A month without plastic (BBC)

[Dead_Parrot]

This could be interesting to follow...

I am giving up plastic for the whole of August. By this I mean not buying or accepting anything which contains plastic or is packaged in plastic. So, no take-away coffees, bottles of water or pre-packed sandwiches.

I'll be forsaking punnets of strawberries and packs of chicken, supermarket milk and bottled cleaning products, and switching to reusable nappies for my toddler.

No longer will my other half and I be able to slump in front of the telly of an evening with the latest DVD, a takeaway curry and a bottle of wine (the cork could be plastic).

I am, if you like, donning a polyester-free hairshirt - with the aim of seeing how possible it is to live without new plastic.

Quite a bit more at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7508321.stm

[XemaSab]

1. I'm reading the article

Sort of appalling the amount of plastic she goes though! :o

I've kept a month's worth of my plastic waste, to use as a barometer for my month of abstinence. It isn't pretty - 603 items, including:

36 carrier bags
67 food packaging bags and films such as bread bags, cheese wrappers (and a jumbo pack of Maltesers!)
23 polystyrene tea cups with lids and 24 coffee cup lids
15 fruit punnets and vegetable trays
13 yoghurt pots
16 water bottles, 10 milk bottles, 7 juice bottles
Two toothbrushes
Probably the least pretty aspect to my household's waste at the moment comes in the form of disposable nappies.

Our 18-month-old son gets through four or so a day so that's about 120 a month, plus individual nappy sacks, nappy bin bags and wipes, which go straight into landfill.

[Dead_Parrot]

2. I'm not going to count mine...

It would be a good deal better than hers, but those food wrappings add up like buggery. Thank god beer comes in bottles and cans or I'd be in real trouble.
:beer:

Disposable nappies - sorry, diapers - are probably the worst. The statistic kicking around in my head is 2 tons of plastic wrapped turd per child, sitting in your landfill and leeching into your water. Yum. Hopefully she'll stick to cloth once she's finished...

[XemaSab]

3. I have to guiltily confess that our recycling bin is FULL at the end of the week

The garbage bin, notsomuch, and it would be less full if we composted, which we don't. :hide:

I've given a lot of thought to diapers (really more thought than a single woman with no kids should ever give), and I don't know how there isn't a better product out there: something that can be composted, taken apart and recycled, taken apart and part of it thrown away and part kept, or cleaned and re-used without the squick factor of cloth diapers.

Or some combination of the above.

And it's not just the plastic. Is that cotton they're stuffed with? 'Cause environmentally that's almost as bad as the plastic, in my book.

Really, the least gross part of the diaper, environmentally, is the turds and pee... that stuff is VALUABLE. And it depresses me to no end that what could be a clean source of soil amendments basically becomes toxic waste because of the packaging. It doesn't naturally biodegrade in the landfill, like it would if it were exposed to air. (But that doesn't mean I want to touch it.)

Landfills are wrong. Virtually everything in there could be recycled, composted, or something, but since it's sitting in a huge anaerobic pile all wrapped in plastic it all just rots. Anaerobic decomposition is not cool. And then you add actual toxic waste into the stream, and you've got a reeking time-bomb that can basically never be defused.

Damn. :(

[Dead_Parrot]

4. There certainly is...

These are what little miss parrot was wrapped in: Solid contents can be scraped, and flushed or composted; everything else gets washed. I'm pretty sure a google would find something closer - there are a few companies doing variations on the same theme.

A collection of soft cloths eliminates the need for wipes: The energy needed to wash a load of cloth diapers & wipes is peanuts compared to the energy needed to make a packet of disposables.

The only downside is the ick factor. OMG! I nearly touched poo!

Sigh. Here's how to make make saltpetre (for gunpowder, etc) the old fashioned way:

I took a large barrel, and did bore therein a hole near unto the bottom.
Into this small hole did I affix a bung, so as to draw off the liquors
when they were ripe. Then I did find me some goodly horse manure which
had dried but not been rained upon. I specifically searched for that
which was rimed with white.

Of this manure I took and cast a full four fingers depth into my pot,
and then two fingers of ash, and a final finger of lime. This I did
repeat until the earthly matter did come nye unto the top of my barrell.
Then I did invite twenty men all stout and true to add their waters
into my barrel, which, they being full of goodly ale, they proceeded
to accomplish with alacrity.

I then stirred this goodly brew with a stout stick. But, as I did stir it,
I did see that many of the larger turds did not dissolve, so casting
aside my shirt, I did plunge my arms into the vile soup and did break up
the clumps with my hands. It was at this time that one of the Blue Boys,
Her Majesties own guard, did come unto me , and knowing that I was a man
of martial disposition as to himself, he did ask at what was I adventuring?

So I took out a goodly turd, which being covered by wet ashes and lime, did
seem more like unto a rock than the outfall of a horse, and I did press
it into his hand and say thusly unto him; "In faith, I am assaying to
make saltpeter... but as you can see, my turds have not broken!"

Yikes. I can damn well cope with a cloth diaper, I think.

[XemaSab]

5. I gotta tell ya, maybe the BEST practical joke I ever played

was asking a soils classmate if he would texture some soil for me, and handing him a giant lump of elk shit.

Good times. :D

[Dead_Parrot]

6. Hmm. Crunchy or chewy?...

No. On second thoughts, I don't want to know.

:spank: Sick puppy.

[XemaSab]

7. Soil doesn't go in the mouth

Texturing is a purely MANUAL process.

Usually the soil sample just touches the hands, then you put it back in the hole you got it from.

In this case, however, the sample got smeared down the back of my rain jacket while I was being chased around the field.

Double good times. :D

[Dead_Parrot]

8. Much better...

...than putting it back in the hole you got it from...

Edit to add:

for "soil doesn't go in the mouth" ;)

[XemaSab]

9. I don't think the elk would have appreciated that

:hide: