Plastic free? Possible?

[terrym]

A lot of the attitudes here seem to be like this one:

I get that some people will never change, but that's no reason not to change your own habits, even ones 50 years in the making. "Nobody else is doing it, so why should I?" isn't a good enough excuse any more. Will buying your carrots loose rather than in the plastic bag save the world or undo damage that has already been done? Obviously not. But there has definitely been a shift in people's behavior and shopping habits and I think that supermarkets and businesses are looking at their bottom lines and seeing a shift towards plastic free products.

Part of it for me is that I do enjoy trying to find alternatives and often the products are better quality, more durable and work out cheaper than the plastic versions.

Some other ways we reduce our waste: we use a milk man - which supports a local business and reuses glass bottles.
I bought a safety razor, think it cost me 20 quid with 100 blades and it's the best shave I've had in years, the only waste is one blade every month. I don't know why everyone doesn't use one!
Fruit n veg is easy - just buy the loose ones
Meat n fish - take your own boxes
Rice, pasta, etc can be more difficult but there's a few places that have those weigh and save type things and looks like Waitrose is trialing them - can't be long before the rest do.
Bread - bake your own (not as hard as it sounds) or buy fresh bread from a bakery or the bakery section of the supermarket.
Soaps, shampoo etc - use bars.
Washing powder - get a box of it.

That's all I can think of for now but you can see how with a few changes you can really reduce your output. Homebrew is the next step for me, I have a few ideas to work with here.

I have to tell you that in our house we do most of the things on your list, and more besides, and continue to look for other ways of 'helping things along'. And have been doing things like this for as long as I can remember, and certainly before many on this forum were born. I was born into an age of austerity and the ethos of 'make do and mend' was passed on to many of my generation, certainly me, so there's nothing new about it. So I do my bit and more besides, but as I said earlier it's down to the unthinking 99,999 to do theirs and from what I observe the chances of that happening are not very significant. But I don't wave banners or get seriously hung up about it.
And for your information, glass milk bottles may well be environmentally less friendly that single use HDPE given that the latter can be easily recycled, and that comes from someone in the industry (and that's not me). So all that glistens may not necessarily be gold, although I applaud your desire to support a local business.

 

[dad_of_jon]

My plastic fv is recycled around 40 times i reckon. I try and make the better choice where possible, eg free range eggs, fairtrade etc. not everyone has that luxury.

Education & encouragement rather than compulsion is the preferable way forward.

 

[fury_tea]

And for your information, glass milk bottles may well be environmentally less friendly that single use HDPE given that the latter can be easily recycled, and that comes from someone in the industry (and that's not me). So all that glistens may not necessarily be gold, although I applaud your desire to support a local business.

There's pros and cons to everything, but I know that milk bottles are washed and reused on average around 15 times (up to 50 times), then once they are no longer fit for use they are recycled into new glass, which can happen almost indefinitely. A glass bottle takes more energy to produce than a plastic one. HDPE degenerates to the point of being unusable after around 10 cycles.
There's no perfect answer to any of this, but I'm happy keeping my milk man in work and keeping plastic out of the stream.

 

[-Bezza-]

I personally see diesel engines being eradicated but not petrol. (Although diesel engines are now being made more emission friendly( Electric cars are too expensive to purchase, to keep running etc etc Many people could not afford to purchase an electric car. Governments would lose billions in taxes from loss of fuel revenue... where would this come from?

My diesel car is incredibly low in its emissions. Diesels get a bad rap because of their nitrous oxide emissions (CO2 and fuel economy are lower) but Ad Blue, which is basically urine, reacts with the nitrous oxide to produce nitrogen and water - both completely harmless. So if anything, we should be scrapping petrol cars.

As for electric cars, well those amazing batteries that produce emissions no worse than bird song and hippy BO all need to be made somewhere and somehow. Google Baotou Lake - the Chinese are a bit more relaxed about pollution that European governments, so cheap lithium isn't an issue for them. The emissions in producing a hybrid car are also worse than conventional cars but hey, at least Toyota have engineered a new plant to offset some of that (https://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/toyota-engineers-flowers-to-offset-production-pollution/)

And hybrids in general. Lordy, of course they have great stats when it comes to emissions and fuel consumption in the outdated and inaccurate test data. But that's a nice bit of extra weight in the battery to haul around, increasing emissions/fuel consumption/tyre wear etc when operating under the conventional engine. Not so green after all.

Again, this isn't me being all "the environment is not my problem" and I will do things and make choices based on environmental considerations, but it often seems to be the case that the focus is one one very specific issue rather than seeing the bigger picture. The headlines are wonderful but the reality is often very different. "Good" can be bad and "bad" can be good, depending on perspective.

I like this video:

 

[-Bezza-]

Oh, and recycling paper is bad for the environment. As is tofu.

 

[fury_tea]

Oh, and recycling paper is bad for the environment.

I remember that from Penn and Teller's ********!

 

[-Bezza-]

I remember that from Penn and Teller's ********!

I've made this up as my own clever-**** theory. Basically, trees are good for the environment and so if we produce paper from sustainable tree-farming, there will be more trees in existence as people will plant the trees to produce paper at a later date. Therefore recylcing paper stops this from happening. It's kinda like the way to save rare breed pigs is to eat them.

What did Penn and Teller have to say about it?

 

[fury_tea]

I've made this up as my own clever-**** theory. Basically, trees are good for the environment and so if we produce paper from sustainable tree-farming, there will be more trees in existence as people will plant the trees to produce paper at a later date. Therefore recylcing paper stops this from happening. It's kinda like the way to save rare breed pigs is to eat them.

What did Penn and Teller have to say about it?

 

[-Bezza-]

So pretty much what I said, only they made more money than me.

 

[Rodj]

There's nothing more beautiful than the size and form of a Perrier bottle, and I can no more stop my good lady drinking Perrier than I can stop her being French.

Ye gods and little swimmy things, An Ankoù. Has your good lady seen that? Suggest you take special care of your jewellery or she'll rip it off. If I dared to suggest that a bottle is more beautiful than my good lady I'd have every triad in the orient trying to do an unpleasant mischief to me with very big chopsticks.

 

[An Ankoù]

Ye gods and little swimmy things, An Ankoù. Has your good lady seen that? Suggest you take special care of your jewellery or she'll rip it off. If I dared to suggest that a bottle is more beautiful than my good lady I'd have every triad in the orient trying to do an unpleasant mischief to me with very big chopsticks.

That, no doubt, is why you inhabit the furthest reaches of the Occident!:p

 

[Rodj]

That, no doubt, is why you inhabit the furthest reaches of the Occident!:p

Absobloodylutely. When it comes to being ravished with an overgrown chopstick "coward" is my middle name.