Don't be bamboozled by 'Eco'

Tomorrow, I am going to start giving you some ideas on simple product swaps that will reduce your use of plastics and single use items in the home. But, before you start making changes, I wanted to take a moment to discuss the term ‘eco’.

Many companies are well aware of the growing army of individuals wanting to make a difference and decrease their footprint on the planet. Unfortunately, that means that a lot of marketing effort is going into being very clever with words. Items are popping up all over the place stating that they are ‘eco’ friendly. Hand in hand with this comes the price tag, and an assumption that customers are happier to pay a bit more if they believe it has come from a sustainable and ethical source.

I learnt the lesson the hard way. At the beginning of the year, I bought some e-cloths from a well-known high street store. They were not at all cheap, but having read the packs of all the cloths on offer, they appeared to be the most environmentally friendly. They had different colours for the kitchen and bathroom and the pack contained a washing and silver buffing cloth. The packaging informed me that I could wash them up to 300 times without the cloth decomposing and that I could clean using only water – no chemicals were necessary. This one cloth could replace the wipes, j-cloths and kitchen roll I regularly used for cleaning. Adding up the cost of the j-cloths etc versus this e-cloth, I felt the cost was worthwhile.

When I then posted them on Instagram, as my change for the day, I very quickly got a response telling me that these were in fact terrible for the environment! The cloths are made from a synthetic material that unleashes micro plastic fibres into the water every time they are washed.

At that point, I wasn’t even sure what micro plastic fibres were! They were mentioned in news reports but not to the extent they are today (and that was only ten months ago). To be honest, I would not be surprised if the company selling these cloths was aware of the issue and the harm these fibres are doing to the eco-system.

Microplastics are small pieces of plastic that are less than 5 millimetres long. They are harmful to aquatic life as they are often mistaken for food. Microplastics can come from our clothes when washed or from larger plastic items that break up in the water over time. Microbeads are a form of microplastics that have now been banned.

I recently read ‘How to Give Up Plastic’ by Will McCallum the Head of Oceans at Greenpeace. He explained that the research and investigation on micro plastics is only just starting to collate significant results as to the scale of the problem. Sadly, the problem is proving to be huge as these plastics have now been found in the smallest organisms in the oceans and more recently in humans and bottled water.

As a customer, I put my hands up - I am still rather bamboozled when trying to buy products. It is hard to know who and what to believe. I know in previous decades, we have been taught not to buy ivory, teak, fur and CFCs. Now some 30 or 40 years on we are still trying to figure out what is best for our planet.

There are, however, rays of light peeking through with companies who are honestly trying to use only sustainable materials. Items displaying this logo mean that they are created with sustainable woodland in mind. Hopefully, more companies like this will continue to flourish to enable us, as consumers, to make the right choice.

The other minefield associated with the concept of ‘eco’ is having to decide what you are willing to pay more for and what, at present, your budget won't allow for. Deciding you can’t make a swap at the moment, due to cost, is not a failing at all. There are plenty of other ways that you can make changes that won’t cost money. Some items will cost more but the product maybe stronger and will last for many years if you look after it. Others might mean that you are actually spending less – for example a veggie curry may cost a lot less than a beef curry.

No-one else can make this decision for you and the decisions you make will be based on your current situation and an assessment of money and time. A programme I watched recently, showed a parent with four children try out reusable nappies. After the trial, she felt this swap was not practical for her. She did however swap to reusable wipes and ditched single use ones. I can only imagine with four children, that would equate to a lot of wipes, thus making a difference.

Also, your swaps don’t have to be ‘eco’ branded items. You could make better choices of items based on their packaging, which will still make a difference. The Recycle Now website tells us that a can or a glass bottle will get recycled and recycled and recycled – sometimes indefinitely. The process of recycling a glass bottle back into a glass bottle does not therefore use any new raw materials. The same can be said of recycling aluminium cans which saves up to 95% of the energy it would take to make one from scratch. Plastic does not share the same quality and will often be down-cycled. A plastic bottle is unlikely to become a bottle again but instead might become beads to make a picture frame or garden furniture.

If you bought your coke in a can instead of a bottle, and made sure the can went into the recycling bin at home, your action would be making a difference. If you choose to buy ketchup in a glass bottle instead of plastic, you will be making a difference. Taking your rubbish home with you, so that you know it is going to be recycled correctly, will make a difference. All these changes added up together will start to make significant differences.

It is obvious that we only know a tiny amount of detail about what really happens when we mess with the planet’s eco-systems. We can hope that research starts to enlighten us and educate us about the right way to consume. Until then we have to fall back on something that is often taken for granted – common sense.