Cutting plastic and living compostably
The day of the dead skull and more nice stuff is over at cool moms.
These are more kid focused. You print them out, colour them in.
And then use them to decorate your home made plastic free Trick or Treat bags?
There are more printables over on my Pinterest page.
And lots more plastic free Halloween ideas here.
U.K. based enterprises that provide plastic free/reduced products and services. These people state plastic/packaging reduction as part of their business ethos.
More plastic free products can be found here
Where To Buy #plasticfree
How To Cut Plastic
If you have a service you want featured, do this.
Sorry this post is a bit late – been knitting like the wind and sewing up ties for tops….
Today’s action is to ‘fix it’. So much of our stuff gets thrown away as soon as it is damaged or isn’t working. But with a little TLC much of this stuff could live to see another day.
So while these things are not exactly broken they do often get thrown away. Odds and ends of wool and old duvet covers are here transformed into this wooly hot water bottle cover with a tie top. Attractive and practical.
Today’s action is to ‘share it’. 80% of people in a Cooperatives UK survey said that sharing makes them happy. By sharing our skills, time and stuff, we can improve our wellbeing and reduce demand for limited resources.
So I thought I would share the free food I foraged and took a jar a bramble/port jelly to a ham based dinner party!
Free food, plastic-free, whats not to love?
And though it was late in the year I managed to get enough blackberries to make a couple of pots of jelly.
It is really easy, but then discovering jam sugar has changed my approach to preserves. Before this I found it a complex process needing tons of fruit and lemons that resulted in a liquid syrupy gloop. However using this ready mixed sugar and pectin has (so far), been fool proof.
Even better you can use it to make really small amounts.
So while I only got a handful of brambles, I could still preserve them and make this lovely looking, tasty gift!
Heres how…. Equal amounts of blackberries to jam sugar
Boil
Strain
return to boil
add cinnamon nutmeg and lemon to taste
Slosh of port
Take to dinner party – garner compliments!
Check out the #plasticfree cookbook here.
Today’s action is to ‘grow it’. Did you know that being immersed in a natural setting or even viewing greenery from your window can reduce stress levels and improve relaxation? Today we’re asking you to give yourself and nature a helping hand by growing something.
And it is a great way to get plastic free and very tasty food. However when you live in a van that can be a bit tricky. So why not let nature take its course and go foraging instead. Theres loads of food out there to be had for free.
And if you are in Leeds and like apples you can join in the urban harvest. This weekend Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st September 2014 Leeds Urban Harvest will be picking a tree near you.
What is Leeds Urban Harvest? The following was taken from the website…
Leeds Urban Harvest is a voluntary run project that collects and distributes soft fruits that grow unharvested around our city on trees and bushes in both public and private spaces.
Fruits are distributed to groups, volunteers and the local community. Damaged fruits are turned into juice, preserves, jams and chutneys. Any money raised is put back into the project to help with running costs.
As part of the project we aim to raise awareness of the great abundance of local tasty and healthy food that is available for everyone and for free!
To be affordable to anyone, we decided to sell our juice at £1 minimum donation and if you bring back your bottle, we give you back 50p. We also collect the tops of the bottles as the Scrap Creative Reuse Art Project in Kirstall can re-use them in their projects.
Leeds Urban Harvest have teamed up with All Hallows Church in Burley and we now have a great kitchen for juicing, space for sharing and lots of friendly faces too.
Today’s action is to ‘borrow it’. How many things do you own which you hardly ever use? We’re asking people to be resourceful by borrowing rather than buying. Whether it’s joining your local library, signing up to a neighbourhood borrowing scheme or even borrowing a dog (yes, that’s right, there are websites that allow you to do this), borrowing is a great way to access what you need and meet others in the process.
So here goes…. borrow it ketchup using yesterdays puree
Got the ketchup recipes from the internet. I used them more as a guide because I was using what I had in and what I could borrow!
So it said apple vinegar but I only have balsamic vinegar and white vinegar. White seemed a bit harsh so I went with 
balsamic.
I used white instead of brown sugar as I cannot source plastic free brown sugar.
I borrowed the spices and they did have plastic lids BUT I can get them plastic free. I didn’t because I am on holiday living in a van. To buy a load of spices to make some experimental sauce seemed daft. So…I used those listed below because they were the ones I could borrow.
Here is my ketchup recipe
Splash of olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped medium
1 clove garlic, minced
1/3 cup tomato purée – hand made yesterday!
1/5 cup sugar
25 ml balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon all spice
Salt and pepper
Fried the onions added the spices cooked it up and blended it.
I would be the first to admit that this not quite tomato ketchup. Its the wrong colour for a start! Thats the balsamic vinegar for you.
The texture isnt quite silky enough either.
But it is sauce and it tastes really good! I can’t quite believe it! It is tomatoey and vinegary and sweet.
It will last a month in the fridge apparently but if I was doing it at home I would freeze it in small batches.
So impressed with my homemaking skills.
Find more recipes in the plastic free cookbook
Day one of Wasteless live more and I am tackling tomato puree one of the few plastic wrapped products I use. Of course tins ad metal tubes are plastic lined, as is the metal lids of glass jars. Read about this and other sneaky plastics, here.
So I thought I would try to make tomato puree and guess what? It is really easy.
I finally understand why, tomato puree! Its a way of storing loads of food in a very small space. The idea is to reduce the tomato to its very essense and remove as much as the moisture as possible. The result is a thick flavoursome paste.
So lets get pureeing…
Cut toms in half remove the white bits put in a pan with a bit of water and steam until soft and pulpy and the skins come away easily.
Peel them
Push the pulp through a seive.
Put in a pan and bake in the oven till it thickens
I took it out before it got really thick but it was good enough for me. 10 tomatoes reduced to a small glass.
Cant bear waste tomato soup
Couldnt bear to throw the skins and seeds away so I chucked them in with some lentils and the water I drained off from steaming the tomatos. Cooked and blended.
Ta da!
Check out the plastic free cookbook here
Check out the #plasticfree cookbook here.
I know a lot of people like a liquid hand wash. Personally I prefer soap but whatever. So this hand wash comes in soluble pods that you drop in water and refill the (plastic) bottle provided. When done you buy more via. The website. It is posted to you in plastic free packaging, (NB according to some reviews they come with some plastic).
Now I think you are meant to buy the bottle as part of the starter kit but I see no reason why you couldn’t just buy the refills and use your own plastic free soap dispenser?
It comes from a company called
This is an online refill service. A new way to buy your home cleaning, laundry and health & beauty essentials.
You buy the starter pack which includes a range of bottles and concentrate product. You water down the product and fill the bottles. Thereafter you buy more concentrate on line and refill your bottles as needed.
Some products come in soluble pods which you drop into water; others in plastic pouches which can be sent back to be refilled or recycled. While the refillable plastic pouches obviously are plastic (duh) the soluble pods sound useful.
They supply a wide range of products. But “currently the surface cleaners and hand washes come in water soluble sachets and the rest come in pouches.”
Splosh also claim that the postal packaging for the starter kit and refills is also plastic free. Though according to some reviews they come with some plastic.
Here’s their mission statement. “Plastic waste is an environmental disaster and we’re committed to reducing it to zero. For each product we’ve designed a refilling system that takes plastic out of the waste stream. For example our pouches can be sent back for refilling and, at the end of their life, we manage their reprocessing into other products”
You can read more about how it works and order products here HERE
If anyone out there has used this product please let me know.
Want to know what soap is? How it works? Is there animal fat in there?
Read all our soap posts HERE
A little bit rubbish. You are reading a work in progress. Here’s how the blog is written and why we post half cocked.
Things to consider when choosing glass packaging as oppose to plastic
What is glass
Carbon costs of glass compared to plastic
a PET (a thermoplastic polymer resin) jar versus a glass one uses twice as much abiotic material (minerals and fossil fuel) to produce and 17 times more water (predominantly from cooling power plants) and produces five times the greenhouse gas emissions. Lucy Seigal writing in the Guardian
But start transporting glass and the figures change
Some calculate this could be as much as 2 tonnes of CO2, per 1 tonne of glass, when transport of such a heavy product is factored in. All this gives glass an Embodied Energy of about 12.7 MJ/kg. (By comparison aluminum is 170 (!!), cement 5.6 and kiln dried sawn softwood 3.4). Treehugger
A PET jar shipped 1,000km in lieu of a glass jar saves 19g of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent).Lucy Seigal writing in the Guardian
The weight of three main packaging choices for beverages have big impact on truckload size and thus fuel use.
“For a 335 ml container, the aluminum can is the featherweight at 11 g. The middleweight PET bottle weighs 24 g, while the heavyweight champ of the drink container world, the glass bottle, weighs a comparatively colossal 200 g.
The additional 176-plus grams holds a sizable environmental punch, as fewer bottles can be loaded onto trucks due to weight limits, meaning more trips, and a heavier load uses more fuel. In a German study, researchers calculate that a recycled glass bottle could be the cause of 20 per cent more greenhouse gas than a virgin aluminum can due to its added weight on a cross-country truck journey.
Glass can be recycled indefinitely and into the same product over and over again. Glass lemonade bottles can be made into glass lemonade bottles.
Every tonne of glass saves 225 kg of carbon dioxide.
Plastics degrade during the recycling process. They cannot be made into like for like products (though that is changing), but they can be made into other things. P.E.T. bottles can become fleeces for example.
Glass containers can be easily reused. Sadly this rarely happens and there are limitations. This is from a W.R.A.P. report on the subject.
LCA studies show that the level of benefits refillables have over single use systems is dependent on a number of key factors, e.g. capture rates, transport distances and recycling rates. This stresses the need to view refillables on a case-by-case basis and not simply to promote the wholesale use of refillables irrespective of circumstance.
Glass is also heavy for the shopper. It can be hard work lugging all those jars home. Heavier products are more difficult to manipulate. The elderly and infirm can find glass jars and bottles too bulky to manipulate safely.
Plastic is much lighter and easier to grasp. Glass is slippery.
And of course when it does slip from your trembling hands it can smash in nasty sharp potentially dangerous pieces.
But glass is inert. It does not leach chemicals whereas plastic does. Some consider this to be a potential health hazard.
Many claim that food tastes better when stored in glass. Possibly because there are no leaching chemicals.
Plastic disposable items can easily end up as litter. Because plastic doesn’t biodegrade this is litter with a lifespan of centuries. Plastic waste is damaging the environment and is now a huge ecological threat.
The general consensus seems to be that glass is environmentally better than plastic but only if it doesn’t have to travel too far.
Glass is ideal for bottle reuse schemes such as milk deliveries. You can find one here…
“What if you could fix, modify or make almost anything? That’s why we invented sugru.”
and I have long been a fan! It is high up there in my plastic2cutplastic category. That is a product with plasticky elements that helps to ultimately reduce your plastic use. Sugru is a rubbery stuff that can be hand moulded and used in dry or wet, hot and cold situations to mend (or adapt) all manner of things especially plastic products that are getting a bit wobbly. I hardly need stress the advantages but here’s a copy of the press release any way….
“sugru was created by a young product designer on a mission to empower people who want to repair and enhance their products. It moulds like play dough, sticks to almost anything and turns into a strong flexible rubber overnight.Adopted by people in over 150 countries, there are simply thousands of uses for sugru, from modifying kit on expeditions to the North Pole through to homeowners making small improvements to gadgets, appliances and even toys.” You can read more here..
It really does work! I have used it to mend chargers saving them from landfill and me the cost of buying new.
Also to seal a gap in the wooden trim above the kitchen sink. Better looking than shiny silicone seal, easier to use and far less packaging.
As packaging goes, yes they do come in plastic lined foil sachets but they are packed in a cardboard envelope so the packaging is minimal and necessary to keep the product from drying out.
sugru is available at a wide range of retailers including B&Q and Wilko as well as online at sugru.com.
Because it is so darn handy it will come as no surprise that sugru are also supporting Waste Less Live More Week of which I am a proud partner.
Bit more press release…
“Inventor and CEO of sugru, Jane ni Dhulchaointigh is also looking forward to the challenge: ‘being resourceful brings a little bit of creative thinking into everyday life and I love that! We designed sugru to be easy to use in the hope that it might encourage people not only to reduce waste but to feel more confident and creative about fixing and improving things too. The Waste Less Live More challenge is a brilliantly easy way for people to make small changes… and if enough of us do those small things, it could make a big difference.”
In this post you can read about the many ways we dispose of plastic.
Most plastics are made from oil and most plastics do not biodegrade. See how and why here…
which makes it difficult to dispose of.
There are no natural processes in place that can absorb non biodegradable plastic back into the biological cycle. It cannot be composted or left to rot where it is dropped or dumped like organic rubbish. Read more about the plastic lifespan here.
Most plastic lasts for decades, maybe centuries, possibly for ever.
WHICH MEANS that every bit of plastic created has to be collected up and specially treated. All of these processes are time-consuming and so expensive.
Main methods are
Landfill
Recycling and Reusing
Incineration & Waste to Energy –
Gasification
Pyrolysis
Thermal depolymerization
Landfill
Just A big hole that we fill with rubbish. The theory was that waste would slowly biodegrade. Plastics do not biodegrade so once in a landfill it will sit there forever. That said turns out that a lot of rubbish in landfill sites do not biodegrade. William Rathje, of the University of Arizona, excavates landfill sites and has found newspapers printed in the 1950s that could still be read. Consequently the landfill is rapidly filling up.
Recycling and Reusing
Let’s be clear about this recycling is just a more responsible form of waste management. That stuff in your recycle bin is still rubbish and has to be dealt with the attendant environmental and financial costs. While recycling may offset these costs it is still expensive. Moreover recycling does not address the main issue of misusing plastic and stupidly using it to make one use throwaway items.
With that in mind lets look at plastic recycling.
Incineration & Waste to Energy –
Incinerating plastic which means burning it. At best this adds to global warming and at worst releases dioxins on of the most carcinogens known. Sometimes using the heat created is used to generate electricity which offsets the cost of waste disposal.
N.B. only offsets!
Technofix – updates on the latest ways to sort it out
As noted all the above are expensive. They require special treatment facilities, a decent infrastructure of roads and a reliable rubbish collection service. Theses facilities are often not available to poorer communities, certainly not those based in the more remote parts of the world. They have two methods of plastic waste disposal
Burning plastic – On open fires could be safe or it could kill you – depends on the plastic Find out more here
Dumping – on the outskirts of town, a major cause of plastic pollution and potential death for animals who forage there.
Read about plastic and animals here
And more about the other problems with plastic here….
Quick links
Quick Plastic Facts
List Of Plastics – the most common types of plastics, what they are used for and links to technical data sheets.
Plastic Lifespan why most plastic don’t biodegrade
Compostable plastics that biodegrade within a certain amount of time).
Compostable, degradable and or biodegradable plastic – find out here.
Thermoplastics and thermoset plastics – plastics that melt & plastics that don’t
Making Plastics
monomers and polymers
Oil Derived polymers – how they are made see the process here.
Bio Plastics derived from plants see the process here
Additives – Fillers and chemicals are added to the base plastic to give color, texture and other qualities. Read up on them here
Reports & statistics links to the latest reports on plastic
Welcome a quick introduction to everything
About Plastic everything you need to know about plastic and somethings you wish you didn’t
Bad Plastic – why you need to cut your plastic consumption
Cut plastic – how to cut unnecessary plastic out of your life & meet the other people doing it.
Links & Projects –links to other plastic free people, the U.K. directory and out other projects
Us & The Boycott –About us the blog and the boycott rules
Site Map
Plastics are used to make everything from varnish to stockings, bottles to car parts by way of crisp packets and computers. They have revolutionized the world for the better but are now a major environmental pollutant. We use them everyday, for everything, even inserting it into our bodies. And yet we know very little about them.
This blog explores plastic the product, examines its impact and considers what we should and shouldn’t be using plastic for.
Definition of plastic
If you look in the Oxford dictionary you will find plastic can be used to describe
substances or materials that “are easily shaped or moulded: ‘rendering the material more plastic’
1. 2.1 Offering scope for creativity:‘the writer is drawn to words as a plastic medium’
2. 2.2 Relating to moulding or modelling in three dimensions, or to produce three-dimensional effects:‘the plastic arts’
3. 2.3 (in science and technology) relating to the permanent deformation of a solid without fracture by the temporary application of force.
4. Artificial or unnatural: ‘a holiday rep with huge white teeth and a plastic smile’
But more commonly today it is used as a noun to refer to a “synthetic material made from a wide range of organic polymers such as polyethylene, PVC, nylon, etc., that can be moulded into shape while soft, and then set into a rigid or slightly elastic form: Oxford.
or Any of various organic compounds produced by polymerization, capable of being molded, extruded, cast into various shapes and films, or drawn into filaments used as textile fibres. Your Dictionary
So the term plastic was originally used to describe anything fluid, responsive capable of being molded or modelled; Clay could be plastic; sculpture could be described as plastic.
But more recently it has come to mean a certain type of product – a fluid, synthetic material that can be molded to make almost anything.
Are All Plastics The Same?
Plastic (when used to describe a product and not a quality) can be applied to a huge range synthetic polymers with massively different qualities. They look different, they act different and the general application of the term plastic to all plastic materials soon leads to confusion. Products such as varnish for example are not usually thought of as plastic. But some are.
But are all these different products basically made from the same stuff? No, even the base material can be a different product.
Plastic was used to describe the early first plastics derived from cellulose which were biodegradable. Later the same name was given the oil derived product. This was made in a very different way and did not biodegrade. It is now applied to corn starch plastic which is made differently again, from plant starch and is certified compostable.
To conclude;
plastics can be made in a variety of ways from a variety of materials; shale gas, oil, plants even chicken feathers;
different plastics have very different qualities.
Currently non- biodegradable, oil derived plastics are the most commonly used and so we tend to ascribe their qualities to all types of plastic.
Which is of course incorrect not least because most oil derived plastics do not biodegrade and last for centuries possibly for ever, while there are other plastics that are truly compostable with a lifespan of months.
It is important to know your different plastic types and their massively varied characteristics.
The sheer versatility of plastics make this a big task.
Check out A List Of Plastics for information on the individual kinds of plastic.
Despite being lumped under the one, all-embracing name, not all plastics are the same..
Non-biodegradable and biodegradable plastics
Some plastics are compostable, (they biodegrade within a certain amount of time).
Most are not biodegradable and last if not for ever, for a very long time. Read the Plastic Lifespan to find out why and how.
N.B. Plastics can be described as compostable, degradable and or biodegradable. Which may seem clear but can be misleading. Some “biodegradable plastics” are oil derived plastics with a degrading initiator added to make them fall apart (degrade) more quickly. Unlike compostable plastics they don’t always break down into harmless substances and may leave behind a toxic residue. Read more here
Thermoplastics or Thermoset?
You might also hear plastic being described as a thermoplastics or thermoset plastic.
Thermoplastics can be heated and shaped many times.
Thermoset plastics can only be heated and shaped once.
Made from?
Plastic can be made from pretty much anything from oil to chicken feathers….
Plastics are created from single units, monomers, combined in a variety of ways. This process is called polymerisation. This is why plastics are also called polymers. And you often find the word poly used in the name i.e. polystyrene.
Building Blocks – Polymers & Monomers
A polymer is a chain ( poly= many, mer = part) of single units called monomers. 
Natural polymers occur in nature and can be extracted. They include silk, wool, DNA, cellulose, starch and proteins.
Synthetic polymers such as plastic are made by scientists and engineers. They too are extracted from natural resources BUT…. though the base material may be a natural product such as oil, the polymers derived from it are not.
To make synthetic polymers, the monomors are joined together in new ways, using heat and/or pressure and sometimes a catalyst.
Different combination of monomors result in different products and there are hundreds of different kinds of plastic.
Read more here – monomers and polymers.
Definitions
Don’t know your PETS from your hamster. Think Polymer is a girl’s name? Check out this collection of definitions essential for understanding plastic!
Obviously given the different products, there is no one answer – it would depend on the plastic type.
Plastic can be made from just about anything but the two main feed materials are oil and plants (bioplastics)
Currently nearly all plastics (and we are talking millions of tons each year) are made from ethane.
Most ethane is derived from oil but it can also be got from coal, gas and plants.
Oil Derived Plastic 
.. are cheap, so cheap they can be used to make one use throwaway products like plates and nappies in huge amounts.
Most oil derived plastics are resistant to chemicals, microrganisms and water. They don’t rot. They last for centuries possibly forever. Find out why most plastics don’t biodegrade here.
More are being made everyday.
How are oil derived polymers are made? You can see the process here.
Bioplastics
Bioplastics or organic plastics are derived from renewable sources such as starch, vegetable oil and even chicken feathers.
Some bioplastics are compostable and biodegradable. SOME ARE NOT.
For example:
Bioplastics can be made from ethane derived from plants. This is the same as ethane derived from oil. Both are used to make PET plastic. PET plastic does not biodegrade.
PLA is a plastic derived from poly lactic acid that is a certified compostable plastic.
Different processes are used to make the various types of bioplastic. You can find links to technical information here.
There are thousands of different types of plastic product with different qualities. Some of those differences are down to the polymers, a lot are a result of later addatives.
The first stage in plastic production is the polymerization of raw material. Then substances such as fillers and chemicals are added to give color, texture and a whole range of other qualities. Reinforcing fibers for example make the base polymer stronger while man-made organic chemicals, such as phthalates are added to make plastic flexible, resilient and easier to handle.
While the polymers used in base plastics are considered harmless, the potential toxicity of the many additives is often unknown and some are thought to be dangerous.
Find out more about additives fillers and plasticizers here.
Plastic Lifespan
Perhaps the most amazing thing about most plastics is that they don’t rot. While every other thing on the planet is decomposing, plastic remains unchanged. Find out why most plastics don’t biodegrade here.
The most common types of plastics, what they are used for and links to technical data sheets.
Problems with plastic – Whats not to like?
Quick Plastic Facts
List Of Plastics – the most common types of plastics, what they are used for and links to technical data sheets.
Plastic Lifespan why most plastic don’t biodegrade
Compostable plastics that biodegrade within a certain amount of time).
Compostable, degradable and or biodegradable plastic – find out here.
Thermoplastics and thermoset plastics – plastics that melt & plastics that don’t
Making Plastics
monomers and polymers
Oil Derived polymers – how they are made see the process here.
Bio Plastics derived from plants see the process here
Additives – Fillers and chemicals are added to the base plastic to give color, texture and other qualities. Read up on them here
Reports & statistics links to the latest reports on plastic
Welcome a quick introduction to everything
About Plastic everything you need to know about plastic and somethings you wish you didn’t
Bad Plastic – why you need to cut your plastic consumption
Cut plastic – how to cut unnecessary plastic out of your life & meet the other people doing it.
Links & Projects –links to other plastic free people, the U.K. directory and out other projects
Us & The Boycott –About us the blog and the boycott rules
Site Map
