#sickofplastic

The first thing you need to know about my ‘no single-use plastic’ January is that 100% I still used single-use plastics. I did not succeed in avoiding them entirely because there are just so many insidious sources of plastic in everyday life. I would have had to adopt #StopthePlasticTide as a full time job to purge disposable plastic entirely from my household. But as the most recent Star Wars film reminds us “The greatest teacher failure is.”

I won’t pretend that I succeed or that all that I did achieve was just as easy as not doing it because I’m not interested in presenting overly idealised situations or showing off. I want people who work long hours, have kids, are short of money, to be able to live sustainably. But the reasons that make that so difficult are outside of the individuals control: wasteful plastic use in manufacturing and retail mean that some products just are not available without single-use plastics in a given area or price range.

The first thing you need to know about my ‘no single-use plastic’ January is that 100% I still used single-use plastics. I did not succeed in avoiding them entirely because there are just so many insidious sources of plastic in everyday life. I would have had to adopt #StopthePlasticTide as a full time job to purge disposable plastic entirely from my household. But as the most recent Star Wars…

When I decided to stop using single use plastics this month I did not anticipate that brushing my teeth would be one of the most complicated parts of that challenge. Dentists tell us to change over toothbrushes every 3 months, that’s four a year for your life. Even assuming people don’t follow that advice strictly you’re still talking at least 200 toothbrushes over a lifetime. Toothpaste comes in…

There has been some controversy in my life recently from a source I would never have expected. Teabags. Those who know me know that the volume of tea I can drink on a given day in likely outside of safe levels but at least I always knew that my compost bin was healthy. Or not, I guess. The vast majority of commercial teabags are heat-sealed rather than sown shut which means that there is up to 10…

Reduce Plastic January

I’ve been spending this month trying to avoid all single use plastics. It’s been a real challenge that has involved making my own toothpaste and giving up shampoo.

If you’re interested in the realistic side of this (rather than an idealised minimalist blogger take) then I’m happy to answer questions. It’s all under #stoptheplastictide on my blog and you can check my progress on Instagram or Twitter as well.