Plastic Free Hallowe’en

Oh it’s that time of year again.  The time of…  SWEETIES.  Sweeties everywhere!  In little metallic or plastic wrappers.  In cellophane.  And plastic pots for collecting treats, parties with disposable cups and cutlery and plates…  Balloons…

It is a single use plastic nightmare (or hell?!  Or heaven?!)  I cannot in good conscience keep watching blinking documentaries about plastic in the ocean and ignore this in my own life.  Plastic plastic plastic.  Plastic in gullets, plastic in nests.  Plastic in drains, in turtles, in ocean forests, on the ocean floor, in whales.

 

Sometimes I want to forget about it.  Sometimes maybe it has been a week or two since I saw anything that troubled me.  Sometimes I feel unmotivated.  And sometimes I just want my old life back!  The easier one!  The more fun one!  Being plastic free (or at least aware, if not free) can mean feeling like a fun sponge.  It means tutting at things that other people think are AMAZING or LOVELY or KIND or CELEBRATORY.  It means wondering why on EARTH those lovely people are buying plastic cups when they could have bought paper ones; how your friends managed to miss the memo about plastic straws; why your family walk around with takeaway cups of coffee and packet sandwiches.  It also means staring at balloons and just hating them – how grumpy is that?!  It means being agog when people let off chinese lanterns or clumps of helium balloons that will almost certainly litter the ocean until they break up into smaller, more edible yet still indigestible pieces.

Fun sponge.

And now it is Hallowe’en – one of my favourite times of year.  And you know why?!  Those wonderful little individually wrapped chocolates from cadbury’s that’s why.  I LOVE them!  And they are great for trick or treaters!  And I can take the best ones out first and eat them myself in front of the telly later!  YEAH, Hallowe’en!

But not this year, dear friends.  This year I cannot buy these.  They are dreadful pollutants, easily blown away in the wind and made of a material that will never break down, only ‘up’.  So I have not got any in.  Instead I have bought some big marshmallows, dipped them in chocolate and sprinkles and will be handing them out instead.  Of course, there is packaging with this but no where NEAR as much, and it is recyclable or reusable.  This is great for the world!  YEAH!  Imagine how much room in the world those horrible little chocolate wrappers take up between now and New Year?!  Unconscionable.

So, friends, do take a moment to try and think of an alternative to the usual.  Marshmallows are easy, fun, everyone likes them and they don’t leak or melt.  Big packets of things is also the way forward – a single big pack of haribo, for example, would be better than those multipacks.  Until we can all get to a refill store for our treats or pick ‘n’ mix isn’t absurdly expensive we have to make do as best we can.  Avoid the teeny wrapped chocolates (don’t get me started on the new kitkat variety pack being advertised.  What stupid timing to bring out a new individually wrapped single use plastic product!  As if nestle weren’t bad enough.  As if kitkats weren’t my favourite chocolate.  Sob).  Or get big packs of sweets and make twists of them in some tissue paper instead of giving out plastic multipacks.  (It would look more thoughtful too.)

Am hoping that in looking forward to what we can do (and be) we won’t have to keep looking back.  In the meantime I will keep staring longingly at the celebrations and heroes and quality street and roses tubs in the stores, steel myself and walk on by.  I got marshmallows dipped in chocolate at home, s’all good here 🙂

 

Eating the Elephant

WAH!

So I have managed to help our wonderful little city get Plastic Free Status after so much focus and drive for the past few months.  And we are the first city to do this – which means the biggest place to date.  Chuffed to bits and incredibly proud to have worked with the teeny little team we were.

But with great power comes great responsibility.  Or, rather, with a moderate achievement comes a small amount of very local social exposure.  Publicity, as it is with social media and the wonders of the internet, can’t be tamed or controlled and for a shy mite like me this can be overwhelming!  It’s great for the cause though and I try and roll with it, but to be honest I find it really scary 🙂  I LOVE to write and communicate but I think that is because writing and publishing is on my own terms.  I also perceive attention as expectation and think I must do something AMAZING now… but have no idea what or where and actually, I have three children and a job to get and I cannot possibly volunteer any more than I have done on this already and, and, and…

So I feel like a failure, like I can’t possibly do what I am ‘supposed’ to do now or be like other wonderful, high-achieving superstars of the ‘plastic free’ movement…  so did I ought to give it up?  Let someone else do it?  Am I failing?

I don’t really know right now which is usually a sign that a step back and stocktake is necessary.  I guess I forget that when you have reached a goal, reached the Pinnacle, it also necessarily signals the end of something.  And, consequently, a period of transition and limbo while you fashion something new: a new beginning.  And humans are not fond of transition phases or limbo, funnily enough, we find them stressful 🙂  So that is where I am at the moment, redefining my mission and goals and shaping these into something I will enjoy and be motivated by.

I would like to go out and meet the people again with a stall…  Maybe talk about recycling – this is SUCH a big deal because actually no-one does it!  Maybe do some web stuff and promoting of businesses and initiatives that I love around my city.  Other people do so well and are so amazing, I would like to help them and stay half in/half out of my happy hole 🙂

And the thing is that I am worried about this, about letting people down and not doing enough, and I am not even paid.  Am completely daft!  I definitely need a job doing this kind of thing.  Spreading the word and enthusiasm.  I would really like to do a big piece of research on recycling and how to make it work for Cornwall.  Anyone?! 🙂

So, I may be laying a bit low while I work through this period of transition…  Although now I know this is what I need to do I feel a lot better!  Hehe.

Laters!

 

The Party!

We had the party!  Lots of 4 and 5 year old children came, saw, and conquered…  But how did my plastic free attempts go in the end?!

Well, it was OK!  Actually I am pretty pleased with the results 🙂

• I managed to use decs that can be re-used or recycled
• All adults and children had cups that we washed up
• We had minimal food left over – enough that it was clear the kids had had their fill, but not throwing away plates of manhandled sandwiches etc.  This was wonderful – I hate food waste when people around the corner have stamps for a food bank 😦
• We dusted off the paper plates and they are in the recycling
• We laid out birthday banners along the middle of the tables instead of tablecloths which was much easier.  Tablecloths are such a faff although the tables were a bit brown and ugly.  But no child complained or cried about it (to my face) so I think it was OK!
• I made lots of the food that we might ordinarily buy in plastic packets like biscuits, cakes, snacky things.
• We made paper aeroplanes – they LOVED this and coloured in their planes.  All very civilised for ten minutes 🙂
• The party bags were either a paper bag decorated by the Birthday boy (bless) or cotton bags (£1 each, bargain) with a book in and a little kit I made to grow sunflowers seeds.  Little wrap of seeds (no tape required, it is just a little pocket envelope you make) tied with cotton to a single egg box carton with a cotton wool bud in it.  And a spiderman cake and rubber pencil.  It was nice – not great shakes from a five year old’s point of view I know, but nice enough and a bit different so next time the kids get their plastic fantastic party bag they’ll appreciate it 😉

Issues?

• Having a recycling bag when there isn’t a recycling bin means that people instinctively want to just put all rubbish in the general waste bin.  This is a habit we have in the UK – if there’s just one bin available we don’t question it and happily put all our rubbish in it.  So I was lucky that my friends and fam were on point when it came to recognising what was recyclable/reusable and what wasn’t!  It’s so weird but we still have to think about it, and when you are frazzled hosting a party/wedding whatevs it is hard to remember to do the right thing.  One day it won’t be the right thing, it’ll be second nature, but for now we have to work at it.  But we did and I am so very happy about this!
• We did use a LOT of stuff that came wrapped in non-recyclable plastic 😦  Last minute biscuit purchases, the reusable decs, the cupcake toppers, the chocolate for the brownies…  all in plastic, plastic, plastic.  So while the party itself was remarkably plastic free the prep for it had involved a LOT of plastic waste.  We did make up for this though by making sure all wrapping paper, cardboard and plastic trays from pressies were put in the recycling and not just shoved in the bin.  (I know it sounds bad but that is what we do in this country.  We think ‘I am TIRED and you can’t recycle it with SELLOTAPE on!’ and sneak it all into the bin).
• FYI a little bit of what recycling peeps call ‘co-mingling’ is a-ok.  I love this term co-mingling.  It sounds risque and devilish.  So plastic sellotape can co-mingle with paper but only a LITTLE bit.  It is probably the recycling equivalent of keeping one’s feet on the floor when entertaining a gentleman caller so the chaperone can tell one is not co-mingling too much…
• The party involved a lot of prep.  I cannot lie – it is a LOT easier to just open packets of plastic and shove little bits and bobs of bright, fun plastic into party bags.  It is easier to have party rings and mini gems and celebrations sweets for prizes.  It is easier to have pots of bubbles and glo sticks.  But it is not kind and so we won’t go there.
• I also cannot lie and say that it does not feel good to have taken the long way around even though it was a pain in the bum.  It won’t be a pain in the bum for long as we all catch on though.
• The balloons were great and I really like the fact that they have nearly all deflated now.  This means I can put them in the bin properly.  I can’t compost them all, I have thirty of them, but am trying with some of them!
• We didn’t have a ‘party teacher’ as my son calls them, so we didn’t need to negotiate with their plastic prize habits (they all have them!).  We just had a disco.  A very loud, crazy disco and lots of balloons and flammable superhero suits that are, incidentally, superb for sliding along a village hall floor in.

And I think that is it!  No plastic cups, plates, tablecloths, toys or sweets and they had a GREAT time.  It was so worth it.

Laters!

My Plastic (free) Party! Latest Update

So it is party day tomorrow!  This is a GREAT tribute to all things non-plastic.  It is a celebration of eco!  It is wood and paper and home-made cake, biodegradable unwasteful wonder!

Ahhh.  Is it bollocks.

So, the truth…  It is teeth-gnashingly, knuckle-gnawingly PLASTIC.  It is big fairy dance of wonder to all things wrapped in unnecessary amounts of non-recyclable plastic!  It is raining packaging from chocolate and butter and film coverings for spiderman rice paper faces!  It is crisps in single packets (blame the husband ;)); it is paper plates that are fun-sappingly plain and yet don’t say on the packet if they are recyclable though I am assuming they are.  It is sweets for prizes that are impossible to find wrapped, yes, (no-one wants to prize their flying saucer prize off the tissue paper from pass the parcel without a wrapper of some kind) not wrapped individually, then wrapped in small package wrapping and then wrapped in one big plastic bladdy covering.  So I have plumped for blackjacks and fruit salads like what we had stuck to parcels in the Olde Days.  And the main prize in pass the parcel?!  It is SO easy to just get a naff plastic toy.  So easy.  I haven’t, but don’t ask me what I have got because I don’t know.

‘What is going right then, you poor, anti-plastic Mama of the Earth!’ I hear you cry.

Well.

• I have got juice to put into jugs (standard tbh but hey, you gotta take the breaks when they rarely occur) instead of cartons.
• I have got some of my own reusable plastic cups to supplement whatever the community centre has, instead of single use disposable ones.
• I have paper plates and bowls instead of plasticky non-recyclable ones.
• I have (*cough*) biodegradable balloons instead of the usual, utterly plastic ones.
• I have gone for reusable decorations instead of using them once and chucking them away.
• I have got proper tablecloths, not plastic chuckable ones.
• I have paper, card, pens, stamps and playdough from our craft cupboard for the chillout craft table.  No glitter, no glue, no sellotaped stuff.
• I have paper bags for party bags 🙂
• I have made cakes for party bags in paper casings.  I have got a lovely book for each childer person, some sunflower seeds and a wee bit of egg box casing to grow and plant them on in; and am trying to crochet enough balls for each kidling (am a third of the way through…  I might give up and give out some rubber pencils instead ;)).  The crochet plan is a killer because the stuffing is polyester which is plastic.  And I ran out of cotton and have had to use acrylic which is also plastic.  FAIL.
• Am using my own platters etc from home to serve stuff instead of chuckable ones.
• I baked all the biscuits, brownies and cupcakes myself instead of having foxes party rings or chocolate fingers and all the non-recyclable black plastic waste that comes with them.  It has also meant the kids have had several bowls of cake mix to rub over their faces today which, I think we will all agree, is a very wholesome activity.  I have also shouted at them a lot for trying to talk to me when I am baking my head off.

So there we have it.  I am waiting to see what the husband brings home next for the pass the parcel presents.  Probably a box of individually wrapped kit kats or haribo packets.

We can but try!  I must remember that this is not a life spent trying and failing to be perfect.  It is all a process, a journey of knowledge and mistakes and being wonderfully imperfect.

I’m off to roll around in some plastic packaged ham and plastic sheathed cucumbers and just be chuffed with myself if I manage to pull all this off and continue to avoid clingfilm.

🙂 laters!

 

Update: My Plastic Free Party

#firstworldproblems alert 😉

Ahhhhhh!  Having a plastic free, superhero disco party for a five year old is so hard!  And so easy…  But so hard!

OK.  Firstly, a disco party for a boy without balloons is virtually a fun-free zone.  I know I want to trailblaze but he does NOT want tassley ribbon sticks or pom poms instead.  He wants balloooooooooons!  And he has a hard life this wee poppet, and it is his first birthday party (and mine!  Am terrified!).  So I am killing two birds, as it were, with one stone and getting biodegradable balloons from little cherry 🙂  I have messaged them about the viability of their ‘biodegradable’ balloons because I am incredibly sceptical about this claim not least because of the Hold Tight movement telling everyone that latext ‘biodegradable’ balloons still cause a lot of damage and can take up to four years to actually degrade :(.  They say, very reasonably, that they do not condone mass balloon releases and that they encourage their customers to dispose of their balloons carefully in the bin or compost.  I, obviously, (!) need to try this out for myself so yes, I am getting some biodegradable balloons for my son’s party and I shall see if they work in my compost.  It is not scientific though, just for fun and actually, I love Little Cherry and what they do so am not interested in badmouthing a lovely little company trying to do a bit of good in our world 😉

I have ordered lots of superhero decorations, which were really easy to get online everywhere.  The only thing is that a lot of paper decs like honeycomb balls and pom poms are made in soft colours and can be pricey.  Too pricey when you are just throwing stuff at the walls of the local village hall in the hope that it will suffice under minimum scrutiny for two hours 😉  I have got disco ball lights and blue and red fairy lights to decorate with 🙂  After the party I can hang these around my boy’s bunk bed for a super spidey bed!  He’ll LOVE this 🙂  I have got crepe paper streamers to hang around the walls for spider stuff and paper chains too.  Should be cool – everything is reusable or compostable.  I have also been thinking about whether we could make a party sharing something or other.  It seems daft us all buying cups and plates when if we got 30 of these things and put them in a shed we could all just share them for all our parties?!  And share themed stuff that you will only use once?  Hmmm, I can totally do this.  Though I could do with a shed… A shed of things.  I need a winnie the pooh style thinky-think 🙂

So, what else is there?  Well, there is food waste.  I wanted to have cardboard boxes with portioned food inside but have realised that 5 year olds are not just fussy customers but very vocal and emotional about it.  I don’t want any children crying because they have a cheese sarnie in their box and not a ham one like Maisy-Boo 😦  No crying!  So I will make extra sarnies ANYWAY, in which case why don’t I just make a platter like normal and then let them help themselves?!  Arf.  And it looks like rain anyway so we won’t be eating al fresco…

Which means I need cups and plates.  I want cardboard paper plates but getting these in colour and not non-recyclable, shiny and plastic coated is HARD.  Also, when one is perusing online there are no symbols saying that something is recyclable so I could open my package to find cardboard…  or plastic coating.  I can obviously have plain white ones and probably will…  but I want the red ones!  Cups are easy enough though, they will have stuff at the community centre I am sure and am confident they won’t throw them around or smash them…  Oh dear – am I going to need paper cups too?

Party bags I do actually have sorted 🙂 I have a book, crocheted ball made by myself, spidey cupcake and something else (though I can’t remember what…  prob food related!)  Nice things, all reusable/washable/non-plastic.  In a paper bag of course!

Anyway.  The party is on Sunday and am slowly warming up to full panic-mode.  I’ll update as we get stuff and I realise plastic really is the best and only way to do a party for a five year old boy…  EEP!

 

Balloons! What A Popping Minefield!

I have a 5 year old birthday party to organise so it is time for me to think about how to put all my new ethics in to practice.  I think parties are single use plastic heaven!  Cutlery, cups, plasticky plates, balloons, sweet wrappers, convenience food wrappers, party bags, party bag toys.

WAH!  I think my son is going to have such a worthy eco party that we will sat on hessian sacks in the rain eating apples and some kind of seeded wholegrain cake.  Poor boy.  So I felt we should have some time to do a GREAT non-plastic party!

To start with I found www.littlecherry.co.uk.  This is a lovely little company doing bamboo and palm plates and cutlery for one’s ‘do’, and little wooden toys or hair slides for party bags.  So cute.  I love this.  It is a bit on the expensive side though.  And then I saw that they do ‘eco balloons’.  Biodegradable balloons?!  WOW that is the party holy grail!  Not having balloons at a child’s party was stressing me out so I thought woohoo, this is the solution, obviously.

And then I googled ‘biodegradable balloons’ and found out that all is not as it seems.  As per blinking usual.  Balloons Blow are dedicated to telling us all how awful balloons are and explain that so-called ‘biodegradable’ balloons are still trying to degrade in their composting bin after 5 years.  That even when they pop the fragments take so long to breakdown that there is ample time for them to be gobbled up by some unsuspecting wildlife.  Sad times.

So I am not going to have balloons at all.  So I googled what to do instead and came across such lovely ideas, again from Balloons Blow, I just had to share them!  (Oh goodness, my 4 year old just came up to me telling me how much he loves balloons…)

Ideas:

• Tissue pom poms
• Yarn pom poms
• Crepe fans
• Crepe flowers
• Streamers
• Ribbons
• Ribbons on sticks
• Bunting
• Flags

Also you could use real balls and bubbles.

I worry that the list looks quite female.  It would be easy to do a girly fairy party with these things.  I have a boy who wants balloons!  So what I would do is make them rainbow colours.  Bright and brassy and FUN!  He would love ribbon streamers on a stick to run around with, and bubbles and pom pom to throw around 🙂  I could crochet some balls for them to kick about and then each can take one home.

Foodwise, in order to minimise waste I am thinking of doing individually portioned lunchboxes – you know the ones you get in cardboard boxes shaped like a train or whatever.  I would use big packs of crisps and portion out a handful each so we don’t have loads of crisp wrappers and can easily make cookies!  Drinks can be in paper cups.  Paper straws obvs…  YAY!

I think these are nice ideas.  Certainly a starting point!  Watch this space.

 

Email to Sainsburys

So I sent my first badgering email 🙂  I brought up:

• Unnecessary packaging on the multipacks
• Plastic bags for loose fruit and veg
• Plastic on netting

I didn’t get space in the form to talk about the eco-aisle!  But they responded and, while not really committing to anything new they do show willing.  I’ll take that for now :).  Here is a copy of their response:

Dear Dr Srivastava

Thanks for writing to us about your concerns surrounding our environmental policies. We’re really passionate in our approach to this issue, particularly as one of our key corporate values is respect for our environment.

As part of our company values, we’re committed to sourcing the products we sell in a sustainable and responsible way. Our scale means we can make a massive difference by embedding ‘Respect For Our Environment’ in our decision making. We aim to be the UK’s greenest grocer, not only by reducing our impact on the environment but by engaging our suppliers and others to do the same. You can find out more about this by visiting http://www.j-sainsbury.co.uk/responsibility, including our sustainability plan, our comments and stories on food donation, healthier baskets and waste less, save more.

I’m sorry you’ve had to query our approach, and I’ve dropped a copy of your email to our Corporate Affairs Team. They’ll be able to use your comments to help them with their continual updates on our environmental policies.

Thanks for taking the time to get in touch and I hope you’ll feel happy to shop with us soon.

Kind regards,

Aaron Podesta | Sainsbury’s Careline
Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd | 33 Holborn, London | EC1N 2HT
customer.service@sainsburys.co.uk | 0800 636 262
twitter.com/sainsburys | facebook.com/sainsburys

As you can see above,  if you would like to email them with your concerns too their address is:

customer.service@sainsburys.co.uk

This is a template for an email you can send, if it helps:

Dear         ,

I am sure that you are increasingly aware of the international concern with plastic pollution and that consequently people do not want to purchase unnecessary plastic with their groceries.  I wish to draw your attention to the superfluity of single use plastic in your stores so you can hopefully change your policies to be more protective of our environment.

First, in your stores consumers are incentivised to buy products in unnecessary plastic packaging in the form of multi-pack buys.  Products from fruit and veg to tins of beans, soups and fish purchased in plastic multi-packs are consistently cheaper than when bought loose.  This is both unnecessary and harmful plastic waste and financially demotivating for consumers trying to make ethical purchasing decisions.

Second, the netting for food like oranges has unnecessary plastic tags on it, while loose fruit and veg has non-degradable stickers on.  These could be made from biodegradable materials.

Third, your consumers are encouraged to put these items in flimsy single use plastic bags when you could easily change this to compostable netting; desirable, non-plastic market bags; or paper bags.

Finally, it is essential that online shopping is delivered in a more customer-friendly manner.  It is currently challenging to receive a large family shop without using plastic bags to help speed the unpacking from the lorry.  I would suggest lining the stackable plastic crates with a cardboard box taken out of the crate by the door for easy unpacking.  These can later be returned to you or recycled.

These issues can arguably be addressed immediately and result in a positive, ethical move for your brand.

Thank you for your time.

Yours sincerely

…..

I also like to add the following because I like these ideas 🙂

There are longer term issues that can be changed.  Elsewhere in the store the issue continues as breads and cereals are swathed in plastic – even fresh bakery items are sold in paper bags with plastic windows.  Refill bins for popular brands could be introduced.

I would also like to suggest the development of an eco-aisle of ecologically sound, compostable or biodegradable alternatives to common household products.  (This is distinct to products that promote themselves as ‘organic’, ‘natural’ or ‘local’ while using non-recyclable plastic packaging.)  Rather, they are products which are easily recyclable, reusable or refillable.  Your store already has plenty of these products but they are hard to see among the regular brands.  An ‘eco-week’ could be arranged, promoting your support to ecologically aware brands.  You could trial and demonstrate the efficacy of bottle refills for household cleaners; install bulk buy refill bins for cereals; deposit and return systems for plastic bottles and even trial and promote alternative products like shampoo bars, simple hand soaps, reusable products over disposable ones (e.g. kitchen cloths, baby wipes and nappies) and windowsill salad gardens.  It would be possible to market these as aspirational and desirable lifestyle changes, as fun and simple ways of ‘being’ along with the current trend toward the concepts of hygge and mindfulness.

I sincerely believe that immediately addressing some of the above concerns while also developing a longer-term, ecologically motivated anti-plastic campaign could only be a positive move for your brand.  I hope that you agree.

I hope they do agree!  Anyway, there isn’t going to be much choice soon, the Government seem to be on the case – more of which later 🙂 🙂 🙂

Am off to wrap my pressies – using recyclable wrapping paper (not the shiny plasticky stuff!) and either pretty yarns, string and twine to wrap around it in a bow 🙂  I then reuse lovely cards from last year’s crop as gift tags.  It is surprisingly effective and very pleasing!

Big loves y’all

Ni

 

 

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This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager (postmaster@sainsburys.co.uk) and delete it from your system.

Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd (3261722 England)
Registered Offices: 33 Holborn, London, EC1N 2HT

Sainsbury’s Argos is a trading name of both:
1) Argos Limited, Registered office: 489-499 Avebury Boulevard, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom, MK9 2NW, registered number: 01081551 (England and Wales); and
2) Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Limited, Registered office: 33 Holborn, London, EC1N 2HT, registered number: 03261722 (England and Wales).

All companies listed above are subsidiaries of J Sainsbury plc (185647).

---

www.vegware.com

I have found a viable alternative to catering supplies that usually rely on plastic nonsense!  I have, I have!  They are called vegware and are AWESOME.  I am going to see if I can get our wonderful PTA at school to use them.  They sell 25 double skinned COMPOSTABLE coffee cups for £5…  this is competitive and significant 🙂  They also sell LIDS for coffee cups!  And cutlery and plates and just loads of fabulous stuff.  They can even print your logo on your cups.

Fantastic!

 

Straws and the Disabled

The issue of straws and disability has come to my attention today.

Many people with disabilities rely on straws in order to drink.  I remember in hospital, helping my Step-Dad drink from a cup with a straw because he wasn’t strong enough to hold the cup.  Children can be coaxed into a drink when unwell because of a jaunty straw.  People with chronic oral or dental problems, issues with swallowing, a new dental brace, raw tooth nerves, dry mouth from steroids – any number of reasons – these are all people who need straws.

My friend has a disabled son and he really needed a drink at a beach-side cafe that now has a no straw policy…  He has sensory challenges that mean he will not drink from a cup, but will with a plastic straw.  Not a stainless steel straw because he has broken front teeth that cannot risk being clamped down on metal.  Obviously, in line with this message inherent to this blog, this is an environmental move to be applauded.  But it meant that my friend and her son were stuck – he couldn’t have a drink.

So I had a look around and found these Silicon Tipped Straws at KleanKanteen I don’t yet know if they will do the job for my friend and her son, but generally I really like them.  I confess I don’t really like the idea of ice cold stainless steel for my drink myself.  Paper straws are childish, don’t travel well and are about as much use as, well, trying to drink water with a paper straw 😉  Kids love to chomp on their straws.  These silicon tipped straws are great for all those things.  The silicon is earth friendly, it comes off and can be washed in your dishwasher, it is chemical nasty free, and you can get cool black tips or multicolours.  And it is nice and comfortable to put in your mouth.  I’m getting some 🙂

In the meantime, as the revolution takes hold it might be as well to remember that a plastic straw may be more than just a frippery for some people.  In fact, if your disabled customer’s needs cannot be met then it could be darned well illegal not to have some.  Swingeing from one pole to another is not the answer!

Laters!

Sticky Tape…

I know.

BUT fear thee not!  It is fine.

Sellotape is a big part of what I use when wrapping up my crocheted lovelies into their tissue paper, or bag, or wrapping paper (if I have made something for a friend).  But it is a nightmare for the Antiplastics.  Do we all remember when we started recycling about 10 years ago, trying to get those bits of sellotape off our wrapping paper after birthdays and Christmas so it could be recycled?  (And then thankfully someone invented that thick, shiny wrapping paper that can’t be recycled anyway so HURRAH!  That chore was taken care of.)  Well there was a reason for that.  Sellotape (sticky tape to everyone who isn’t in the UK) is a bugger.  Can’t be recycled, won’t biodegrade, is eaten by the lickle animals.

So what do we do?  Well, I have decided not to use it.  Ta da!  I now wrap my pressies with string!  Lovely string.  Or twine.  Or ribbon.  Ribbon would be nice.  Then you pull the bow and your pressie unfolds in front of you.  Is most pleasing.  I am thinking I will use brown paper to wrap my crocheted bits but all sorts can be used for presents – tissue paper, newspaper, pages from old books, photocopied/printed pictures…  Or you can do perdy stamp patterns on it, or handprints, or stencil art, or just leave it plain and rustic looking.  Or let the kids at a roll of plain white paper (*runs screaming*).

This is only as regards wrapping presents so far.  I have not yet been tested with other sellotape-related concerns…  (I totally get that sticky tape is almost certainly a necessary evil in our world.  Some things you just really, really need ;))  We shall see.

BYE!