Living Plastic-Free in Edinburgh: 2012-10-14

Friday 19 October 2012

Are you up for the plastic-free challenge?

If you're inspired by our plastic-free month challenge, why not give it a go yourself? We can provide you the login codes of this blog site, so you don't need to set one up yourself. We hope that this plastic-free platform keeps getting new bloggers to spread the word and give new insights and tricks for plastic-free living.

Happy to hear from you!

Thursday 18 October 2012

How did we do?

After having lived plastic-free for a month (only three occasions where cheeky plastic popped up out of nowhere!), now it's time to check the balance. How did we do? What were the difficulties and what was easier than thought?

5 weeks of non-recyclable rubbish

So how did we do? Well, I can only speak for myself as my better half spent 10 days abroad... We're still on the same bin bag for 5 weeks now, with 90% of the content consisting of plastic and other non-recyclable waste bought before we started the project. I think we can probably do with one bin bag for an entire year (new challenge?). That depends of course on what we adopt in the future...

It was easier than we thought. Once you know where to buy what, you just embed it in your daily or weekly shopping routine. We did encounter some difficulties with specific products. We had to compromise on surface cleaner. And we didn't buy any ice cream and crisps for a month. Other potential problems were errr... a brush for dishes. The rest is all doable if you're willing to go the extra mile.

What will we keep on doing plastic-free?

- Needless to mention but of course we will keep on refusing any plastic bags
- Buying meat and fish using tupperware boxes when we can
- No more fizzy drinks in PET bottles
- Milk in glass bottles
- Fresh orange juice instead of Tetrapak juice
- Baking cookies instead of buying the plastic covered one
- Refusing and avoiding all pointless plastic wrappings (bread, veggies, fruit etc)
- A bar of soap instead of liquid in a plastic container
- Washing powder in a cardboard box rather than liquid
- Toilet paper in starch wrapping (ecoleaf)

What will be a plastic-free compromise in the future?

- Toothpaste (toothy tabs are great for camping, but not for daily life...)
- Liquid shampoo
- Coffee beans (we'll buy 1kg packs of our favourite Espresso from the Edinburgh Tea & Coffee Company)

- Supermarket pizza (this one is Jan's- I quite liked our homemade plastic free pizza)
- Crisps

I'm sure it'll take a while before we take out the next bin bag!

Some Facts and Figures

275,000 tonnes of plastic are used each year in the UK, that’s about 15 million bottles per day.
Most families throw away about 40kg of plastic per year, which could otherwise be recycled.
The use of plastic in Western Europe is growing about 4% each year.
Plastic can take up to 500 years to decompose
61% of the total plastic waste from Western Europe is packaging, which typically has a 'life' of less than 12 months
Packaging is typically 25-35% by weight of dustbin waste. About a third of household waste is kitchen and garden waste, and the other third is paper - so if you already compost your food waste and recycle paper, once you remove packaging there should be hardly anything left to go to landfill.

From http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk/facts.html and http://www.sepa.org.uk/about_us/greening_sepa/green_facts_and_figures/waste_facts.aspx

About Plastic Free Edinburgh

We are focused on trying to eliminate the use of single use, disposable plastics which go straight into the dustbin. Do we really need to buy fruit on a styrofoam tray, wrapped in plastic and then carried home in a plastic carrier bag?

We also believe we can just reduce our use of plastics - even if they are recyclable. There as so many types of plastic which are not recyclable... I'm sure a lot of what I put into recycling ends up in landfill.

So what if we cut out buying new plastic completely for a month, see what works for us, and then integrate that into our lives? Take the plastic challenge!

The Plastic Challenge!

The aim of the plastic challenge is to not buy ANY new plastic for a month (disposable, recyclable – all new plastic is forbidden – but you can use any durable plastic which you already have).

Each household taking part in the challenge can have three items which are “exceptions” to the rule – for items for which it really is too difficult to find alternatives during the month – but you can be challenged by other participants if they manage to find your item with no plastic available locally and for an affordable price. These exceptions should ideally be recyclable plastic – and not disposable plastic!

Share information on where you have managed to find things on the Plastic-Free World Blog, and if you feel so inclined, write some blog entries on your efforts to live plastic free.

Monitor your spending on food and basic goods for one week before the challenge begins, as well as during the challenge…so we can see if it is more or less expensive to try and avoid plastics.

Monitor the amount of waste you produce for one week before the challenge begins, as well as during the challenge…so we can see if we manage to cut down the amount of waste going to landfill.

That’s it! Simple…

You can start the challenge at any time. It's fun to do it as a group with some other people, so encourage your friends and family to join in as well. Email plasticfreeworld@gmail.com if you want to take part and we will send you some basic guidelines.

We hope that taking the plastic free challenge will lead us to explore Edinburgh and surroundings a bit more, investigate local shops and food markets that we wouldn’t normally go to (admit it – we all use the supermarket for most of our shopping!), try out some healthier alternatives to plastic wrapped everything – and generally have some fun trying something new.

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Friday 19 October 2012

Are you up for the plastic-free challenge?

Thursday 18 October 2012

How did we do?

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