The Plastic Diet: Day 30

Thanks to vincent.zp via Flickr for this great image

I’m at the end of my plastic diet. What have I learned? Well, I now realise that cutting out new (non-recycled/reused) plastic from my ‘diet’ was actually pretty easy once I put my mind to it, and has quickly become habit. And there does seem to be a direct relationship to the amount of plastic packaging and the unhealthiness of the food that lies within; processed, lots of sugar, fat and preservatives. I never ate much of this sort of stuff to begin with, and cutting it out altogether has been great for reducing my waste and my waistline.

Plastic is an incredibly useful and versatile material, which has made the world a much easier place to live in. But over the decades we’ve reaped the benefits of this lightweight, cheap material, enjoying mass produced luxury items, without taking responsibility for what happens next. Many plastic items are just used once, but the material itself takes many years to degrade, releasing toxic chemicals as it does. It’s mostly been a hidden problem, but the huge amounts of waste and the impact they are having on the environment, and on us, are becoming harder to ignore.

The good news is that there are a lot of really dedicated people out there who are working hard to raise awareness of this issue of plastic waste, and helping everyday people to make small and simple changes to their lives to reduce the amount we chuck. To name but a few:

• Leave Only Footprints and the Plastic is Rubbish Flickr group - Working to live without plastic, one item at a time
• My Zero Waste - Many useful tips for reducing your impact, leading by example
• The Rubbish Diet - Originally a month long project, now in its second year. One woman’s mission to stop throwing things away
• Green Plate - Non profit group working to reduce the use of disposable plastic
• Chris Jordan - American artist and photographer with a focus on out of control consumerism

Not a complete list by any means, but just a sample of some of the people out there raising awareness and providing practical solutions to help us reduce our plastic waste.

Do you know any fantastic anti-plastic crusaders? Let me know in the comments.

5 cool products made from recycled plastic

• Garbino Wastepaper Bin - as seen in MOMA in New York!
• Woven Bucket Bag - super colourful, made from recycled juice cartons
• Jimi Wallet - slick design, ethically manufactured and made from recycled plastic
• Disposable Razor - available with replacement blades
• Quick Sit Folding Chair - folds down flat and can be set up anywhere.

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This entry was written by Nigel and posted on Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 at 6:51 pm and filed under Recycling, Good things to do. Bookmark the permalink. You can follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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