The Plastics Problem – One Year On

Last year, we wrote that we’d “given up take-away coffee since I realised that the cups can’t be recycled, and now that we have such a plastics problem, am trying to cut down.”

It turns out that a year is a long time and the various campaigns to discourage the use of plastics really do seem to be having an impact.

Like most people, we reportedly last year that we, “did not realise that take-away cups contained plastic and am really annoyed that nothing has been done by government or the big corporates. The government because they have the power to stop us destroying the planet, yet seem to react far to late. And corporates because they should find an alternative, or be more responsible.”

Fast-forward to 2019 and we’re starting to see some progress. The government are finally investigating a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles, something that our Scandinavian and mainland European friends successfully implemented for years. You may have noticed in a lot of pubs, plastic straws have been replaced with paper alternatives, and we were even surprised to see that a local leisure centre now offer compostable cups and cutlery! It’s fantastic though, when you visit local coffee shops and see a queue of people holding their reuseable mugs, spurred on by the discount on their drink. It shouldn’t take wake up calls like the footage from Blue Planet to start this. This is how it should always have been.

This doesn’t excuse the fact that we are still far behind our neighbours. Denmark put a tax on plastic bags 12 years before the UK! We need our government to react faster.

So, government; please put a tax, or ban, single use plastic as soon as possible.
Corporates; offer customers options which can be recycled, re-used or washed, or a premium price to use a ‘bad’ plastics.
People; please consider encouraging corporates by taking your business to more responsible sources.

No packaging

It’s imperative that we all do our bit. But make it known that we are sick of government and corporates waiting for each other, or consumer attitude, to make change.

Our advice is change, and use BigBarn to avoid the big corporates. And use our Local Food Map to buy local food with no packaging. Not all of it will be perfect but small retailers and producers want to win you as a regular customer, so will react to your constructive criticism. Let’s make this country a better place, quickly.

We also need to encourage the next generation to get on board with these projects. That’s why we want schools to teach them the value of growing their own food and understanding where food really comes from. If you agree with us, sign our petition here.