Surfers Against Sewage have unleashed their phenomenally popular ‘plastic free coastlines’ initiative, with Community Leaders signing up all over the country to help make their area ‘plastic free’. I am one of these Community Leaders in Truro, Cornwall. But what does ‘plastic free’ actually mean and where is it heading?
This week has been very enlightening for me. Speaking with Tor Amran from The Cornish Food Box Company in Truro I have learnt all about suppliers and stock; about the relationship between plastic, fresh produce and food waste; about the environmental footprint of glass vs plastic. About the dairy industry on a local vs international commercial scale. About delivery logistics, shops and consumer concentration levels.
I have been educated. And this has posed a fantastic and discombobulating level of nuance to the discussion about ditching plastic.
Now, it must be re-iterated from the outset that ‘plastic free’ always refers to single-use, disposable plastic. It firstly refers to things like:
Disposable coffee/juice/party cups
Plastic, chuckable cutlery
Styrofoam kebab/chippy boxes
*Unnecessary* plastic bags for groceries, nappies, dog poo
Drink cartons/pouches like fruit shoots and smoothies
Straws and straw wrappers
Boxes of individually wrapped chocolate
Plastic water bottles
Individually portioned condiments and milks
This is not an exhaustive list! But it shows the types of things that we come across everyday. These are challenging if you are dependent on takeaway food, lunchtime meal deals, that coffee on the train, your kids snacks, drinks and lunch box items. However, I would argue that it isn’t difficult to stop doing a couple of these things. Or swapping out individually portioned crisp packets and putting a handful in a tupperware box so you only use one packet in a week. Or taking your travel mug on the train. Or putting your kids drinks in a bottle instead of giving them cartons with straws. Or saying no to a straw. They are possible and not life-changing. No-one would notice and think you’ve Gone Hippy. These are the habits we focus on with ‘Plastic Free’ initiatives.
Then we have the second level of change, where we need a bit more of a commitment or challenge to what we may consider as ‘normal’. This may be because the ideas are really new to us, or because we have to try a bit harder to find the product we want. This includes:
Using a local veg box delivery company
Getting your milk delivered to your doorstep in glass bottles
Refusing fruit and veg that comes in disposable plastic
Refusing grocery bags and taking your own cotton ones instead
Swapping out plastic toothbrushes for bamboo ones
Swapping out plastic scrubbing brushes for wooden ones
Using shampoo bars instead of buying more plastic bottles
Using soap instead of handwash
Using a mooncup instead of sanitary pads or tampons
Using bamboo/wooden cotton buds instead of plastic ones
And the NEXT step?! Well, this is more challenging again and actually rather exciting 🙂
Sourcing refill stations for water; coffee; shampoo; handwash; detergents. Take your own pots and jars and fill away. Weigh, then pay.
Sourcing repair shops or borrowing from a community ‘Library of Things’
Setting up a ‘community fridge’ to share food and stop food waste
Having an industrial grade (but small, they do exist!) community composter to compost packaging.
Using soapnuts for your washing machine instead of detergents!
Using paper tape instead of sellotape
Using string to tie a present with wrapping paper you made yourself
Use tissue paper
Using compostable teabags (yes, there is plastic in the seals of teabags!)
Home composting and veg growing
Cook and bake from scratch
Go to a grocer, butcher, baker
Using deodorant as a balm from a glass pot rather than from a roll-on, stick, rock or spray
Buy a proper, grown up metal razor and some razor blades for it (£30 all in for over a year’s supply) – this is for girls and boys!
Use a flannel washcloth and reusable cotton cloths instead of wipes or plastic shower puffs
Use washable nappies
Avoid plastic party stuff like the plague!
And then?!
Well, there is zero waste living. This is an extraordinary endeavour to be commended, (See: the zero waster.com). But is not where we are going here! Not yet, anyway 😉
SAS and the #’Plastic Free Coastlines initiative are all about the first step. But we are getting used this now and are asking questions of our suppliers. Constant questions that pop up are:
- Why is my milk in plastic and not glass bottles?
- Should I use a milkman again?
- Aren’t supermarkets the problem?
- Why are cucumbers sheathed in plastic?
- Why do we have to use plastic little grocery bags in stores?
- Why do my local fruit and veg delivery service have salad in plastic bags?
- Why do my strawberries and raspberries and tomatoes come in plastic trays?
So, as we aim to please, here are some answers:
Why is milk in plastic and not glass bottles?
Milk is in plastic because plastic is cheaper to produce, lighter to transport, is sterile and the bottles are recyclable. Plastic bottles can be piled on top of each other and dropped and don’t need special crates so you can fit more into a transportable load. Glass bottles have a much larger environmental footprint. They are heavier (you can’t get two litres of milk in a glass bottle and expect to carry it to the car!); they are more expensive and more difficult to make; and they are difficult to transport. They must be loaded carefully so they don’t fall and break and put in crates so they don’t jingle jangle and crack.
A single glass bottle costs around 70p wholesale. If the bottle is not returned to the producer then that is money out of their pocket. If it breaks, it is money. If they have a deposit and return scheme that is creating a whole library-style ticketing and notification system that costs time and money. It is also more costly to recycle. Plastic, however, is negligible in cost and can be washed and re-used, re-purposed or sent to the council and easily recycled.
So, glass is not necessarily the thoughtful answer. Suppliers are now considering using glass bottles again, not because it is the right thing to do but because it is what consumers are asking for. But is it a good idea? It is an awful lot of investment for a small producer to make and isn’t actually very convenient for us shoppers if we have to get four bottles to meet our typical 2l family bottle of milk. It isn’t convenient for us to pay an extra 70p for every bottle we use, or have a deposit and return system for something as everyday as milk. Carrying glass bottles to the supermarket is not going to please those who despair at having to use a travel mug for their starbucks fix. I, for one, reckon this is a plastic habit we could keep if we were to a) re-use the bottles or b) make our plastic recycling system financially rewarding.
Should I use a milkman again?
Oooooh this is a tricky one. Obviously we want to support our local dairy farmers and intrinsic to the idea behind delivered milk is that we are doing this while eschewing evil plastic. We wake up to bottles on our doorstep and they are in lovely glass.
BUT… as we have discussed, glass is not necessarily ‘better’ environmentally than plastic in this instance. Also, because of the outlay of the glass and delivery costs delivered milk is really pricey (milkandmore charge £1.43/litre compared to £1 for local milk from Trewithen Dairies at my corner shop) and is being heavily romanticised with imagery of cows at dusk, in rolling British fields, smiling farmers and glass bottles. But what is the reality? Muller bought milkandmore in December from Hill Crest Milkandmore are the biggest milk delivery company in the UK. Hill Crest had declining sales and had decided to use plastic instead of glass as it has a lower environmental impact. This was a thoughtful decision but it didn’t chime with customers. Muller will be reversing this decision and selling their milk nationally in glass bottles – because it appeals to customer notions of the ‘good old days’ of locally sourced and delivered milk. But this milk isn’t locally sourced, it comes from one of Muller’s huge corporate dairys, where cows are milked to excess and kept in sheds. They are not roaming around the fields. They also pay the LOWEST return to farmers of any large-scale buyer. See this from Farming UK in January 2018. It says in no uncertain terms that Muller Corp must start paying its dairy farmers more as it: ‘slashed its price to farmers by a hefty 1.5p per litre for January, sparking fury in its producers.’
This is what is happening behind the scenes of your lovely little glass bottle delivery. It is not realistic, it is romantic and not the answer.
So what shall we do? Well, we cannot have poor local farmers driving from town to town, or paying anyone else to do this either. It is prohibitively expensive and time consuming because, actually, not many people in each town/village have delivered milk. OK. So what about veg box delivery businesses – surely they will want to deliver milk in glass for us? It’s really tricky. If it’s what the customer wants, it is what they want too – even though they are aware of the point above. However, they would need to buy the milk in the bottles from the farmer – they would then bear the brunt of any cost if bottles aren’t returned, or have to go around trying to collect them from whoever hasn’t sent them back yet. This is too expensive. As we saw above, glass is also heavier than plastic. And local dairies are set up to put their milk in plastic bottles.
This responsibility is, I believe, not on the farmers or local suppliers. Glass milk bottle deliveries from milkandmore play on a romantic gimmick that helps massive, unethical, cow and farmer-exploiting corps like Muller keep dairy farmers in a stranglehold while making huge amounts of money from your rose-tinted vision of farming and cows and fields and green grass and milkmaids and milk floats. The problem, in this instance, is NOT that plastic is used in the first place, but that the bottles are not being: a) washed so they are contaminated; b) put out for recycling; c) recycled.
The government needs to help recycling plants recycle this plastic more by helping set up *more* plants, educating us on how to recycle, and helping us recycle more often.
Aren’t supermarkets the problem?
Oh yes, they definitely can be. But they can also be enormous agents for positive change if they think it is what their customers’ want. We can continue to be vocal and they will start to change their attitude to single-use disposable plastics.
Why are cucumbers sheathed in plastic?
Because they stay fresher for three whole extra days longer if they are in plastic. They have to get the cucumbers from source (Europe) to Britain to the shop and then store them, display them and have them in our fridge for up to a week! This is a delicate matter of timing and logistics for our island. I would wager that putting plastic on the cucumbers has greater financial reward for our stores than otherwise, due to the amount of food waste there could be. Now, they could time it and organise their supplies so they more neatly meet demand, or buy their cucumbers locally. Would this be cheaper for us as consumers – would we embrace a more expensive alternative? If you want it, seek it and buy it – local farmers markets and grocers would not have plastic ‘cumbers. They will taste nicer, be far more fresher, be supporting your local farmer and have less of an environmental impact. YAY! But they may take a change in your shopping habits to source.
Why do we have to use plastic little grocery bags in stores?
WHYYYYYYY? They don’t need to at all, they can stop this madness immediately. We can do this buy not using them. Take your own little market bags or have your fruit and veg loose or in a cardboard box stores have by the entrance 🙂
Why do my local fruit and veg delivery service have salad in plastic bags?
Salad is incredibly delicate. Leaves and little beautiful salad flowers have an extremely short shelf life and wince at any handling. They start to lose their green lustre immediately and the best way of stopping this from happening is to bag them up. This also means they are portioned out so the farm can be paid per bag with minimum fuss; the leaves aren’t handled more than once; the plastic helps keep them fresh and transportable.
So what can we do? Well, the answer is to try and use reusable or compostable packaging. Reusable could be possible although the bags are not made to be hugely resiliant. You want a thin bag so the leaves can be seen (we buy with our eyes, remember), be able to breathe and not get all hot, sweaty and start to rot. Compostable bags are on the market and used more and more! This is a great solution. However, it is a nascent market and tricky at the moment because we need to use industrial-grade composters that have just the right conditions for the plastic to break down. If they don’t break down properly then they become the Microplastics of Evil. Eek. These businesses, like vegware and earth-friendly foodware, are on the up and easily accessible. The only issue is getting the packaging back to them so they can dispose of it for you before it gets into a bin.
Why do my strawberries and raspberries and tomatoes come in plastic trays?
Soft fruit is a nightmare to transport. It is more delicate than you can imagine and bacteria travel at the speed of lightening from a fruit spot that is squished against another, so they molder. By the time it comes from southern Europe to our island, from a store to our homes it is on a countdown as it is. No-one wants to buy moldy fruit. The plastic trays give the fruit just enough room to breathe and have enough space that they are not squished and likely to molder. They mean the soft, delicate fruits can be stacked and manhandled and travel to your home in your bag and car. They mean the fruit will last that bit longer in your fridge so you don’t cuss at the store 😉
So what are we to do? Again, the answer lies in compostable packaging and/or better recycling education and facilities.
I think this essay shows that the issue of plastic is not that ALL plastic is evil or used in a superfluous, environment-bashing and animal-hating way. Scratch the surface and you find bewildered suppliers, beleaguered producers and ruthless multinational corporations. You find a struggle between businesses who are missing out because they want to make thoughtful financial and environmental decisions that might mean keeping plastic; businesses who use plastic because it is cheap and keeps their produce fresh and haven’t had reason to change their behaviours yet; and other businesses that want to make money from public demand that is not based in environmental reason but will make them look good.
As consumers we need to make decisions that effect positive change and this needs to be thoughtful, not an ill-considered knee-jerk reaction. We musn’t throw the (plastic) baby out with the bathwater. Glass milk bottles are a case in point. They are expensive to make and so put financial pressure on the already squeezed independent producers we are so keen to support by using them. Multi corps can get on board with this because they can price out independents and spin their cheap and nasty production methods. Glass is not more environmentally sound than plastic – if the plastic can be, and is, recycled. This post really hopes to help us make informed decisions and provide an alternative light on the blanket anti-plastic discourse that permeates the media at the moment. Not all plastic is bad and not all plastic can be easily avoided. I posted above the different levels of engagement we can have with plastic – stage one really is the major change facing us all, but as with everything not at once and not every one for everybody.
Courage comrades 🙂
Written with huge help and thanks to Tor Amran from the Cornish Food Box Company, Truro, Cornwall.
EcoTykki 