Fantastic un-plastic

Plastic is everywhere. From the wristband placed around your wrist at birth to the mouse your hand is resting on right now, you can’t get away from it. It’s fantastic stuff... when used well.

We’ve grown a bit of an addiction lately though, using it like it's going out of fashion in the most ludicrous way. From individually wrapping bananas to encasing a stick of glue in an unbreakable plastic case, to single-use carrier bags, our use of plastic has gone wild.

And it’s not without it’s consequences.

Why?

Landfill and recycling

Thankfully, not all plastic waste ends up in our trees and seas. Every year 800,000 tonnes of plastic bags are used in the EU, and only 6% is recycled¹ - down cycled, we should say. Plastic recycling is nowhere near as efficient as glass or aluminium can recycling; it dramatically reduces the quality of the plastic and uses lots of energy (although not as much as making new plastic from scratch).

But it’s far better just to use less in the first place.

Climate change

Plastic is made from oil, and making it uses a fair whack of energy: for every kilo of plastic six kilos of carbon dioxide is released².

By avoiding buying excessively packaged goods you can save 250kg CO₂ a year – the same as 40 cups of tea a day all year³

By just taking your own cotton bags to the supermarket you can save 23Kg CO₂ a year³.