Cutting plastic and living compostably
Wilkinsons are selling screws, washers and other stuff loose and unpacked. You will need to take your own bags as the ones provided are of course plastic. More plastic free products from Wilcos can be found here.
The hardware store on Todmorden market sells hooks and other bits and bobs loose.
Far be it from me to promote smoking but the purpose of this blog is to find plastic free alternatives to all legal pastimes and last time I looked smoking still was.
So if you fancy a plastic-free fag, by which, our American friends, I mean a ciggarette, then what are your options? Well you can go to Aberystwith and buy plastic free loose rolling tobaccos
But if that is too far how about growing (and curing) your own. I haven’t tried this – if you do please let me know how you get on! Please note they say “yes totally minimal packaging possible , reuse and recycle all the way only at http://growyourownrollyourown.com” so contact them before you order and say you are plastic free!
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They have a range of plastic free products.
From Louises database
BecoThings Potty and Step stool, reusable – Biodegradable and cardboard packaging
Boltanics Toiletry Range – Organic, midrange – Some items in glass with plastic tops
Bath Salts – Cardboard
Burt’s Bees – Some products in Glass with metal lids and tins
Double Edge Razor Blades 10’s– Cardboard and small plastic cover
Essential Oils – Glass – Various tops
Lip Tins – Metal
Mooncup – Cardboard
Nivea Creme – Tin
Naty by Nature Nappies – Biodegradable
Origins Toiletry Range, plant based and free from lots of nasties – A few glass items – Pricey
Reusable nappies and supplies
Wooden Handled Brushes with FSC mark, Boltanics and Ecotool range for Make-up and hair – Packaging unknown
Louises Data Base?
Louise Bayfields “POSTIVE PRODUCTS LIST (UK) a list of High Street and Supermar-ket products that have no packaging or in some way help reduce packaging.”
The List
The original PDF will be updated as Louise shops around so do check back there for updates.
Remember not all stores stock all products. It might be wise to check ahead if you are making a special visit.
Once again thank you Louise for such a fantastic resource!
If you want to buy loose, you will need to take your own reusable packaging – produce bags, tupperware even compostable disposables. You can find them here.
The plastic free freak should remember that
metal lids to glass jars are of course plastic lined .
Tin and cans including those for cosmetics are also plastic lined
Paper and foil wraps will be plastic lined.
Find other sneaky plastics here….
Choose Well
If you really can’t do without it and you have a choice a plastic wrapped products, choose to buy the one in simple plastics that can easily be recycled
Read our guide on how and where to shop, here
see all our supermarket info HERE.
Find out more about the individual products here via the food index
Other places to buy unpackaged food are listed here
lines changes, products get removed. For more information why not ask the Plastic Is Rubbish FB group for updates. They are a great source of tidbits, personal experience and the latest news. Why not join them and share the plastic free love x
If you have found the #plasticfree information useful, please consider supporting us. It all goes to financing the project.
Polyfiller – in a cardboard box with no plastic liner. Smooth that crack!
Of course you will need to use a scraper with a metal blade and wooden handle. We buy ours from the wholesalers so I cannot advise you on local stores but you could try these from Amazon (you can also get polyfiller here)
Images of microplastic ingestion by plankton. From Cole, Matthew, et al. “Microplastic ingestion by zooplankton.” Environmental science & technology (2013).
Laboratory studies that have shown ingestion in marine species.
Zooplankton: Cole et al. 2013
Invertebrates: Thompson et al. 2004; Besseling et al. 2013
And here it is on film
When it comes to sweeping you cant beat a nice wooden brush with natural plant fibres.
Why?
What Fibre?
But first lets talk fibre
Coco bristles are softer and ideal for collection of small dust and dirt particles. Good for indoors.
Bassine – a stiff fibre ideal for outdoor use.
Bassine and cane – super tough for mud covered pavements and small rubble
What Sweeping Brush
You can buy sweeping brushes separately as head and handle or ready fixed I.e head and handle already joined. You can see some options here
NB check the heads carefully as they sometimes mix natural and plastic fibres.
Ready Made Sweeping Brush
Such as the Charles Bentley & Son 10″ coco broom & handle for indoor sweeping, the bassine broom & handle for out doors or bassine deck scrub. Like a scrubbing brush on a stick. Can be used to sweep up heavier particles like gravel but is also very useful for deep cleaning dirty floors inside the house. Like scrubbing but you dont have to go down on your knees.
Separate’s
You can also get seperate heads that you screw or nail onto a wooden handle.
Screw Top Range
These brush heads come with a screw fitting. Easy peasy off with the old and on with the new. I say that but I have never yet had to change a brush head or handle. These brushes
The screw top heads are great if you have limited space or really dont use a deck brush that often. You can have different heads and only one handle.
Town and Country do a range of screw on brush heads. NB the handle has a plastic cap on the end so it can be hung up. See some options here.
Nailed Heads
The other option is a plain head and handle and you nail the head into place. See options here.
Buy from
You can buy complete brushes from Queensgate Market. Otherwise try your local market or a DIY shop.
Plastic Alert…. check the heads carefully as they sometimes mix natural and plastic fibres.
They can also be bought on line. Check out this selection.
The liner or topsheet – made of the plastic polymer polypropylene – sits next to the baby’s skin and protects against wetness. From this layer, fluids flow down through the pulp-based tissue layer and into the core.
The core contains fluff pulp and SAP, an absorbent polymer to draw in and contain the baby’s urine and faeces.
Leakage from the nappy is minimised by a plastic bottom layer and the elastic barriers that hold the nappy around the child’s waist. The nappy is thrown away after it is soiled.
The average baby will go through 5,000 nappies. As 85 per cent of people are using disposables, they now form 4 per cent of all household waste, costing the taxpayer £40m each year to dispose of them.
Of the approximately eight million disposable nappies used in the UK every day, around 7.5 million end up in landfill sites.
Disposable nappies use three and a half times more energy than real nappies to produce, eight times more non-renewable materials and 90 times more renewable resources.The ecologist
7 million trees are cut down every year just to make disposable nappies Green Box Day
Along with cotton buds, tampons, applicators and panty liners make up 7.3 % of items flushed down the toilet in the UK.3
For every kilometre of beach included in the Beachwatch survey weekend in 2010, 22.5 towels/panty liners/backing strips, and 8.9 tampon applicators, were found.
According to the Sewer Network Action Programme, even products that are described as flushable or biodegradable can contribute to more than half (55%) of sewer flooding due to blockages in sewers.
In the UK alone, we buy more than 3 billion items of menstrual lingerie every year, spending £349 million in 2010 on sanitary and ‘feminine hygiene’ products.
About 90% of the materials used to make sanitary pads and liners are plastic and include polyethylene, polypropylene and polyacrylate super absorbents.
Every year, over 45 billion feminine hygiene products are disposed of somewhere.
Commercial production of superabsorbent polymers began in Japan in 1978 for use in sanitary pads. In the 80’s, using crude oil derived raw materials, European manufacturers enhanced the polymer so that it now absorbed 30 times it’s own weight under pressure. By the mid 90’s, production of SAP jumped to a massive 700 million tons. 75% used in diaper production, 10% in incontinence products, 10% in sanitary pads, and the rest in meat trays, etc.
Sources
natracare and womens environmental network
Items such as nappy liners, ‘flushable’ wipes and toilet seat liners cause many problems. But the main pest are women’s sanitary items.
The council says every single one has to be removed and sorted by hand by workers at waste stations.
Oh Yuck! Jesse Peach went to check out the undesirables in Wellington that haunt drains beneath our feet. Read more:
Find out How to Menstruate Plastic Free here
As we already know from this blog,tiny sea creatures, the bedrock of the food chain, ingest these micro plastics. You can see plankton hoovering up plastic here. There is increasing evidence that this is not a healthy diet.
Best to cut back on synthetics especially those items that may get get washed into the sea.
You can find out about natural fibres here
Very pleased to have the blog featured up on the Waste Less Live More website . It is up there alongside some really impressive projects.
The Waste Less Live More Week (organised by Keep Britain Tidy read more about it here ) is a pretty impressive project too. Which is why I was so pleased to be WLLM partner in 2014.
This is what I did to support the program.
It will be running next year so do join in!
So pleased that Plastic is Rubbish got featured as the Guardians sustainable blog of the week last week.
You can read the interview her
Guardian green blogs have put together an interactive map to profile all of the sustainable blogs of the week that they featured on Live Better for the past six months.
The Guardian picks up a collection of articles on plastic free living I wrote for the Huddersfield Examiner….
Welcome to the Northerner, Guardian Unlimited’s weekly digest of the best of the northern press.
Now this may sound daffy, but actually the Huddersfield Examiner’s interest in Worm Tea is part of the thriving new North. The paper’s green columnist Kate Armstrong, who lives appropriately in the Huddersfield suburb of Marsh, is delighted with the success of her worm composting bin.
“Those of you kind enough to read these words will know that I bought it four months ago,” she says in that delightfully modest way that you regularly discover in local newspapers. It has been a dramatic period. The bin was theoretically escape proof, but Ms Armstrong’s worms got out and infested her garage. “When my husband discovered them in his drill bits he threatened to sacrifice them on the bird table if a solution wasn’t found.”
She promptly constructed her own worm Colditz and fed its contents on a super-rich diet of festering food scraps. This resulted in a plague of fruit flies and more potential wrath from Mr Armstrong. Kate gave up, capped the mess with some spadefuls of soil and forgot about it until this week. Bingo! When she went for a desultory check, she found the bin standing in a lake of Worm Tea, a digestive juice which is sold at handsome prices on the internet as a superior plant feed and to cure black spot on roses. The worms themselves are now apparently the size of anacondas, and even Mr Armstrong is impressed.
Bit excited today as the blog is featured over in Gadling Travel Blog, a worthy publication with obviously good taste. You can read the full article here Best of all I am so pleased that plastic free travel is of interest to a wider audience. Is the tide turning? I truly hope so.
You can find all our travel-related, plastic-free tips here….
My article about the dangers and delights of traveling plastic free appears in this months edition of Backpacker South East Asia
There is a wide range of plastic free and refill options in and around Leeds.
What Are Refill Stores?
Bulk buy or refill stores are places you can buy food loose.You take as much as you want/need from a larger container and you can usually use your own packaging.
While these shops provide bags and they are almost always plastic ones. You will need to take your own plastic-free and/or reusable bags.
The weight of the container may make a difference at checkout. Some shops subtract the tare weight but other don’t. The tare weight is the weight of the empty container.
Covered market hall and out door market. A wonderful fantasy of Victorian architecture. Loads of stalls
Open Monday – Saturday, from 8am until 5.30pm
Some Quick Facts
Built 1857,
host to Jamie’s Ministry of Food
has a Shop & Drop scheme
home to the original Marks & Spencer stall where it all began
fantastic architecture
There is also an outdoor market
Monday: Second Hand Clothing
Tuesday: Friday & Saturday: General Market
Wednesday: Asian Bazaar
Thursday Flea Market
For more information visit the website
Food & Drink
The Teapot sells coffee beans and tea leaves loose.
The NUT SHOP cake related stuff to candied peel to spices & nuts all sold LOOOSE. Plus decorative things and sprinkles. See more here
The Jar Tree
you can take your own packaging and buy just about everything you might ever need, plastic free.
You can see a picture diary here of all the products stocked including NOODLES!!!!
Or visit the website for more. They are continually updating the product list here:
http://www.thejartree.co.uk/store-product-list.html
And they welcome all suggestions in store too!
Address: Leeds Kirkgate Market, Unit BS1, Leeds LS2 7HY
Phone: 07470 033404 https://www.facebook.com/thejartree/
And there are other shops now selling loose nuts elsewhere on the market.You have to take your own plastic free bags.
It is fantastic for unpackaged food, meat and veg,
Plenty of stalls selling loose sweets
Personal Care
Soap & Solid Shampoo
“Home to the very best 5* reviewed, natural & handmade soap bars & bath soap gift sets for every skin type. From Shampoo Bars to Foot Soap Bars we have a soap bar & bath soap gift set suit you, & all are SLS & Paraben free. Plus natural liquid soap, handmade bath bombs, eco accessories, gifts & more!” Visit the website here.
Many of them come #plasticfree
They do my favourite Friendly Soap from Todmorden who make a soap and a shampoo bar that is as effective but far cheaper than Lush. Read all about them, here.
for
Cocoa butter
Shea butter
Yes they come in plastic but they can be used to make home made creams and lotions. Thereby saving you loads of other plastic. #plastictocutplastic. Read more here.
Sells
Fabric Stalls
A good range including Jacks,that sell end of line remnants of Yorkshire made wooden fabric. Read more here.
Plus sewing supplies stalls that sell bobbins and other stuff loose!
See a pictorial guide over at the Fb Page Plastic Is rubbish group
Sometimes supermarkets can surprise you – check out the plastic-free and reduced packaging products here.
Loose Food A to Z
Find out if a shop near you sells bulk food loose. This is stuff that that normally comes plastic packaged i.e rice, pasta and salt. And yes these shops do exist in the U.K. There’s just not many of them.
Heres a list of towns with shops selling loose food.
lines changes, products get removed. For more information why not ask the Plastic Is Rubbish FB group for updates. They are a great source of tidbits, personal experience and the latest news. Why not join them and share the plastic free love x
If you have found the #plasticfree information useful, please consider supporting us. It all goes to financing the project.
Eco friendly business run by two mums, specialising in reusable over disposable products. We stock stainless steel straws to replace plastic throwaways. We also offer luxurious washable sanitary pads, aiming to reduce the huge 200,00 tonnes of landfill caused by sanitary products each year.
Our products are high quality and have a life span of many years, further reducing waste.
Links
Website: www.earthconscious.co.uk
Blog: www.earthconscious.uk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/earthconsciousuk
This post was written by the contributor. It is not a Plastic Is Rubbish review, does not represent my personal opinions and I have not used this product or service. Instead it is a PfU.K. Directory submission.
The Pf U.K. Directory is…?
…a directory of UK-based groups, organisations businesses and individuals who are responding to the problems presented by the misuse of plastic. That does not mean anti-plastic necessarily but certainly plastic-problem aware.
In 2014 I hope to feature 12 UK-based initiatives featuring refuseniks, trash slashers, businesses and the rest.
The DIRECTORY is to promote their work not mine. Read more here…
Got a project?
It is very easy to get a project featured. Each contributor submits a short synopsis of their project, focussing on the plastic aware element and I post it. You can read the submission guidelines here.
Follow us on facebook here
Print and stick these creepy labels onto a wine bottles to make a suitably themed halloween gift – but don’t use avery labels as some suggest! Print onto plain paper, cut out and attach to bottle of choice using homemade, boiled flour & water paste.
I have included a boiled flour and water paste from this paper mache making web page because it is easy and clear to follow but also because I think the rest of the site looks fascinating. And inspiring. You could use some of the techniques to make ghoulish sculptures, masks or even reusable pumpkin lanterns. That would save you some work!
Obviously adapt the choice of beverage if it’s for a child’s party!
Flour and water paste attached labels wash off easily if you are using a reusable bottle… of course you are using a reusable bottle!
More ideas for Halloween can be found here….