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Plastic banned
I have a big backlog of things I want to post about, but I'm going to grit my teeth and pretend it's not there so I can get on and post about Plastic-Free July.
Last year I thought "oh yes, that sounds like a good idea, I'll try to do that," and then July caught me a bit by surprise, and on the first day I bought a packet of crisps (having apparently completely forgotten that the PLASTIC BAG counted as plastic) and was so fed up with my inability to remember a) what month it was or b) what things were made of that I gave up. To be honest I think that says more about my sticking power than about the all-pervasiveness of plastic.
This year July still caught me by surprise; I guess I've only had 36 years to figure out what comes after June. However I was working from home today so I was in a slightly better position to avoid accidentally buying plastic-wrapped food; in fact I managed not to buy anything plastic today because I didn't buy anything.
Of course, that doesn't mean I didn't use any plastic... far from it. Since I didn't buy anything, I tried just to keep an eye on everything I used, and make a note of it all here.
For a start, our house is full of plastic toys and other kiddy stuff. (Yes, of course it's possible to get stuff for kids that isn't plastic, but there's a reason so much kids' stuff is plastic: it's easy to clean and hard to break. These are fairly significant factors to consider when buying something for a preschooler.) To be fair, almost all Img's toys either a) gifts, b) hand-me-downs or c) from charity shops; I rarely buy her new toys. And when I say 'hand-me-downs', that's not only from her 5 older cousins but from previous generations: the plastic ride-on horse-on-wheels my parents gave her for her 1st birthday is the one they gave me for my first birthday. It's not just toys but tools as well: the orange plastic dish and brown plastic sippy-cup she uses were mine (and then my sister's), as you might be able to guess from the colours (nowadays you'd only be able to get them in pink or blue). But we've certainly bought plastic stuff for Img: a potty (we have two, one is second-hand and one is new); a bathroom step-stool; wellies; an Elmer rucksack with big plastic ears and trunk... if I added it all up it'd probably make me feel so guilty I'd never buy her anything again.
It's not just Img, though. We use tons of plastic every day. From where I'm sitting, just glancing around rather than examining the room systematically, I can see: the plastic tablecloth (see above re 'easy to clean'); Img's plastic mat (with dinosaurs on); the phone; the router; all the plastic-coated tech stuff (headphones, iPhone case, cables, etc); a stack of CDs in those horrible fall-apart-ish cases; pens; a water bottle (I do reuse them until I lose them or they break); loads of plastic bags (again, I reuse them as long as possible -- I still have carrier bags from the 1990s!); a blister-pack of antihistamines... ah yes, the medicine. I realised when thinking about this earlier that my inconvenient tooth (one of the other things I wanted to blog about) was introducing masses of plastic into my life. The denture I'm wearing while the implant settles is plastic, and I'll only have it for 3 months after which it'll be completely useless. (Can you recycle dentures?) I've also got a brush for cleaning it, a tube of denture-fixing glue which came in its own little plastic ziploc bag (though that will be useful for toothbrushes etc when travelling), a plastic tube of denture-sterilising tablets, a plastic bottle of mouthwash, and I can't even use my normal plastic-free toothpaste (Lush 'Toothy Tabs') at the moment because it's a bit gritty and it gets stuck in the hole where the implant is. (To be honest I also worry about using that long-term because it doesn't have any fluoride in it.) Medicine seems to be a really plastic-intensive area and unfortunately it's not one where I want to start coming up with "creative" alternatives.
So we're starting from a baseline of "saturated in plastic"... then there's the food. In a fortuitous coincidence, our Abel & Cole fruit and veg box arrived today; that's mostly plastic-free (though we occasionally get things like spinach & greens from them in plastic) and mostly hassle-free as well. (I've considered switching to Riverford, partly because they're a co-op and partly because they've really thought about the environmental cost of their packaging, but we had a trial box from them and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
addedentry thought it wasn't as good for some reason.) Tuesday is also a milk day: we get milk in reusable glass bottles from Milk & More. So we are already trying to reduce plastic in the food we buy. But let's have a look at the rest:
Breakfast:
I don't know what the coffee tub is made of: it looks like cardboard but it's definitely treated with something; it's a bit like tetrapak material, and the lid is plastic, and there's a foil inner lid. If I bought it in smaller quantities I could get it in glass jars (with plastic lids), but that makes it more expensive for me (and possibly heavier to transport hence using more energy...?). Douwe Egberts coffee comes in glass jars with glass lids (with a plastic seal), but it's not fairtrade... However I could get my coffee from SESI and reuse my giant coffee tubs. I will try and get a small amount of their coffee to try this Saturday (no point buying it if I don't like it). Real coffee might be easier to go plastic-free but then I'm using more energy making it.
Bread is tricky; the bakery is only open for a few hours first thing in the morning, and the Co-op only does bread in plastic. Milk & More sell bread but while their pictures show lovely fresh loaves, the actual products are all cheap plastic bread in plastic bags. The market on Saturdays has fresh loaves in paper bags, but it's too stale to slice by the next morning, so it's no good for a week's breakfasts. I guess I could make bread every night ready for the next morning? Switching to cereal is no better: cardboard boxes, but always with a plastic bag inside. I guess cereal maybe lasts longer than a loaf so it might work out slightly better...?
Butter: if I didn't buy the spreadable stuff I could get it wrapped in greaseproof/plasticised paper instead of in a hard plastic tub; is that actually any better?
Juice: we could get orange juice in glass milk-bottles from Milk & More. I don't particularly like it, but Img isn't that picky about juice and would probably drink it.
Lunch
Leftovers eaten out of a plastic tupperware. I've had some of those tupperware boxes for decades, and even the flimsy ones from takeaways (yes, I know, takeaways are bad) get reused until they fall apart.
To drink, I had a can of Coke. OK, so buying anything from evil corporate Coke is bad, but let's shelve that issue for a minute; if you’re going to buy it plastic-free, you either have to get individual cans (the most expensive option) or packs of more-than-6 (10- and 12-packs come in cardboard boxes; 6-packs come in plastic shrinkwrap; bottles are all plastic). What I should really be doing, however, is buying better and more ethical cola. Abel & Cole sell cans of Whole Earth cola, which isn't actually much more expensive than Coke (it's about the same price in the quantities I buy it in), but tastes rubbish. Waitrose do Fentimans cola in glass bottles and Ubuntu fairtrade cola in cans (bonus geek points for the name); annoyingly, their 'essential' (cheap) cola only comes in 2-litre plastic bottles or plastic-wrapped 6-packs. They're also not particularly convenient to get to (they do deliver, but that's adding a van journey -- if I went there myself I'd be on a bike). A while ago I looked into whether a Soda Stream would be a more energy-efficient way of feeding my fizzy drink habit, but it turns out those are differently problematic: see http://sodastreamboycott.org/.
I think the answer here is to stop drinking fizzy drinks, and stop drinking juice because it all comes in tetrapaks or plastic bottles, and just drink water instead. (Or beer! Beer comes in glass bottles! So does wine! I think I may be on to something here...)
Img's snacks/drinks
Tea
There's no way I could get a lot of this stuff plastic-free -- fresh pasta is a convenience food so the answer there is "don't do that then", i.e. I should either make my own pasta (please don't tell me this is "actually very easy", I just don't have time to do it) or eat something different. Grapes are all from miles away (why can't you buy UK grapes? I know you can grow them here!) so I shouldn't be buying them anyway. Rice cakes only ever come in plastic packets, so again the answer is "eat something different". It's hard when Img doesn't want to eat all the things I'd be happy to eat, but then as some angry blogger pointed out recently (can't find the article now) the whole idea of "not liking" certain foods is a massive privilege and we really shouldn't allow ourselves to entertain the concept at all. On the other hand I don't think "plastic-free" is the only -- or even the most important -- criterion for choosing what to eat, either. It's an absolute minefield.
I think the take-home lesson here is "don't buy anything, ever; but even then you will be full of fail in some other way". But that's a rather depressing conclusion.
Also, now I've written all this it's probably too late at night for me to have a bath. My shampoo, of course, is in a plastic bottle. :-/
Last year I thought "oh yes, that sounds like a good idea, I'll try to do that," and then July caught me a bit by surprise, and on the first day I bought a packet of crisps (having apparently completely forgotten that the PLASTIC BAG counted as plastic) and was so fed up with my inability to remember a) what month it was or b) what things were made of that I gave up. To be honest I think that says more about my sticking power than about the all-pervasiveness of plastic.
This year July still caught me by surprise; I guess I've only had 36 years to figure out what comes after June. However I was working from home today so I was in a slightly better position to avoid accidentally buying plastic-wrapped food; in fact I managed not to buy anything plastic today because I didn't buy anything.
Of course, that doesn't mean I didn't use any plastic... far from it. Since I didn't buy anything, I tried just to keep an eye on everything I used, and make a note of it all here.
For a start, our house is full of plastic toys and other kiddy stuff. (Yes, of course it's possible to get stuff for kids that isn't plastic, but there's a reason so much kids' stuff is plastic: it's easy to clean and hard to break. These are fairly significant factors to consider when buying something for a preschooler.) To be fair, almost all Img's toys either a) gifts, b) hand-me-downs or c) from charity shops; I rarely buy her new toys. And when I say 'hand-me-downs', that's not only from her 5 older cousins but from previous generations: the plastic ride-on horse-on-wheels my parents gave her for her 1st birthday is the one they gave me for my first birthday. It's not just toys but tools as well: the orange plastic dish and brown plastic sippy-cup she uses were mine (and then my sister's), as you might be able to guess from the colours (nowadays you'd only be able to get them in pink or blue). But we've certainly bought plastic stuff for Img: a potty (we have two, one is second-hand and one is new); a bathroom step-stool; wellies; an Elmer rucksack with big plastic ears and trunk... if I added it all up it'd probably make me feel so guilty I'd never buy her anything again.
It's not just Img, though. We use tons of plastic every day. From where I'm sitting, just glancing around rather than examining the room systematically, I can see: the plastic tablecloth (see above re 'easy to clean'); Img's plastic mat (with dinosaurs on); the phone; the router; all the plastic-coated tech stuff (headphones, iPhone case, cables, etc); a stack of CDs in those horrible fall-apart-ish cases; pens; a water bottle (I do reuse them until I lose them or they break); loads of plastic bags (again, I reuse them as long as possible -- I still have carrier bags from the 1990s!); a blister-pack of antihistamines... ah yes, the medicine. I realised when thinking about this earlier that my inconvenient tooth (one of the other things I wanted to blog about) was introducing masses of plastic into my life. The denture I'm wearing while the implant settles is plastic, and I'll only have it for 3 months after which it'll be completely useless. (Can you recycle dentures?) I've also got a brush for cleaning it, a tube of denture-fixing glue which came in its own little plastic ziploc bag (though that will be useful for toothbrushes etc when travelling), a plastic tube of denture-sterilising tablets, a plastic bottle of mouthwash, and I can't even use my normal plastic-free toothpaste (Lush 'Toothy Tabs') at the moment because it's a bit gritty and it gets stuck in the hole where the implant is. (To be honest I also worry about using that long-term because it doesn't have any fluoride in it.) Medicine seems to be a really plastic-intensive area and unfortunately it's not one where I want to start coming up with "creative" alternatives.
So we're starting from a baseline of "saturated in plastic"... then there's the food. In a fortuitous coincidence, our Abel & Cole fruit and veg box arrived today; that's mostly plastic-free (though we occasionally get things like spinach & greens from them in plastic) and mostly hassle-free as well. (I've considered switching to Riverford, partly because they're a co-op and partly because they've really thought about the environmental cost of their packaging, but we had a trial box from them and
addedentry thought it wasn't as good for some reason.) Tuesday is also a milk day: we get milk in reusable glass bottles from Milk & More. So we are already trying to reduce plastic in the food we buy. But let's have a look at the rest:Breakfast:
- Milk: glass bottle, delivered by milkman.
- Toast: sliced bread in plastic bag.
- Butter: spreadable, in plastic container.
- Coffee: in 500g tubs made of ... cardboard/plastic/foil?
- Juice: orange juice from a carton; Img had a mini-carton with plastic straw (she doesn't usually but we had one left over from a picnic)
I don't know what the coffee tub is made of: it looks like cardboard but it's definitely treated with something; it's a bit like tetrapak material, and the lid is plastic, and there's a foil inner lid. If I bought it in smaller quantities I could get it in glass jars (with plastic lids), but that makes it more expensive for me (and possibly heavier to transport hence using more energy...?). Douwe Egberts coffee comes in glass jars with glass lids (with a plastic seal), but it's not fairtrade... However I could get my coffee from SESI and reuse my giant coffee tubs. I will try and get a small amount of their coffee to try this Saturday (no point buying it if I don't like it). Real coffee might be easier to go plastic-free but then I'm using more energy making it.
Bread is tricky; the bakery is only open for a few hours first thing in the morning, and the Co-op only does bread in plastic. Milk & More sell bread but while their pictures show lovely fresh loaves, the actual products are all cheap plastic bread in plastic bags. The market on Saturdays has fresh loaves in paper bags, but it's too stale to slice by the next morning, so it's no good for a week's breakfasts. I guess I could make bread every night ready for the next morning? Switching to cereal is no better: cardboard boxes, but always with a plastic bag inside. I guess cereal maybe lasts longer than a loaf so it might work out slightly better...?
Butter: if I didn't buy the spreadable stuff I could get it wrapped in greaseproof/plasticised paper instead of in a hard plastic tub; is that actually any better?
Juice: we could get orange juice in glass milk-bottles from Milk & More. I don't particularly like it, but Img isn't that picky about juice and would probably drink it.
Lunch
Leftovers eaten out of a plastic tupperware. I've had some of those tupperware boxes for decades, and even the flimsy ones from takeaways (yes, I know, takeaways are bad) get reused until they fall apart.
To drink, I had a can of Coke. OK, so buying anything from evil corporate Coke is bad, but let's shelve that issue for a minute; if you’re going to buy it plastic-free, you either have to get individual cans (the most expensive option) or packs of more-than-6 (10- and 12-packs come in cardboard boxes; 6-packs come in plastic shrinkwrap; bottles are all plastic). What I should really be doing, however, is buying better and more ethical cola. Abel & Cole sell cans of Whole Earth cola, which isn't actually much more expensive than Coke (it's about the same price in the quantities I buy it in), but tastes rubbish. Waitrose do Fentimans cola in glass bottles and Ubuntu fairtrade cola in cans (bonus geek points for the name); annoyingly, their 'essential' (cheap) cola only comes in 2-litre plastic bottles or plastic-wrapped 6-packs. They're also not particularly convenient to get to (they do deliver, but that's adding a van journey -- if I went there myself I'd be on a bike). A while ago I looked into whether a Soda Stream would be a more energy-efficient way of feeding my fizzy drink habit, but it turns out those are differently problematic: see http://sodastreamboycott.org/.
I think the answer here is to stop drinking fizzy drinks, and stop drinking juice because it all comes in tetrapaks or plastic bottles, and just drink water instead. (Or beer! Beer comes in glass bottles! So does wine! I think I may be on to something here...)
Img's snacks/drinks
- Banana: plastic-free!
- Juice: from a tetrapak
- Rice cakes: plastic packet
- Peanut butter: glass jar with plastic lid
- Philadelphia: plastic tub
Tea
- Fresh pasta - in a hard plastic packet
- Carrots - from the veg box, so plastic-free
- Grapes - in a plastic punnet wrapped in plastic film, also from Egypt so about gazillion food-miles, general failure on every point here
There's no way I could get a lot of this stuff plastic-free -- fresh pasta is a convenience food so the answer there is "don't do that then", i.e. I should either make my own pasta (please don't tell me this is "actually very easy", I just don't have time to do it) or eat something different. Grapes are all from miles away (why can't you buy UK grapes? I know you can grow them here!) so I shouldn't be buying them anyway. Rice cakes only ever come in plastic packets, so again the answer is "eat something different". It's hard when Img doesn't want to eat all the things I'd be happy to eat, but then as some angry blogger pointed out recently (can't find the article now) the whole idea of "not liking" certain foods is a massive privilege and we really shouldn't allow ourselves to entertain the concept at all. On the other hand I don't think "plastic-free" is the only -- or even the most important -- criterion for choosing what to eat, either. It's an absolute minefield.
I think the take-home lesson here is "don't buy anything, ever; but even then you will be full of fail in some other way". But that's a rather depressing conclusion.
Also, now I've written all this it's probably too late at night for me to have a bath. My shampoo, of course, is in a plastic bottle. :-/
Baby wipes
I use microfibre cloths for hands (pre-dampen before leaving the house, put in "wet" section of the wet-bag I use for transporting food) and small towelling wipes for nappy changes (I take these out dry and wet them under the tap just before use, then just wrap them up with the wet nappy to take back home).
Toby asked for apple juice when we were in a cafe the other day and he saw the cartons, but I explained "those don't belong to us" and he was content with his water. I think, as you say, it's a lot easier to persuade small people into drinking water if their adults drink it too.
Re: Baby wipes
Owen is old enough to understand that items at a cafe are for purchase now, though the whole concept of buying things is still a bit muddled ('mummy, we left the money behind at the shop, we need to go back and get it!')
Re: Baby wipes
Oh boy, I wish I could still fob Img off with explanations like that. ;-)
I have said (of e.g. horrible sweetener-filled blue drinks etc) "those have things in them which aren't good for you" but then had agonies about whether that was a Bad Thing To Say. :-(
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We do let him have apple juice as a treat, and if this had been a special meal (and if the juice had been available in a glass, rather than the plastic carton, or if it hadn't been July...) I'd likely have said yes. I'm hoping that once he knows enough to ask why I can't just buy a thing he wants, he'll also be ready for more sophisticated explanations about treats vs. everyday things.
I don't think what you said about the blue drinks was a Bad Thing To Say. I mean, it's true, right? And you said it in an age-appropriate way. Are you worried that it might be confusing when Img sees other people choosing to drink the drinks anyway?
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Yeah, we're having more success with explaining that sort of thing to Img now she's getting older and cleverer (but it doesn't stop her wanting the treats anyway, and at the same time she's getting better at coming up with explanations for why she should have them, or telling one parent that the other parent said yes, etc -- it feels like a bit of an arms race).
On the whole I do try to say things like "you shouldn't have too much of X" and "you need to eat plenty of different things" rather than "X is bad for you", but I don't know how much sense it makes to her.
Are you worried that it might be confusing when Img sees other people choosing to drink the drinks anyway?
Partly that; partly that "X isn't good for you" a) will be interpreted by anybody who hears it as "X will make you fat", and b) is basically the first step on the road to making her neurotic about her diet (which is probably inevitable anyway in this culture) by teaching her that the foods she likes are all "bad" and therefore she's a bad person etc etc.
(Of course normals who think I'm saying "X will make you fat" will just think I'm sensible for trying to make my tubby little child a bit more skinny, because after all what mom wouldn't want that for their little princess?)
*despairing flail*
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I feel like I'm walking on eggshells when trying to describe anybody to Img at all, to be honest. When asked what somebody looked like Img will currently say quite random things ("she's got hair") as (presumably) she doesn't really know adults in this culture consider salient features of a person's looks. But she has said a couple of times that someone "has pink skin like me" or "has brown skin like L—" (L— is one of her favourite carers at nursery, & is a woman of colour, if that's the right terminology?), which feels fine to me (I mean it's unarguably true & as far as I can tell completely non-judgemental) but I don't know if it's going to be considered offensive by e.g. nursery. I don't know. Minefield. Also wandering off topic so I will shut up now. Sorry!
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I hate hate hate that "you mustn't call people fat" thing. It just reinforces the idea that there's something wrong with being fat.
I'm not sure what the answer is to the bigger question of nursery telling her one thing and you telling her another. From things you've said previously, it doesn't sound like they're enormously good at dealing with differences of opinion. I do wonder how they deal with, for example, questions about religion — whether they're willing to take the line of "some people believe X, other people believe Y". When (not "if") Tobes comes to me in a few years time and says he's been told it's bad to be fat, that's the line I intend to take.
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I will have a look, but most of what I've seen has been from people of colour talking about how to talk to their children (of the same or different skin-colour), and obviously it's very different. I basically daren't talk about race (except in the vaguest terms) to other grown-ups because I have seen so many furious flamewars where I don't even understand the offence given; I'm terrified of saying the wrong thing just through ignorance (which makes it even worse because only the horribly privileged have the luxury of ignorance).
I hate hate hate that "you mustn't call people fat" thing. It just reinforces the idea that there's something wrong with being fat.
I hate it too. :-( But most of the people I meet (& by extension most of the people Img meets) would be really offended if I called them 'fat'. How do you break the vicious circle? I'd be happy to call myself fat but I don't think I am particularly...? Oh god that sounds like I'm fat-hating as well. :-( It's just that when I've described myself as 'fat' I've been told I'm absolutely not, both by people who think there's nothing worse than being called fat _and_ by people who think I have 'thin privilege' & shouldn't try to appropriate fat identity. o_O So... it's another thing I wouldn't dare talk about except to people I know well. To be honest I don't think 'fat' means anything except relative to other things (e.g. I am fatter than X and thinner than Y) and I don't think that difference has any moral value. But I don't know how to talk about my shape/size except to say that it's fine by me. I don't think I'm "beautiful" (I have a separate rant about the "everybody is beautiful" thing) but I don't particularly want/need to be. But that's probably a terribly offensive thing to say for some reason I haven't thought of. :-(
Basically any words for describing people are just a complete fucking minefield. :-( :-( Maybe I should just teach Img "it's rude to talk about how other people look" and then we could avoid the whole thing. :-(
I do wonder how they deal with, for example, questions about religion
I dread to think. :-/ I think all the things they tell her are so completely unexamined that they'd have trouble recognising their own opinions as things that other people could disagree with, they're just How Things Are. :-/
some people believe X, other people believe Y
I think this is a good line to take, & have tried to do this with Img (though it's only really come up with things you are/aren't allowed to do, so far -- e.g. "some parents let their children do X and some don't" -- which is not quite the same as religious/ideological beliefs, but it's a start, I guess?).
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I basically daren't talk about race (except in the vaguest terms) to other grown-ups because I have seen so many furious flamewars where I don't even understand the offence given; I'm terrified of saying the wrong thing just through ignorance (which makes it even worse because only the horribly privileged have the luxury of ignorance).
I don't think there's a short-cut through this, I'm afraid. Though remember that you don't have to join in these conversations before you're ready — you can just listen until you get to the point where you understand things better. Read things written by people who're affected by racism, try to understand their points of view, and keep trying.
I hate it too. :-( But most of the people I meet (& by extension most of the people Img meets) would be really offended if I called them 'fat'. How do you break the vicious circle? I'd be happy to call myself fat but I don't think I am particularly...?
Unless your body has changed drastically since I last saw you, no, you don't appear to be particularly fat, so I think it would just be confusing if you told Img that you are. I think one way to break the circle is to be prepared to say "There's nothing wrong with being fat" if/when someone tells Img off for describing a person as fat — and to repeat it firmly if people try to distract you from that point (e.g. by trying to make you express your own opinion on whether the person is fat or not).
It sounds like the essential problem here is that nursery are promoting unhelpful prejudices and behaviours, and you feel despair over being able to counteract them. If so: some counteracting is better than none. And as Img gets older, she'll eventually get to the point where she can properly understand that different people have different opinions — and I'd hope that as long as you continue being honest and open with her, by that point she'll see you as a Reliable Source.
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you don't have to join in these conversations
This is good and wise advice!
no, you don't appear to be particularly fat
That's what I thought, but just so used to hearing people thinner than me saying "oh god I'm so FAT" that it's hard to know what other people would describe as 'fat'. :-}
I think one way to break the circle is to be prepared to say "There's nothing wrong with being fat" if/when someone tells Img off for describing a person as fat
I do say this to other adults (there's lots of fat-mocking at work) but it usually ends up with them goes down the route of "OK I guess X isn't that bad, but Y is just too fat" and/or coming up with more and more extreme examples ("what if you were too fat to get out of your house?" etc) to try to get me to say "OK yes that would be too fat". I usually just try to get out at that point (usually online so fortunately I can often just ignore/block) because yes OK there may well be a point for any given person at which fat becomes a problem, but I doubt it's the same for all people and I don't want to make medical judgements about someone else just based on how they look.
(Also in general I hate that "but what if [extreme example]" tactic. E.g. I don't fly and I get loads of "but what if you had to fly to save your grandmother's life? What if you had to fly to save everybody else in the world from evil aliens? Ahhhh! What then? What then?" from dickheads.)
It sounds like the essential problem here is that nursery are promoting unhelpful prejudices and behaviours
Very much so :-(
I hope my little bit of counteracting does some good, but I fear it'll be such a drop in the ocean that Img will come to see me as an unreliable source because of it, i.e. when she figures out that I'm the only person who says X when all her friends and teachers etc say Y then I'm probably the one who's wrong. :-(