an average of 6 items per day. That might not sound like a lot, but if I throw away 6 plastic things every day of my life, that's 2,190 bits of non-recyclable plastic per year. In ten years that's 21,900 bits of plastic. In thirty years that's 65,700 bits of plastic. Jeez.
According to a report from June 2016, 12.2 million tonnes of plastic makes its way into the oceans each year and 80% of that comes from the land (as opposed to fishing boats). The main bulk of that is everyday plastic packaging, the likes of which I've listed here.
The worst offenders on my list were food packaging and period products so I will focus my efforts in those places soonest. I think we can all agree it that would be daft if I threw away all of my nail varnishes just to reach my target, so I'll instead try not to buy any more of them... unless I can find sustainable ones. We shall see!
Let's end with...
Some goals
- Buy food from my local zero waste shop.
- Replace bathroom bottles with bars.
- Buy reusable period products.
- Make my own bathroom cleaning spray.
If you'd like to make small changes too, I challenge you, dear reader, to record your own plastics. Let me know how you get on!
of self-assessment can jolt you into action! So I did two things: I kept a diary
of all the plastic things I threw away over two weeks and I counted up all of my
single-use plastic items.
For years, making environmentally friendly choices has been lingering at the back of my mind, so I didn't think my results would be too horrific. But this little audit showed that I need to bring it to the very front of my mind in order to make any difference at all.
Plastic audit
Here we go. Full disclosure.
I have no less – and probably more – than FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETEEN plastic items in my life, most of which are single-use. And 332 of these items are in the bathroom. (Yes, I do have a big cupboard.) This isn't counting individual cotton buds, which we know get tangled up in the tails of poor sea horses. But it is counting these things:
1 plastic eyeliner
2 shower caps
3 hair conditioners
4 bathroom cleaning sprays
5 lip balms
6 food packets in the freezer
7 shampoos
8 shower gels
9 packets of bath salts
10 bottles of contact lense solution
... and a shocking...
55 nail varnishes!
79 tampons!
 |
| A small sample of the 419 plastic items that I apparently need in order to survive. |
I hereby set myself a challenge: in six months I want to halve that amount. So that's 210 plastic items that I will be replacing with something else. Wish me luck, I think that might be very difficult indeed. Is there such thing as plastic-free floss? I'm about to find out.
Plastic diary
As for the plastic diary, that yielded similarly eye-opening results. I only counted the bits of plastic that went in the bin: the un-recyclables. Among other things, this included:
1 bit of sticky tape
4 of those plastic windows from envelopes
5 toilet paper / kitchen roll bags
6 cereal bar wrappers
23 bits of food packaging
23 items relating to my period
I threw away 84 things over 14 days, which is an average of 6 items per day. That might not sound like a lot, but if I throw away 6 plastic things every day of my life, that's 2,190 bits of non-recyclable plastic per year. In ten years that's 21,900 bits of plastic. In thirty years that's 65,700 bits of plastic. Jeez.
According to a report from June 2016, 12.2 million tonnes of plastic makes its way into the oceans each year and 80% of that comes from the land (as opposed to fishing boats). The main bulk of that is everyday plastic packaging, the likes of which I've listed here.
The worst offenders on my list were food packaging and period products so I will focus my efforts in those places soonest. I think we can all agree it that would be daft if I threw away all of my nail varnishes just to reach my target, so I'll instead try not to buy any more of them... unless I can find sustainable ones. We shall see!
Let's end with...
Some goals
- Buy food from my local zero waste shop.
- Replace bathroom bottles with bars.
- Buy reusable period products.
- Make my own bathroom cleaning spray.
If you'd like to make small changes too, I challenge you, dear reader, to record your own plastics. Let me know how you get on!
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