The Plastic Problem and our Promises

Unless you’ve been living under a rock it’s likely been unavoidable to know about the plastic problem on this planet.

To tackle our plastic footprint, reducing single use plastics are the swaps we started with and there have been some easy switches I’ve made. (Though there are plenty more to make too).

It didn’t happen overnight. It has been a slow process of reducing bits one by one for us.

We started in the kitchen. Cling film was a big bug bear of mine so that went first. Swiftly followed were food and freezer bags and both of these were easily swapped for reusable tubs.

We then looked to the next big pile up of plastic: shopping bags. We began recycle our shopping bags and replace them with more permanent tote style bags. Most supermarkets have collection bins and Ocado even pay you to take them (with an order). For fruit and veg we started to take it loose too. There are plenty of alternate plastic-free fruit and veg bags out there if you really need to use something.

Ocado’s bag recycle bonus from their FAQ

I then made an extra effort to recycle more and correctly. It’s amazing when you look at it what you can and can’t. Checking with your local authority is the place for this one.

Terracycle recycling began this year. A colleague at work set up collection for our company.

The Terrecycle scheme takes near to everything you can’t traditionally recycle. For example: crisps packets (grr), toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, chocolate wrappers, sweet wrappers…….the list goes on. And on and on and on. You just need to find a collector which you can do on the website, deliver to them and they send then on to Terracycle. (See my Terracycle post here).

My ultra glamorous (temporary as I’ll improve it) Terracycle collection set up

From those reductions I’d only be less than quarter-filling my bin destined for landfill, rather than the previous three quarters.

But then the Munchkin arrived and so did disposable nappies. You only had to look in the bin every fortnight to see the effect with the bin back up to half full.

We had to try something different! We changed to Mio miosolo nappies when Munchkin was around 5 and a half months and then just use disposables for the nights as this is where reusables seem to struggle. It’s another load of washing so a little extra effort but that is a small sacrifice for the 25 nappies not ending up in landfill each week. Especially given those 25 extra nappies would outlive our little Munchkin by 100 years or more.

A happy Munchkin in a Mio miosolo nappy ?

Future swaps I’m looking at are trying reusable baby wipes and biodegradable nappies for the nights (which are swapped and you can read about here). Though hopefully when Munchkin sleeps through the night the washable nappies may last.

It’s not about changing everything, and it’s not about doing it overnight. It’s about changing bit by bit overtime. It all adds up and makes a difference.

Thanks for reading,

Daddy and Munchkin

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