Recycling stories
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Morning all,
Today I’m excited to bring you some great stories from around the internet.
Each story focus on the reduce, reuse, recycle theme to bring you one step closer to a zero waste lifestyle.
20 ways to reduce plastic
Over on Granola Catholic, Lisa shares 20 ways she and her family have reduced plastic in their lives.
It was attending a talk at the Science Museum and hearing that plastic was erm, dinosaur Poo that put her on the track to eliminating putting plastic in her mouth!
Check out “Twenty Ways to Reduce Your Use of Plastics”
Send your waste on a date
With the recent rise in landfill tax, it is now more expensive to landfill items than recycle of compost them.
In answer to this, Vegware, have set up their composting network which is a “matchmaking service for bins” !
The composting network introduces business such as caterers to local sustainable waste management services. Read more of the story with “Vegware introduces match-making service for bins”
Colour changing plastic
Fed up of use by dates telling you when to throw food away? Now scientists have invented a sensor film which changes colour to show when fresh produce has gone off.
Apparently it will mean an end to the “unpleasant kitchen ritual of having to smell chicken legs, pork chops or pieces of fish to see if they are spoiled”.
I wonder if the film is recyclable 😉
Check out “Colour-changing food packaging could end food poisoning” and let me know what you think.
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Whilst not necessarily against these ideas in general I do have a couple of concerns about how they are presented:
The idea that plastic is bad or yukky because it it dinosaur poo makes no sense to me. There are plenty of reasons why excess plastic use is bad. But poo is not a bad thing environmentally. In fact to be green I think we need to accept that animal poo is good for the soil in order to naturally fertilise and grow food.
ooops, that seemed to post before I wanted it to.
I also had a similar concern about the report on the sensor film, in it ending the “unpleasant kitchen ritual of having to smell chicken legs, pork chops or pieces of fish to see if they are spoiled”. Personally I think it’s really important to maintain our ability to tell if food is off by smell or look, so we don’t end up throwing things out from lack of knowledge.
@Joanne: Hi Joanne, great points – thanks for sharing!
Whilst I agree we need to be careful how we present things, I believe if the thought of eating ‘dinosaur poo’ makes someone think twice about plastic in their lives then who are we to judge their motive? I think it’s the taking action that counts. Our motivator was seeing a turtle choking on a plastic carrier bag, but this might not necessarily move other people to action – I guess we each have our own particular buttons to be pressed!
The article about the film sensor horrified me to be honest; I think it’s just another way to get us throwing stuff away and like you we rely on our senses of sight, smell and taste to check if things are ok for consuming. It’s just another way in which we will give away our power – by relying on some scientific film to make decisions for us.
I agree, poo is not necessarily bad but putting it in your mouth is not recommended, while putting it in your compost pile is. Additionally, if we process something then we alter its original state it changes the chemical composition making it no longer natural. If plastic was natural it would grow on its own and decompose on its own. Plastic does not decompose ever. Reason enough to not use it and decrease our reliance on it.
@Lisa @Granola Catholic: Great comment on keeping things in perspective – thanks Lisa 🙂