Ain’t nothing left in this whole world I care about…
Well, the second part of Odyssey’s funky tune isn’t quite true, but the first part is to get you thinking today.
When I have spoken to people about making a start in lowering their waste and plastic usage, their immediate reaction is to say that they will go around the whole house and get rid of all plastic items.
STOP RIGHT THERE!
This is not the solution. Yes, the end goal is to slim the amount of packaging and waste that you are responsible for, but to throw things out before they reach the end of their useful life is just wasteful. For example, if you have a drawer full of Tupperware you need to keep that and I’ll tell you why tomorrow.
If you are anything like me, you will buy four pump soap bottles and three bottles of shampoo whenever they are on offer. They will then go into a cupboard or drawer, only for you to buy another bottle next time you are at a different supermarket and you think it is a good deal. The place to start is therefore to USE IT ALL UP. Use up those random containers of moisturiser, the five bottles of washing up liquid under the sink and the six boxes of toothpaste in the drawer under the bed. Ten months on, I still have liquid pump soap in the bathrooms – not because I am still buying them but because I am still using them up!
The only thing I would put into the bin right now are the items that contain microbeads. There is no easy solution to these pesky little bits of now outlawed plastic. If you use them up the beads will go into the water system. If you throw them away they will go into landfill but hopefully won’t leak into the water system. Scoop the product into the bin and wash out the container for recycling. It is a no win situation, but at least once you have got rid of them you will not be able to buy these products again as they are now banned.
Once your items start to finish, break or wear out, that is the time to take action and find an alternative. For example, in June, a very strong friend cut through my thin plastic chopping board with a pizza cutter! It was unrepairable and unusable so I replaced it with a more substantial wooden board.
My future posts will start to give you ideas on alternatives I have already found and now use on a regular basis.