Banish Plastic

[chrissie]

If you go for degradeable rather than biodegradeablke (which needs sunlight to break the compounds down) then you find that they disintegrate within 18 months/ 2 years.

They are better for landfill sites as once the rubbish is buried obviously no sunlight reaches them

Hope this helps

chrissie

[Gem]

Ahh, thats where I was going wrong! Thanks for that, I will look out for them in future!

[dave45]

I don't think we will ever get rid of plastic packaging, so we may as well accept it and mitigate the consequences.

View waste plastics as raw material (but not in a Blue-Peter sort of way!).

I'd guess that some %age of plastic waste sent to landfill gets incinerated (and useful energy generated) - anyone got any info on this? What are the consequences of chucking your crisp packets and yogurt pots on the wood-burner for instance? What do the codes on the packaging mean? which produce more toxic smoke than wood? info required.

A while ago I came across an inspiring website showing some guy (Polish? German?) who had invented a machine that accepted plastic waste, and processed it into .... oil ! no idea if this is viable but I like the approach !

and just by the by... when I was at school (many years ago now) I remember the chemistry teacher telling us how superior plastics were over stuff like rubber and that plastics could last effectively forever... well a while ago I found some stuff in Morrisons bags up the loft - they'd been there 15-20 years. They had a tensile strength of about zero.. they just disintegrated in my hands. So Chemistry Teacher hadn't done the work to prove his statements ! Is this the same process that occurs in the sea and produces tiny degraded plastic flakes that kills seabirds? much better to burn the stuff then innit?

[homegrown]

We don't need plastic, there was nothing wrong with glass and besides the silly thing is that you can make a biodegradable plastic like material from certain crustacean shells.

when I was a boy our local grocer used to pack everything into a box or paper bage for you, and even deliver it, but times have change and our cities have become to large. this is the real reason society turned to plastics because with enourmous cities shipping loose or glass contained products became to costly.

The solution is to dismantle our cities and return to small local communities built around a church, town hall or town commons. Going a step further much of our labour saving devices (technology )
have made mankind lazy, so we choose options like plastic because on the surface it seems easier but without regard for the cost to society and the planet.

nuff said

[dave45]

you may be right that we don't *need* plastics, but they aint going away any time soon and most modern technology wouldn't exist without them.. You'd have to be an extreme greeny to do without all plastics.

nothing wrong with glass? it takes HUGE amounts of energy to produce, is many times heavier than plastic and highly dangerous when broken.

But beer tastes better in glass :-)

[Flo]

I'd be a bit worried about no plastics thinking about it. Some of us have false teeth, wear glasses and use hearing aids ...............

[indy]

Had an interesting experience last week, I had a meeting to go to up county and after my meeting I trotted off to pay the coal bill in a village not so far away from my meeting...found a fabulous butchers while I was there (can't resist proper butchers and delis but I bought some pork belly and it was wrapped in two layers of paper, same with the bit of cheese I bought Was lovely to have that happen

[shiela_robins]

Even to make use of renewable energy , you would still need non-renewable energy to make it work. Like how do you manufacture solar panels or wind turbines? It's ironic isn't it?

[seasidegirl]

I just want to put a little word in here on behalf of supermarket workers. I've just finished a temp contract in a supermarket and found the job pretty horrible. The workers, including cashiers have their performance timed and get told off if they don't work quickly enough.

Working conditions have really reduced recently with short term contracts, flexible hours (only the worker is flexible) and reduced breaks. It never happened to me but sorry I do think dumping the supermarkets waste on the cashier is pretty horrible. They are people with their own lives and problems behind the till and they certainly don't decide how goods are packed.

It's the management at fault and not the staff.

[fuchsia]

i think all supermarkets should stop selling meet and fish prepacked. bring back the fish and meat counters and use grease proof paper. our local coop closed it,s deli counter, at this counter you could buy small portions with minimal packaging. i could not understand why they closed the counter and so i complained, apparently not enough people used it, as it was a coop i am surprised that they haven't kept their deli counters and pushed the reduced packaging idea. luckily the local greengrocer still uses paper bags, however he is selling up as most people use the super market. i believe legislation is needed as the majority of people are fully aware of the dangers of plastic to the enviroment but still buy it.

[wulf]

I think there is an important role for plastics in our future with advances in 3d printing. You create a design on your computer and then the printer extrudes plastic to realise a 3d object. Best of all is the hope that it will eventually become feasible to use this type of machine to recycle existing plastic objects.

I attended a talk earlier this year by Adrian Bowyer, who instigated the Open Source Rep Rap project; he aims to be able to take a few cut up plastic milk cartons, print a pair of child's sandals and then, as the child grows, print new versions using the old sandals and an extra carton or two each time.

If this vision of the future happens, we could end up happily using more plastics in daily living but drastically reducing the amount which is thrown away because, instead, it will be possible to reshape them to new needs.

Wulf

[JessieMac]

I made lots of cloth bags of mixed sizes and also take some lidded boxes with me everytime I go shopping also some folding boxes and put everything back into the trolly and wheel it over to the packing ledge,I then open up all the packageing and transfer everything into my own bags the lidded boxes are for soft fruit etc.
I put all the packageing in a neat pile and leave it, if lots of people did the same perhaps the penny would drop, also the cloth bags can go through the wash, I read about an enviromental trial where people with the bags for life were asked if they would mind a swab being taken and the results were scary as the levels of germs were sky high......................food for thought maybe Jessica

[MuddyWitch]

I read about an enviromental trial where people with the bags for life were asked if they would mind a swab being taken and the results were scary as the levels of germs were sky high......................food for thought maybe Jessica

Maybe that's because the 'Bags for Life' are plastic? I use my own bags, made of cotton & wash them...just like my Mother did. So maybe this generation needs to be taught to wash reusable stuff? There's no need to wash anything that's going straight into the bin, so no-one told them.

MW

[becky3086]

I think sometimes that people don't realize what it actually takes to make things these days. How many trees and how much energy do you think it takes to make a bunch of paper bags, or paper to wrap things in? How much energy do you think it takes to make a bolt of cotton cloth? Unless you are making it yourself with all sustainable methods, you really aren't making much of a difference choosing paper, cotton or plastic. There are a lot more things to consider than just the final product. You have to consider what went into making that product.

[JessieMac]

My bags are made of a duvet cover that was wearing thin in places and it seemed like a good use for the fabric and you do the best you can with what you have,every little helps and at least they will last for years and then be used as rags for rough cleaning, the only way to have no impact on the planet is to cease to exist and I'm not ready to go that far yet.