There is no doubt a plastic free lifestyle leads to all manner of new challenges. Plastic is so ubiquitous you have to question all aspects of your lifestyle; what you wear, what you eat, what you will give up and what you won’t. You a get to develop a whole new skill set. If you want fake tan you have to learn how to make it.
But giving up plastic also makes you question other more political issues. If you give up on plastic how are you going to provide cheap clothing for 7 billion for example? Can we really go back to growing everything we need and mining all our resources?

My projects include 

The Fair Share Fabric Project  using only my global share of fibres & fabrics. More below
Homesteading – making home-made products and plastic free clothes
Composting – the only way to deal with trash. Which means all trash should be compostable. I compost like a demon.
The Campaign For Real Litter

The Fair Share Fabric Project  using only my global share of fibres & fabrics.
As an experiment I have pledged to use no more than my fair global share of fibres Whats a global share? Currently the global consumption of clothing works out (roughly) at 11.74 kg per person of which 3.8 kg is natural fibres. As I don’t like synthetics I try to stick to 3.8 kg of natural fibres.
Why not just use 11 .74 kg of natural fibres? Fabric production like everything has an environmental impact and carbon footprint, a rather large one actually. I would argue that it is not sustainable for us all to have 11.74 kg of natural fibres a year. This is one of the promoted benefits of plastic, that it takes the pressure off natural resources. Synthetic fabrics mean less land grab to grow cotton. But synthetic fabrics like any other plastic are massively polluting.
So if we cannot produce more, we have to consume less.  This is how the equation works for me:
We cannot exceed current levels of production:
We cannot expect others to want less than we have:
We cannot swamp the market with synthetics:
Therefore I have to live with my global share of natural fibres.
But can it be done? Cautious reply after 2and a half years is yes it can.

Archived

#Plastic picking – where we pick up plastic rubbish where ever we find it

Trash Reduction & minimalism and what to do with your rubbish

Save Our Bottles

Historical Links

Bear in mind that this blog started before Facebook and twitter when plastic awareness was limited. So back then I knew all fellow bloggers by name and had watched every plastic related film. I used to report on every one of them

Since then things have changed. There is a plethora of information and an army of bloggers. All easily accessed via search engines and social media.

Check out my Facebook page

You can check out my historical links here if you really want to know who was who in the early days. But they will be very out of date. Ditto reports.

Films & Images

The best way to make people plastic aware is to show the damage that plastic is doing. Photos of plastic trash polluting the planet and hurting animals illustrate the real effects better than anything. Of course they need to backed up with information about plastic. Case studies about plastic free living show what can be done to tackle the problem. Support groups on social media where plastic free tips can shared are hugely useful in encouraging people to make small changes that all add up. Campaigns  and bloggers are a great way to make an impact and there are some good ones out there.

Back in the early days I used to list them here. I no longer do that.

Films & Images
scary movies here documentaries about plastic
dirty pictures galleries of plastic pollution.

Planet Trash – A page of images showing  plastic pollution the world over plus one of the biggest list of liked anti plastic groups on Facebook.
(You can find a list of the places featured here on the blog).

Bloggers

Blimey could it be that the battle is over? Not the battle against plastic but the battle to raise awareness. When I started my boycott, Envirowoman was the only anti-plastic voice out there in the blogosphere. The first of the plastic boycotters, she inspired me to change my ways. Now there re hundreds of great plastic free bloggers out there who have done sterling work in promoting a life less plastic. See if you can find one blogging in your country or even town. They will be a fund of local plastic free resources.

U.K. based bloggers can be found here
Here is a list of people blogging about plastic-free the world over.

Campaigns, Arts, Media and Education
Can be found here

Reports

See what plastics doing to world over.
Wasting Away how much rubbish do we create globally
Definitions You can find definitions, clarifications and explanations here
Number Crunching – for nasty stats go to  Statistics

Social Media

Plastic Is Rubbish Facebook group where folks can share, rant and post about living plastic free. A resource for plastic less living.
As the interest in plastic free living grows we need a space to pool resources  – especially in the U.K. where we don’t have bulk stores and finding unpackaged produce is so much harder. It’s great to see people using it to share plastic free info and lifestyle hacks. Join us here.

PlasticSrubbish is our Twitter account

We have just started with Instagram

And have a Pinterest page With loads of plastic free pins.

Partnered

Plastic Free July
Waste Less Live More Week
Zero Waste Week

As Seen In

I have written for, and been featured in, various publications. You can see them here.

I don’t think theres enough said about reusing stuff. By which I don’t mean recycling – recycling is great but it usually means the waste product is taken away then processed into something else.
Plastic Produce bags for example. Yes they can be recycled but why? Recycling costs a lot of money. It is not really cost effective and only offsets the cost of disposing the bags. Which is why so many don’t get recycled but end up in landfill.
We really don’t need a new bag every time we buy some beans. A cotton reusable bag is more than good enough. Yet we have become such a throwaway society we have almost forgotten about reusables.
Here are some products that dont need to be thrown away after a few uses.

Our Resuables

Advent Calendars

Covered in plastic and  full of trashy sweets, they just add to the huge amounts of Christmas rubbish. So here ...
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Bun/muffins

Baking buns is fun but try getting plastic free bun cases and you will be in difficulties as they all come ...
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Carrier Bags reusable

Cotton string bags are fantastic. These are my best bags and I use them most of the time. They have ...
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Chop Sticks Folding

The curse of the plastic chopstick wrapper means that eating plastic-free South East Asian style  can be hard work. So ...
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Christmas Crackers Reusable

As they sound - a cracker that can be used over and over again. Probably not completely plastic free, (those ...
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Cups BYO

Any one lucky enough to see the photos of Vladimir Putin bare-chested in camo  will have some idea just how ...
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Cutlery – travel

The buffet cars on Polish trains are so cute. They are relatively modern but have an old-fashioned feel. Perhaps it’s ...
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Easter

Easter Sunday falls on April 9, 2023 so time to start planning. Absolutely disappointed that one of my favourites the ...
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Gift wrap reusable

Which wrap should you choose? Well we prefer reusables over all else so here are some wraps you can use ...
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Glasses / Tumblers/ Pint Pots

When we go travelling, camping, partying or picniking, we take our own steel tumblers for wine and other beverages. They ...
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Menstrual internal protection reusable

Products to deal with menstruation are plastic heavy  ( see some stats). They are made from plastic, come wrapped in plastic, ...
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Menstrual Pads – sanitary towels

There is no doubt that sanitory towels are plastic heavy. Yes you knew they came packed in plastic but did you ...
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Paper versus plastic versus reusables

So if I don't want to use plastic bags then would I suggest using paper as an alternative? Well actually ...
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Produce Bags

Produce bags are reusable bags that (as the name suggests), you put your loose produce in. It means you don't ...
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Razor

Shaving is a big part of almost every adults life wether a beard or a bikini line. Back in the ...
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Straws – reusable

I don't use straws but if I did I would go for one of these. Do note I have not used these ...
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Refills

Imagine a world where you returned your empty milk bottles to be refilled and took your washing up liquid bottle back for more of the soapy stuff. Seems such an obvious way to save resources and cut waste doesn’t it? Well thankfully a few far seeing people still offer such great services.
You can find them here.

Disposables

Sometime you need a disposable and when you do it has to be compostable.  Here are biodegradable bags for the butcher, paper cups for the office party and plastic free tampons. To name but a few. Find them here

Changing face Of Blogging

I started in 2006 when there were far fewer plastic free options and finding alternatives was time consuming. Facebook and Twitter started later that year. Amazon had been going for 8 years and online shopping was still a fairly new phenomenon. Even Google was still young. The blog seemed the best and only viable way to record and promote the products that I had found.

Since then of course the range of products available has skyrocketed and online shopping is well established. Facebook and Twitter can convey information far more quickly and attention spans are so diminished that reading a blog post is far too exhausting. As for writing one ….. well I don’t any more.

Found My Favourites

I now have a few favourite sources that pretty much cater to all my plastic-free needs. Most of them are on line.

Outdated

So many of these posts will be out of date. The plasticfree world is moving quickly and new products are coming on the market all the time. The science changes. Recycling gets better but plastic pollution is far worse than we thought.

And yes I do make mistakes. The science of plastic is complex and I am still not entirely sure how you define a chemical.

So I apologise if some posts are scrappy, poorly researched whiffle, if they are wrong or out of date. Take them as a starting point.

Updating Posts

Hardly seems worth it. Many of the products it took me so long to find can now easily be found in a variety of places online. I’m leaving them up as a record of availability but do your own research.

Still Learning

When I started boycotting plastic back in 2006 I had no idea how pervasive it was. While I was obviously aware that a lot of items were packaged in plastic I didn’t know how many seemingly innocent products contained plastic. Toothpaste for example. Packed in plastic yes I can see that. Contains plastic micro beads. WTF?!!! Glue? Rubbers? Silicone coated greaseproof paper?
Actually learning about plastic was and still is a huge task.

Make Your Own – at your own risk

Back in the day I often had to make alternatives. Yes I can now make face cream but I am self taught and certainly no expert.

Talking of which: The information in this blog is for guidance only. None of the recipes or tips in this blog have not been tested on anyone other than me and my husband. I strongly advise you do your own research and proceed very carefully.

Be aware of the risks of listening to someone who
a) doesn’t have any training in this field,
b) most of what they know comes from Google,
That’s me I mean.

Posts may be incomplete, out of date and possibly wrong! Please read on to find out why…

How The Blog Is Written

I started blogging to record my progress, record my recipes and ultimately help others benefit from my experiences. Because that’s what they are, experiences.

. That I carved some time out of a working day to record my achievement doesn’t make me a writer. My writing is often rushed. Early parts of the blog were written, sweating my face off, in deepest darkest Borneo back in the day when you had to visit an Internet cafe to get on line.

As I boycott, I learn more and when I find time I update the blog. But it is very much a work in progress. Please feel free to learn from my mistakes but be aware that I too am acquiring knowledge as I go. And that I am an amateur with limited time.

Why is that post so rubbish… and the next one so good?

The plastic free sourcing and post writing process goes as follows
Need to clean the bathroom tiles but everything comes in plastic
Internets says I can use bicarbonate of soda.
No idea what bicarb is but I find I can get it plasticfree from Wilcos
Yes I can clean the bathroom tiles with bicarb
Write a post about cleaning bathroom tiles with bicarb
Finally find time to research bicarb.
Quickly update cleaning tiles post which means it’s is now rather badly put together.
Later find some more time to write up my research on bicarb properly in a separate post.
Uneasy because I am now not sure those bicarb mines are so ecofriendly.
Start doing more research into other alternatives to clean tiles.

Honestly it’s endless. But this accounts for why some posts are very basic, others seem rather cobbled together, some sound doubtful and a few that I am really rather proud of.

Danger In Googleland

Much of my research is done online and the internet is a place full of foolishness. While I try to filter out the more ridiculous claims for alternative products some are very convincing. Many claimed that coconut oil had a built in sun protection factor. It doesn’t.

Take A Chance

And sometimes it doesn’t matter how much research I do it seems there is no clear answer. Is bicarb too rough for teeth? Everyone has an opinion and they are quite contrary. In cases like this it may be that I am happy to take the risk with my home made tooth powder to live plastic free but I strongly advise that you do your own research before making that decision.

The Knowledge

Going plastic free means you need to know so much more about the basic stuff that you use, what it is, where is it from and even some science – urk!
So here are links to  information about science, green issues and other related subjects that impact on the plastic debate. Plus a look at the alternative products being touted and thoughts on how better they actually are. Read more here…

N.B.
I have no wish to add to the massive amounts of misinformation out there. Please note I am no chemist, I know nothing of the sciences. Much of the information here has been gleaned from the unreliable Google Mines and filtered through my total ignorance. I think it’s correct. If It’s not please do tell me.