Do you want to join me in an experiment to see how much plastic we use and how we can decrease it radically?
Following my last post about earth-based spirituality, I went searching for some intelligent blogs exploring Paganism, and stumbled across Quaker Pagan Reflections. In turn this led me to its offshoot, Chestnut House, by Cat Chapin-Bishop, whose post Small Stuff, about the amount of plastic we use, has got me thinking about how our day-to-day purchasing habits really affect the planet. It includes this harrowing video.
You know, I’m aware of the need to use as little plastic as possible, but I let myself off. I tell myself that just today this ready meal is OK. That it’s impossible to buy vegetables without using plastic bags. That because I forgot my cloth shopping bag it’s OK to pick up a plastic one. Just today.
And there’s a danger in being too fire and brimstone: it sends us into paralysis. Towards the beginning of her fantastic book The Lilypad List: 7 steps to the simple life, Marian Van Eyk McCain says this:
Being forced to dwell on the awfulness of all that, once you already know about it, and already care deeply…is a form of torture…that makes you want to…turn on the TV or get drunk or stoned…
…I know that people on the simplicity path are often highly sensitive people. Because of their sensitivity, they identify so closely with the Earth’s pain that hearing about it again doesn’t stimulate them to action: it numbs them. And that’s the last thing I want you to do: go numb.
So let’s not go numb, let’s do something. Through Cat Chapin-Bishop (above), I found Fake Plastic Fish, and there, you can join a challenge to share your plastic waste and tell others a little bit about it. I’m just about to go and do my grocery shopping, so today is a great day to start tallying. I’ll do a quick cross-post here next week when I unveil my plastic.
It will be interesting to see how I, a single woman in the UK, do compared with, say, a family with small children in Australia.
Are you up for a challenge? Leave your name in the comments and we’ll keep an eye out for you at Fake Plastic Fish.
Image by Horia Varlan
Elsewhere:
Tomorrow is World Ocean Day which is a pretty important day to care about plastic. There was a plastic-less experiment called Month Without Plastic a while back which was really interesting. And Colin Beavan’s book No Impact Man is now out – it looks great.
Addendum: Howard from the Hardware Store has a birthday today. He wants a new reader as a gift. Could it be you?
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post Tess!
I often think about doing that thing at the checkout where you unwrap everything that’s in plastic and leave it there, saying I don’t want to buy this, I only want the contents. Less easy with things like fruit juice (!) but I admire the bravery of people who do this and are able to ignore the steam coming out of the ears of those behind them in the queue and the funny looks from staff.
The idea obviously is that if enough people do this then the supermarkets might start to take notice and reduce the plastic they use.
So criminal that the stuff now leaking into the sea in the Gulf of Mexico is sucked out of the ground to produce all this plastic.
Wow. Totally joining you in checking it out. I know that I have made some huge changes, but food packaging and all the seemingly “little” things–ugh. Thanks for this Tess.
my husband and i just watched “no impact man” last night! what was most appealing to us was how living that way re-connected him and his family with the natural rhythms of the earth. certainly much food (look – no plastic or cardboard!) for thought.
HI Tess, Great post. Our small town has finally started a recycle service for paper and plastic. We do our best to be conscious of what we can recycle and what cannot be recycled. We normally have a wastebasket – not a giant bin – but something that fits under our kitchen sink that will fill once, maybe twice a week, so we’re more and more conscious of what we use.
Our town does not PICK UP glass recycles yet but my spouse is devoted to carrying those to a recycle location in town, so once again, we’re trying to be more responsible with what we use.
I don’t gather individual plastic sacks at the veggie counters, for potatoes, tomatoes, etc. and it does take longer to check and load but so be it…..my little effort and always looking for more ways. Thanks to No Impact Man and his efforts – I really cringed when he poured ALL of his wife’s cosmetics in the garbage……I mean she already had them, she should have at least used them all up before she agreed with him to throw them away:) Beside the point, he’s doing a great job of raising the world’s awareness and so are all of the bloggers you’ve cited here. It’s a start…….
xo
What a great idea! Awareness often is the first step to making a change, isn’t it?
There is an interesting answer to the plastic problem via the use of cellulose-based plastic which biodegrades in 90 Days. It can replace almost anything now made of plastic. It is derived from wood. Cellulose can also be recycled with other paper products.
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Trees-Into-Plastic.htm
Many bags I get now shopping are actually cellulose based, you can recognize them by their cloudy color, thinner substance, and more of a papery feeling, and they sometimes have a biodegradable logo on them.
Of course then we get into the problem of the denuding of forests from mountains and other areas by the logging industry. But advances have been made in that regard to protect the tree cover so that the whole forest is not cleared at once (leaving no habitat for wildlife).
Thanks for all these comments. I do think what one person does can make a difference. We do actually have very good recycling in our town, including roadside collection of most everything that is recyclable.
Rima, yes I wish I was that brave! One day perhaps. And Tenar, this is interesting, we are just beginning to get these bags in the UK.
Thank you for this fantastic post, Tess. I am so much there. This BP horror is the major kick in the butt I needed to start doing something. For the poor pelican dying on the beach, I am partly responsible…
Thanks again. You’ll have me reading every post mentioned here!
Blessings.
Thanks Claire, perhaps the BP disaster will be a catalyst for many people. I stumbled across a spectacularly stupid remark in one blog post (link below): “The real problem is where this is leading. Obama quite plainly wants you to use less oil, Kreutzer writes. Only that means giving up oil, a fantastically useful, energy-dense, portable fuel long before it’s exhausted and long before practical alternatives exist.”
Why on earth would it be a “problem” that the most powerful leader in the world wants us to use less oil? I think it’s called conservation and stewardship. Sheesh!
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/95112134.html
As I read your post, I thought of how our grocery stores bag groceries in plastic bags. I still haven’t adjusted to them versus the paper bags. Then, I thought of the 4 1/2 minute microwaveable veggies in the plastic trays – I use those almost every day. I’m looking at my Pepsi plastic bottle. I also thought of the plastic bags I use for my kitchen trash cans, and how convenient they are. The ziplock bags and plastic wrap. Most of our shampoos come in plastic containers. Gees, one could go on and on about the over-use of plastic. I have been aware of the overuse of plastic for some time.
After some thought, I realized if I took this matter seriously, which I do, that it would call for a major change in lifestyle. After much contemplation, I think I’ll start small with the convenient microwaveable veggies in plastic trays. I thought of Pepsi in a can, yuk, so I’ll have think on that one.
Tess, this is a fantastic subject you’ve brought to our attention. I’m giving you five stars for this post. At sixty-three, change comes slow, if at all, but I’m in.
Hi Bonnie, I think small steps is the way to start. I’m notorious for coming up with grand plans that are then too complicated to put into action all at once, so it’s easier to slip back into old habits. I’m convinced that a small start can lead to bigger momentum.
Since I’ve been really focusing on plastic the last few days, I’ve been horrified by how much I use – I really thought I was pretty aware of it, but even so the amount exceeds everything I imagined. You’re right, it is partly convenience.
I had fresh fish for supper last night (wrapped in plastic when I bought it at the fishmonger’s stall in the supermarket) and when I bought it I tried to remember how fish was wrapped when I was a child. I remember mum used to bring home lamb chops from the butcher wrapped in paper, but I don’t recall what happened with the fish.