Reducing plastic

[mistakened Profile]

It seems the French have a good idea https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59843697, I sometimes have problems stopping shop workers from putting items such as bananas or melons in plastic bags

[scullion Profile]

hopefully we will follow (probably out of shame rather than progressive thought) but how old is this man? -

Philippe Binard, from the European Fresh Produce Association, said the "removal of plastic packaging from most fruit and vegetables at such short notice does not allow alternatives to be tested and introduced in a timely manner and stocks of existing packaging to be cleared".

it has only been a few decades since paper bags were the only sort available in supermarkets, shops and markets - and for carrier bags - hopefully they will return (but better than the ones supplied in morrisons the last time i used them!).

[Suelle Profile Website]

hopefully we will follow (probably out of shame rather than progressive thought) but how old is this man? -

it has only been a few decades since paper bags were the only sort available in supermarkets, shops and markets - and for carrier bags - hopefully they will return (but better than the ones supplied in morrisons the last time i used them!).

I think the issue is pre-packing before produce reaches the shops - either by the producer or wholesaler. Pre-packing many perishable fruits and vegetables in plastic, often with a modified atmosphere, prolongs their shelf life a lot.

Have you never bought a pack of green beans for instance, and noticed that they keep for a couple of weeks unopened, but go mouldy within a few days once the pack is open?

No plastic has a lot of implications for importing fruit and vegetables (perhaps not so much in France) as well as food wastage because of shorter shelf lives.

It's not always plastics that cause the problem, but how it's disposed off - if more effort was made to dispose of plastic safely (perhaps by safe incineration to produce power) then we could go on reaping the benefits of using it.

[scullion Profile]

Have you never bought a pack of green beans for instance, and noticed that they keep for a couple of weeks unopened, but go mouldy within a few days once the pack is open?

no, i find they go off quite quickly in the bag! - i have never kept them for a couple of weeks (other than in the freezer).

It's not always plastics that cause the problem, but how it's disposed off - if more effort was made to dispose of plastic safely (perhaps by safe incineration to produce power) then we could go on reaping the benefits of using it.

that's what cornwall does with it - but it seems a waste of the world's finite oil reserves, if you ask me.
more use of modern 'plastics' would help - the sort made from plant sources and with short-life biodegradability.

[Earthmaiden Profile]

I agree re transportation and storage, Suelle (though am still annoyed that green beans come wrapped from Kenya in the summer. That's part of the problem even if economically good for Kenya).

There aren't many markets round here and I do buy a lot of fruit & veg from the supermarket. My plastic recycling bag is always full of plastic punnets which I feel bad about and which would be a good thing to address. I imagine that the shelf life of (for instance) berries, is longer in a solid punnet than loose as you might get on a market stall where they are keen to sell the stock in a day. There are more eco friendly alternative solutions and I don't think we're being quick enough to use them.

I took GD to a chain cafe for lunch the other day. One where you choose things from a fridge then order coffee at the end. My mind wasn't really in gear but when we had eaten our small meal I realised that we had two plastic pots, a plastic spoon, a tetra pack, plastic/metallic crisp packet and some film. GD has been elected eco warrior for her class so I was able to point out how much single use plastic there was. I thought places like that had been told to cut down usage . Perhaps the coffee would once have been in a plastic cup.

[scullion Profile]

our council takes the plastic trays for recycling (not the black ones) and the village where the beach café is is a 'plastic free zone' - cups and lids, and takeaway food trays are the card/bioplastic variety and cutlery is wood - i reuse the latter as plant labels.
i think cardboard is robust enough for fruit punnets. if it can stand up to vomit and other bodily excretions in hospital i think it is more than adequate (like it used to be) for berries.

[Suelle Profile Website]

Plant sourced 'plastics' then raises the issue of land being used for growing these plants when it could be used for growing much needed food. I know that in some cases land not fit for food production can be used, but farmers tend to go for what makes the most profit if they are not controlled. Who would carry on growing (eg) potatoes for a small profit if they could make more profit from plants grown for plastics, even if they knew that potatoes were needed more?

There's already an issue in East Anglia, with a large amount of fertile agricultural land being used for solar farms, because it's more profitable.

I think the whole issue of the interaction between food, fuel, biodiversity, sustainability, climate change etc needs to be looked at as a whole - not left to market forces which leave parts of the world in poverty, famine and drought while the populations of some countries enjoy almost unlimited choices.

[scullion Profile]

maybe the land used for growing cows and other animals could be better used? the programme on radio 4 yesterday afternoon was an interesting fifteen minute listen...
the plant based plastics are often made from the plant waste rather than grown for that purpose only.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

The one thing that could be done fast is to make sure plastic packaging is marked with relevant recycling symbol, at least 3 times this week I’ve stood turning a piece of packaging over and over with no clue as to whether it goes in black bag or green bag

The other thing about the green beans, and mange tout etc, is that they need to be heavily packaged because they are trimmed before packing. This is totally unnecessary, in fact it is very annoying, I’d much rather trim them properly immediately before use than have them mauled and mangled in advance; it’s seldom done well, e.g. I string sugar snaps, they don’t; and however they are trimmed and packed the cut surface dry out. We do not need this, and I’m sure there are many other examples of frivolous creation of a need for extra wrapping

[Earthmaiden Profile]

I think the three of you have just about hit on everything that needs to be addressed- in the first instance at least but once politics get involved ... sigh. Do you remember when strawberry punnetscwere made out of stuff like balsa wood? I wonder what that was.

Another first world thing. I tend to use the hand held scanners in supermarkets and pay at the end with shopping already packed. It is much easier to take a punnet or plastic wrapped item which has a bar code than to remember to take your own bag, find scales that are working and weigh your own goods. I do the latter where possible but can imagine many don't, especially in more modern stores where your phone knows what you've selected etc!

[scullion Profile]

i agree, sue - i always re-trim veg and peel carrots etc that have been 'washed' and have the protective skin scoured off, i would so much prefer 'muddy' carrots etc - the soil bacteria left on them stops them going bad quickly - and i hate it when the bottoms of leeks are trimmed past the growing plate, grrrr.

i've never used the hand scanners in shops, i use the self serve tills or human served tills, take my own re-useable gauze bags and try my best to purchase plastic free. it's not always possible but i try my best. i don't want to feel the guilt that i've added, unnecessarily, to the problems of the future.
i save the net bags that oranges and onions come in for re-use as pan scrubbers so feel a little less guilty over those as they get a second life for a while - and i despair of the people who bag bananas or any other veg that has it's own covering.

[KeenCook2 Profile]

The one thing that could be done fast is to make sure plastic packaging is marked with relevant recycling symbol, at least 3 times this week I’ve stood turning a piece of packaging over and over with no clue as to whether it goes in black bag or green bag

Unfortunately, Sue, I think different councils have different regulations/ recycling arrangements?
So something that's accepted in one place isn't in another?
I'm never 100% sure that I'm actually doing what is right for Hammersmith and Fulham, and my friend in Hounslow has different regs again

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Unfortunately, Sue, I think different councils have different regulations/ recycling arrangements?

That’s not actually a problem if the marking tells you what the recycling code for the plastic type is, for example 2 HDPE, and your council gives you a simple list of acceptable codes, there aren’t many, they could put it on a fridge magnet or a post-it!

[Pepper Pig Profile]

Not plastics but on a Green theme, did anyone else read this?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... -cremation

[Stokey Sue Profile]

I meant to look up “aquamation” yesterday when I heard it on the news

Awful coinage, ugly word imo

An article clearly written by someone who has mugged up on it but not 100% understood it, why do they put “alkaline hydrolysis” into quotation marks as if it were a euphemism when it’s a very simple, accurate, technical term?

And I know labs were using alkaline hydrolysis, also known as whole body saponification, long before the 1990s, though more as an experimental technique than as a means of disposal, often to recover radioactive tracers.

The article crucially doesn’t address the actual disposal, what’s the end product of hydrolysis (a lot of liquid) and what do you do with it?

[Suelle Profile Website]

I meant to look up “aquamation” yesterday when I heard it on the news

Awful coinage, ugly word imo

An article clearly written by someone who has mugged up on it but not 100% understood it, why do they put “alkaline hydrolysis” into quotation marks as if it were a euphemism when it’s a very simple, accurate, technical term?

And I know labs were using alkaline hydrolysis, also known as whole body saponification, long before the 1990s, though more as an experimental technique than as a means of disposal, often to recover radioactive tracers.

The article crucially doesn’t address the actual disposal, what’s the end product of hydrolysis (a lot of liquid) and what do you do with it?

That was my first thought on reading the article; I thought it might be too unsettling to discuss here!

[KeenCook2 Profile]

Unfortunately, Sue, I think different councils have different regulations/ recycling arrangements?

That’s not actually a problem if the marking tells you what the recycling code for the plastic type is, for example 2 HDPE, and your council gives you a simple list of acceptable codes, there aren’t many, they could put it on a fridge magnet or a post-it!

That's interesting, afaik (as far as I know), H & F doesn't publish a list of the acceptable codes, which would be extremely useful. It just distributes a leaflet with the main items to avoid etc within the roll of recycling bags they hand out.

It sounds as if it would be a useful thing to discuss with our local councillor as generally, we're impressed with the way H & F manage the borough.

[Earthmaiden Profile]

I have read about aquamation before and believe the disposal of the liquid was quite an issue both down drains and into water courses. Reading more today, the wherewithal to treat the effluent is less of an issue than the moral/ethical issue where many find it distasteful that the water would be treated to go back into drinking water systems (it would only go to rivers and possibly be abstracted downstream anyway, not be treated to use immediately as drinking water). It seems suggestions to use the separately treated liquid as a fertiliser are more acceptable (so would be present in edible plants with runoff going to rivers anyway- but guess it sounds better to some!).

I'm all for recycling - that's how nature works.

As for plastic recycling codes - round here, a lot of people wouldn't bother reading them. We are now allowed to put most 'soft solid' plastic into the bag, including black which wasn't allowed once. No film or harder plastic (Tupperware, toys etc).

[dennispc Profile]

Our council has introduced Big Blue Bags for plastic pots and trays, but not thin packaging. Neither does it issue lists of the various numbers. The non recyclable rubbish bin is collected every three weeks. Working well for us.

Suelle posted, “I think the whole issue of the interaction between food, fuel, biodiversity, sustainability, climate change etc needs to be looked at as a whole ….” I agree. David Attenborough mentioned recently that Neanderthals lasted 400,000 years because they had an instinctive understanding of the natural world; in western type societies that doesn’t exist now, though there are exceptions. We need to adjust our ways of living to take into account the total use of the world around us. One of the plant milk manufacturers declares the carbon footprint of the product within, but that’s not the whole story - a factory was built which needed power to run it and so forth and so on.

I’m not picking out that particular product, it’s the only we have in the fridge!

[Earthmaiden Profile]

Totally agree.

The non recyclable rubbish bin is collected every three weeks.

Presumably you have a separate food waste collection?