Why Green? Pestilential Plastic?
Plastic, it gets everywhere doesn't it? Imagine a world without it - does the idea fill you with pleasure or panic?
The truth is it would be very hard to manage without plastic, but we can also make do with a heck of a lot less. To make the world a cleaner, greener, less-littered place we all need to use less of it, recycle more of it and reuse the rest whenever we can. The good news is that it is easy to do… and here are a few tips to help you on your way:
Reduce use
Using less plastic is the first step we all need to think about - if we use less in the first place then we will have to think up fewer creative ways to re-use what we have, and there will be less to recycle. Try this:
1.Take your own re-useable bags shopping - keep one in a coat pocket or handbag and lots in the car. Once you get into the habit of remembering them you'll rarely need to accept a plastic carrier again - oh, and get used to saying 'I don't need a bag, thanks' at every till you visit or your good intentions may vanish as your purchases disappear inside a bag wielded by a zealous assistant!
2.Buy fruit & veg loose whenever you can - yes, I know that's virtually impossible with cherries, but does broccoli need to be bagged? And try to avoid over-packaged foods - do cucumbers really need to be shrink-wrapped? Some co-op cucumbers are now nude! Buy loose or bagged apples, not those on foam trays with shrink-wrap covering them.
3.Complain about the over-use of packaging by manufacturers - especially with toys. The boys like little plastic action figures which come boxed with collector's cards, and so these can be displayed they are packaged with FOUR layers of clear plastic - ridiculous. Write to manufacturers; make the point they have to find another way.
Reuse
Try to be creative with the plastic you end up with at home - plastic supermarket bags can be bin liners (especially if they are the degradable kind - they can't be recycled anyway), margarine tubs for storing things, ice cream tubs for freezing left-overs in instead of Tupperware - the less that goes in the bin and so into landfill the better. As you probably know we are running out of landfill in Cornwall - do we really want our rubbish trucked up the A30 creating even more pollution? We have to throw less away… Which brings us on to…
Recycle
The new recycling calendar came through the door this week with dates for collection for the next year, info on how to obtain more boxes (they are free from the council offices, just ring up & arrange to collect one, or however many you need - and get lids to keep stuff dry & to stop it blowing away while you're there!), and the wonderful news that, from October, they will be collecting ALL plastic bottles. Plastic is actually hard to recycle - there are so many types and only certain ones can be recycled, so don't put other plastic in your boxes.
Yes it takes a bit of effort to recycle instead of just throwing things in the bin, but at our house we wash up recyclables then put them in a second bin to be sorted into our blue boxes the evening before collection, which also means we don't need to have all our blue boxes out taking up space. Since we also compost whatever we can, we usually only put out one black sack a week - for a family of five!
So, good luck reducing the amount of plastic in your life & around the world this summer!
There is a campaign to make Camborne a plastic-bag-free town, led by Camborne Science & Community College students and supported by the Regeneration Forum and Chamber of Commerce. To pledge your support, please send an email to: greenercamborne@googlemail.com.
