Back in November there was a TedX on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the US organised by the Plastic Pollution Coalition. Beth Terry from Fake Plastic Fish was a speaker at that TedX conference and she has now posted the list of speakers with links to the videos including her own which is great. We have watched a few and so far our favourites are:
David de Rothschild on his Plastiki boat and tackling what he calls the Nature Deficiency Disorder – this is great. Dreams, adventure, collaboration, stories, fun, action.
And these are only a handful. There are still many we have yet to watch. But, just these further the desire to create a life with less plastic. Less plastic being produced, less plastic being wasted, less plastic pollution. It is no longer right or ethical to pollute the earth and harm other species and ecosystems and waste resources as we do.
And with only a few days of Christmas it’s time to think and say “We have enough!”.
Beth from Fake Plastic Fish is a wealth of information on monitoring and reducing plastic waste and just general cool things to inspire us all to change our plastic habits. Today her blog features this great video “Plastic State of Mind- Parody with Purpose” from Green Sangha. It is very well done, fun and entertaining and has important messaging.
Isn’t it great!
Earlier this week I attended the Signs of Change conference. Immensely informative, inspiring and really hopeful that grass roots, community and business led change is happening all around our fine country. You can read more about the conference here. Key highlights to come…
UK government is giving 15 million pounds to green buses – more here. 150 new low carbon buses through out England will save around 50,000 tonnes of CO2-e.
Beth from Fake Plastic Fish talks about the windows in windowed envelopes in her Year 2, Week 42 results round up here.
On the quest to reducing our waste we need to find other solutions and this is one new one we have come across recently.
A month or so ago a plastic spatula tool (for flipping pancakes and pulling poached eggs out of the water) broke. The head split from the handle. Thinking that plastic was the only option I trundled off to my local kitchen store and picked up a new one with a metal handle (about $20). The old one consciously went to landfill (glue wouldn’t have fixed it). The old spatula had lasted years – the new one within a few uses started to fall apart. And scarily the plastic was coming off the end or melting and could possibly be leaving plastic in our food. So not a good idea. I had read too much from Beth at Fake Plastic Fish to worry about the chemicals from plastic leaching into our food not to try to find a new solution (a change away from plastic had started in other areas but I like to not buy new until the old is too old to use first!).
Then recenlty on a trip to the lovely Meditteranean Food Warehouse I discovered a wooden pasta turner. It was made of beechwood but made in China. Lightbulb moment (LED styles) and I thought maybe there is another option. And last weekend I discovered ScanWood and replaced the plastic spatula with a lovely wooden one also made of beechwood but this time from Denmark (and ony $6 (super cheap compared to the plastic)). So although when you think of wood you think of trees and then trees being cut down and not being used to store carbon if the product is made of sustainably harvested wood (more research required here especially for the China made models) wood is still the better option over plastic. Oil as we know goes into to making plastic. Oil is a fossil fuel that humans have burnt leading to global warming and plastic takes hundreds of years, to break down in landfill. Plastic is not the better option (especially if the product falls apart faster than it should).
Wood on the other hand will not melt into my food, can be loving looked after with some olive oil every so often, will break down over a much shorter time when it does get to landfill and if you buy the right product comes from sustainably harvested wood. It also looks and feels a lot nicer in your kitchen.
Olive Wood Utensils from ScanWood
So the practical action for this week is to purchase wooden kitchen utensils over plastic. If you need to consume purchase good quality that will last a long time, doesn’t leach into your food or negatively impact the environment and makes life nicer!
A new found love of wood has led to thinking about buying wood turned bowls as well instead of using plastic mixing bowls and to find local wood turners who are making wooden kitchen utensils from local wood instead of buying imported product. And now, of course there is the problem with all of the plastic utensils at home. Others can use them so they will be given away instead of throwing them out. Unfortunately, plastic kitchen utensils can not be recycled.
Another good wood product for home cleaning (instead of plastic) is the wood scrubbing brushes from EcoStore. You can get replaceable heads and it cleans much better than any plastic scrubbing brush and lasts just as long. Mixed with a little Dr Bronner liquid castille soap and it makes kitchen cleaning super easy. The wood used is beechwood and the the bristles are made from a vegetable fibre. EcoStore import the product from Germany.
EcoStore Wooden Clothes Pegs
EcoStore also have lovely old-fashioned wooden clothes pegs too (although you could probably find these second hand).
Do you have any other ideas for reducing plastic use/waste?
A productive (but rainy) week this week. As well as progressing a number of projects SIFT also spent some time meeting a some more people who work with waste and waste minimisation in Christchurch and Canterbury. Notably I met with the Solid Waste Asset Manager, Kitty Waghorn, from the Waimakariri District Council and learnt all about the waste systems in place for that district. They have two transfer stations – Southbrook and Oxford and have big plans for a new Resource Recovery Park at the Southbrook station as well as expanding into organics (they promote the use of home composting and you can pick up an EM Bokashi system from Waimakariri District Council Service Centre) and providing a recycling solution for the rural residents of the district. Southbrook transfer station includes a Resell shed which they are also looking to expand in order to reduce the amount of rubbish that is sent to Kate Valley Landfill. They will also be launching a Hazardous Waste drop off point in July. And the general outlook for waste reduction in this district is positive with an increase in the amount of recyclables being collected and a reduction in rubbish.
You can find more information on Waste and Recycling for the Waimakariri District here.
Fake Plastic Fish takles getting rid of the small bit of plastic in the middle of the pizza – yet another unnecessary bit of plastic (we have seen these used in NZ but not sure how prevalent it is).
Beth from Fake Plastic Fish discusses how to store food without using plastic here. It would be great to find glass or stainless steel containers suitable for food storage and like the containers Beth links to in New Zealand – we are on the hunt.
Via the lovely and informative blog Fake Plastic Fish we stumbled across the best bit of art from waste we have seen for a long time. As we have put the call out to Cantabarians on entering our e-waste competition which includes an artistic category it is interesting to see what others are doing.
There is a great interview with Dianna Cohen on the Fake Plastic Fish blog about her work with plastics, cardboard, styrofoam and even plastic ties.
But here are some photos of her arwork (via Fake Plastic Fish) and check out her website for more great photos.
