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Large Scale Composting Case Studies

by Posted in 3.7 Other Solutions Tagged

Composting accelerates the natural process of biodegrading or rotting down organic waste material into a rich soil or compost. Its a great and  sustainable way to deal with our waste.

As I’m sure you know biodegradable waste does not do well in the unnatural conditions of landfill. It bubbles away producing methane which adds to the greenhouse effect. Composting biodegradable waste on the other hand produces a nutrient rich material that can be used to grow more food.

How It Works

All natural (as oppose to synthetic) materials do eventually biodegrade or rot. Composting speeds up that process

Useful composting information

Biodegradable –Biodegradable products break down through a naturally occurring microorganism, such as fungi or bacteria over a period of time. More about biodegrading HERE
Compostable – To be classed compostable, items must biodegrade within a certain amount of time, the resulting biomass must be free of toxins, able to sustain plant life and be used as an organic fertilizer or soil additive.

Home Or Industrial Composting?
Industrial composting are large scale schemes.
Home composting is a bin in your back yard.
The difference is is that industrial composting is a lot hotter and can work more quickly.
Therefore, while a product might be classed as both biodegradable and compostable, it might not break down in a backyard compost bin.

Case Study – A Cafe
Cute Boscastle National Trust Cafe uses compostable disposables and “. we collect the cups, cup holders, plates and the untreated wooden cutlery that we use, and they are taken to a local farmer who shreds them. He then mixes them with his green waste and composts them into a peat free mulch substitute. This mulch is hen taken to the National Trust plant nurseries at Lanhydrock House near Bodmin, who grow, amongst all the other plant, the plants that are sold in the National Trust shop that adjoins the cafe in Boscastle. By doing it this way, we not only successfully recycle the disposables from the national Trust Cafe in Boscastle, but we contribute to saving the limited resources of peat bogs.”
Read more HERE

Community Composting

Community composting is where local community groups share the use and management of a common composting facility.
Key points
Community composting is where residents jointly share and manage a central composting facility.
Community composting allows people to compost food and garden waste who may otherwise struggle to do so.
Community composting has an added benefit of bringing the community together.
Guidance is available for overcoming practical difficulties which may arise.
Grant funding may be available to cover costs.
SourceWRAP

More help can be found at the UK community compost Organisation HERE

Municipal

The UK composting industry has experienced a period of strong growth, according to figures released today. The amount of waste composted in 2007/8 rose by nine per cent from the previous year and further growth is predicted in the annual WRAP and AFOR survey.
As demand for composted products continued to increase, the industry turned over   more than £165m in the year to April 2008. In total, 4.5 million tonnes of separately collected waste was composted in the UK in 2007/2008.
Read more here.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a plan to increase composting of food scraps generated by the city’s eight million inhabitants. In a few years, separation of food waste from other refuse could be required of residents, the mayor said.
The administration says it will soon be looking to pay a local composting plant to process 100,000 tons of food scraps a year, or about 10 percent of the city’s residential food waste.Read more here.

How Councils Compost

How to compost on a large scale – read more HERE

Keeping Your Waste Sweet
Bokashi Bins are not strictly composting but pickling. This allows you to store compostable food waste for long periods of time. Read more HERE

The New Litter

Companies using compostable plastic.

Snact

Our new innovative packaging, developed by Israeli start-up TIPA, is just as durable and impermeable as ordinary plastic – but it biologically decomposes within just 180 days and becomes a fertiliser for soil, behaving similarly to an orange peel. Read more here.

Vegware
A while ago I got sent some Vegware stuff to review. Vegware make disposable, compostable packaging for the fast-food industry. Hooray for them …. but I am not in fast food. So what would I be using them for? For starters…

Eco For Life 
If you must drink bottled water this might interest you; water packaged in PLA compostable plastic bottles

More

Check out all our composting posts HERE
Want to know more about plastic? Read up here
See our big list of plastic types here

Why This Post Is ….

A little bit rubbish. You are reading a work in progress. Here’s why…

More Stuff

The case against incinerating rubbish and a proposed zerowaste alternative involving composting on an industrial scale – damn good stuff. Copied from  eplanning.derby.gov.uk

STATEMENT FROM DR PAUL CONNETT:
Nanoparticles from incinerators or gasifiers or gasifying incinerators use household waste as a fuel which due to its make up has the potential to contain every toxic element used in commerce – which means that it has the potential to emit nanoparticles containing those toxic elements. Diesel fuel contains far less of an array of toxic elements therefore comparisions of nanoparticle emissions from traffic with high temperature incineration or gasification is like comparing chalk and cheese.
Incineration and gasification does not destroy toxic elements- toxic elements in – toxic elements out. Gasification companies make inflated claims about what they are going to do with their products, but the char, or glassified melt, and the fly ash by-products, all contain toxic materials which are permanent in the case of metals and highly persistent in the case of dioxins and furans.
About 4 X more energy is saved reusing, recycling and composting the waste stream than burning them to create electricity so this proposal should not be considered a sustainable waste treatment process.
These proposals will directly impact on recycling and remove the drive to zero waste.
The key to sustainability (see my essay Zero Waste a key Stepping Stone to Sustainability) is Zero Waste. Everybody makes waste and as long as we do we are part of a non-sustainable way of living on this planet. But given good leadership everyone could be involved with the critical first step towards sustai
nability: source separation.

With source separation we can get out the organics clean enough to get them back to the soil, and recyclables which can be returned to industry – cutting out the huge energy demands of extraction and transport of raw materials, often half way around the planet. With the reuse of whole objects, we can create many jobs and small businesses, stimulate vital community development, and save even more energy by avoiding manufacture as well as extraction. But the single most important thing we can do is composting: composting sequesters carbon, if this material is burned it the Carbon is immediately converted into carbon
dioxide (global warming). Also by removing organics at source it makes it very much easier for cities to deal with the remainder of the materials – glass, metals, paper, cardboard, plastics, ceramic etc.
Burning ( or destroying) materials to recover energy is always second best. the number one priority is to recover materials and thereby conserve the embedded energy discussed above.
24 years ago promoters of incinerators tried to corral this issue between landfills and incinerators. you either burned it or you buried it. They scoffed at those like myself who argued that comparable reductions to incineration could be achieved by a combination of recycling and composting. But we have won that battle there are many small and large towns who are getting over 70% reduction with composting and recycling – incinerator only gets 75% reduction – you are still left with 25% as ash. You don’t get rid of landfills with incineration or gasifying incinerators. Note right mow San Francisco is getting 73% reduction without incineration, at a fraction of the cost of an incinerator and with many more jobs created.
Many of the proposals for gasification plants are coming from companies which have never operated such plants. There is a world of difference from small scale pilot plants and a fully-fledged commercial operation. here are very few
of these operations burning municipal solid waste. no one should entertain for a moment such a company coming to town unless they can establish some kind of solid track record – somewhere! A track record which can demonstrate what there emissions are and what they are doing with the byproducts. At the very least they should be required to a give a very careful written and documented response to Dr. Vyvyan Howard’s paper on nanoparticles, health and incineration. Right now they can promise anything because there are NO regulations for nanoparticles from incinerators or gasifying incinerators.
Highly exaggerated claims are being made with NO DATA to support them. When these
companies promise the earth it is probably because
they never expect these plants to run for more than a few years. The name of the game as far as I can see it is that they set themselves up as a “green & sustainable” entity promising to produce “green energy” and “fight global warming” a) to seduce local decision makers and b) to suck up any soft European money for green alternatives as well as PFI – once this is in the bank watch out for
them selling out the contract to some other company and/or go belly up with the principals walking away with a lot of the cash in their pockets.
Of course, they will argue that they agree with us that recycling and composting are important, but all they want are the residuals. But the residuals are the evidence of bad industrial design – so rather than destroy them we have to say if we can’t reuse, recycle or compost anything you shouldn’t be making it. This is how we can go from the current 70-80% diversion rates up to about 95% diversion over the next 10 years or so. this is the future.
Incineration simply burns the evidence that we are doing something wrong – and will delay by 25 years the crucial move towards sustainability. The Zero waste approach makes more sense on every front: economically, environmentally, and globally.
Paul Connett
pconnett@gmail.com
315-379-9200
Dec 9, 2009

Paul_Connett

About Dr Paul Connett

Dr Connett is a graduate of Cambridge University and holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Dartmouth College. From 1983 he taught chemistry at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY where he specialised in Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology before retiring in May 2006. Over the past 24 years his research on waste management has taken him to 49 states in the US and 52 other countries, where he has given over 2000 pro bono public presentations. Ralph Nader said of Paul Connett, “He is the only person I know who can make waste interesting.”

A recent essay on “Zero Waste for Sustainability” which was published as a chapter in a book in Italy in 2009 (Rifiuto: Riduco e Riciclo per vivere meglio, Monanari, S. (ed)), along with several videotapes Paul has made on Zero Waste, can be accessed at www.AmericanHealthStudies.org This site is hosted by the group AESHP (American Environmental Health Studies Project) which Paul directs.

Croyden – plastic free Kake

by Posted in 3.6 Plastic Refusenik & Zero wasters, 3.7 Other Solutions Tagged

I’m taking the Plastic-Free July challenge of cutting out single-use plastics during July 2014. As part of this, I’ll be building up lists of plastic-free shopping options in my local area — Croydon, South
London.
I’ll also be blogging about how I get on with the challenge.
Cutting down my own plastic use, and helping and encouraging other
people in Croydon to do the same.
Links

Links

 http://croydon.randomness.org.uk/plastic-free-july/

https://twitter.com/croydn

kake@earth.li

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This post was written by the contributor and 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.

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

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Join IN blogging for a plastic free world…

by Posted in 3.7 Other Solutions Tagged 13 Comments

I love that people are becoming plastic problem aware and  taking responsibility for their own huge pile of plastic waste. And then, even more super fabbytastic, they blog about it!

When you first decide to go plastic free it can be overwhelming. It seems that everything comes plastic packaged from soap to shampoo to moisturizer to toothpaste and you have only just got up. Breakfast cereals, bread, milk yogurt and marge, tea and coffee are all plastic packed. Can of coke? Nope – tins are plastic lined! Coffee to go? Those paper cups and paper sugar sachets are also plastic lined!

And so it goes throughout the day till you return home sweaty and malodorous because you didn’t apply your plastic packed deodorant clutching a cardboard box of eggs and the only unpackaged veg you could find in Lidles! Which isn’t even a vegetable but an unripe avocado.

How fantastic then to stumble across people who have already sourced a range of plastic free alternatives and listed them in their blogs! But we need more.

Why?

Well some solutions like solid shampoo from Lush can be accessed UK wide but many are local. There is only one place as a far as I know that does plastic free olive oil in West Yorkshire. Great news for people in Todmorden but it stills leaves the good folk of Folkstone in a quandary! More people have to list their local plastic free sources to create a network of plastic free shopping blogs.

And blogging isn’t just about sharing information but also indicates that there is a market for different products, natural products that can be composted and unpackaged products that don’t result in a bin full of everlasting trash. I don’t want my courgettes presented on a plastic tray swathed in clingfilm but unless I blog about it, only my long-suffering husband knows how displeased I am.

Blogging tells business we want change.
I dream of an online army of plastic free blogs promoting better products and business practise. Refuseniks who vote with their cash for environmentally sustainable services and, by advertising that fact to a powerful online community, encourage others to do the same.

You can find other UK based bloggers here 

If you are a plastic free blogger, get in touch. It doesn’t have to be a whole blog – a single post will do listing a loose food outlet or milkman with glass bottles will do. Send me a link to your post or blog and I will feature it.

Or write a post for the plastic free directory

You can find international bloggers and other plastic related projects here

Plastic free bloggers unite! We having nothing to loose but our chain stores! Cyber love to all and see you on the virtual barricades.

Scotland – Westy Writes

by Posted in 3.6 Plastic Refusenik & Zero wasters, 3.7 Other Solutions Tagged 5 Comments

I’m a Scottish blogger who is about to undertake the challenge of Plastic Free July2014.  I have been ‘in training’ for the past eight months – assessing my use of disposable plastics and working out what alternatives I can use. My blog documents my busy life, full of competing priorities while focussing on the ‘inconvenience’ of trying to save the planet! I post about techniques and products that help me along the way, and there are a fair number of posts about me trying to get back on track when things haven’t quite gone to plan!

Next month is Plastic Free July! Don’t worry, it’s not nearly as difficult as it sounds – the challenge doesn’t stop you using all plastics, just those that are single-use, or disposable. But wait…take a snap shot from your day today. Did an hour go by that you didn’t use a disposable plastic?

Think of your breakfast – was there cereal in a plastic bag, or perhaps milk from a plastic carton? Was there yoghurt in a plastic pot, or a plastic carton of fresh berries? What about at work, did you use a plastic disposable pen or sellotape? At home, did you use washing-up liquid from a plastic bottle or even just blow your nose on a tissue that had plastic on top of the box?

Single-use plastics are everywhere!

For one month I am going to attempt to avoid them as much as I possibly can. The reason that I have made this crazy commitment is to reduce my damaging impact on the environment. Because plastic doesn’t naturally degrade, much of it ends up in landfill to hang around possibly forever, leaching chemicals into the land. Some plastic rubbish doesn’t even make it into the bin to start its journey to landfill. I like to think mine does, but I’ve had the occasional plastic bag that has blown out of the car boot on a windy day, and no doubt there’s been other innocent plastic littering offences that I’ve hardly registered. Who knows where that stuff ends up, but plastic waste can be found in oceans and the countryside, where it poses a danger to wildlife as they consume it or get trapped by it.

Last year I read about Plastic Free July (www.plasticfreejuly.org) and thought it was an admirable challenge – but not something I would ever attempt! How could I?! Life is busy and I have small children to look after – I cared about the environment of course but…you know…not enough to turn my life upside down for a month!!

Annoyingly though, the concept niggled away at me. I kept thinking about the impact of single-use plastics and I wrote a few blog posts on the topic. I changed a few of the easy things – I bought my veg loose rather than using small plastic bags, I swapped bottled liquid soap for bars and I stopped wrapping my homemade bread in clingfilm and bought a tin. For the first time, I opened my eyes to the plastic around me. I could see where I was failing the environment and – maybe it’s just me – but I don’t like to fail!

Back in October 2013, with 9 months to go, I announced on my blog that I’d be taking part in Plastic Free July 2014. I had no idea quite how I was going to reach the point where I could last for a month without single-use plastics, but I reckoned I had time to get myself in training!

Eight months (and several blog posts) later, I am now a matter of weeks away from the start of Plastic Free July. I’ve solved a lot of the plastic problems that I anticipate coming up against but, to be honest, I’ll be winging it with some of the others!

I’d be delighted if anyone wants to follow my progress during July and if you have any suggestions that might help, then please get in touch via my blog at

westywrites.wordpress.com or my Twitter account @Westywrites – I have a feeling I’ll need all the help I can get.

Also, why not make a pledge of your own? If you can’t face a whole month without single-use plastics, then there are so many some small and manageable changes you can make.  Here are some of my suggestions, taken from a post I wrote back in December.

1. Swap that plastic bottle of liquid soap or shower gel for a bar of soap, wrapped in paper, cardboard or unwrapped.

2. Refuse plastic carrier bags and instead, carry your own – a fold-away bag attached to your key-ring or handbag can make all the difference.

3. Take a re-usable cup out with you when buying coffee on your way to work, for example.

4. Carry a bottle of water from home with you with you instead of buying water in plastic bottles.

5. Ditch cling-film.

6. If you have a choice between products – anything from ketchup to toys to gifts- go for the one with the least plastic content.

7. Stop buying fruit & veg in pre-packed plastic bags. Buy loose or take your own produce bags.

8. Ditch disposable straws.

9. Find a local veg box delivery scheme and request that your order comes plastic-free.

10. Instead of buying DVDs and CDs, sign-up to film subscriptions (eg. Love Film) and Music Apps (eg Spotify or Deezer).

If every person reading this blog post, chooses one action for July, think of all of the plastic that will be saved from landfill! We are living in an increasingly fragile planet, let’s use July to make a difference.

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This post was written by the contributor and 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.

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

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Cup to Compost – National trust, Boscastle

by Posted in 3.1 Composting, 3.5 Plastic Free People, Projects & Campaigns, 3.7 Other Solutions Tagged 4 Comments

Our tour in the plastivan took us through Boscastle, a lovely old harbour and coastline maintained by the fantastic National Trust. In addition to keeping footpaths open and other essential maritime maintenance, they operate a cafe shop and visitor center (with immaculate toilets), down by the harbour. So far so good!

Not so good was that the cafe was using disposable paper cups! Eeek! As you know, most paper cups are in fact plastic lined and so not very disposable. Bah! Was just about to turn round and leave when I noticed that these cups were from Vegware. Vegware dont line their cardboard cups with the usual conventional non biodegradable plastic but a certified compostable lining. You can read more here.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Now I wanted to take photos! And ask lots of questions! Which Jon kindly answered.  As he says”… when the cafe first opened in 2009, there wasn’t a modern conventional sewage system in Boscastle, and all the waste that would normally go for treatment went straight into the sea. Because of this, we were reluctant to have a commercial dish washer in the cafe that would have just contributed to this waste, and so looked for viable alternatives. Finding a fully compostable solution in the cups, cup sleeves, plates and wooden cutlery was part of the solution to this problem, but without making sure that they were composted afterwards it wouldn’t have been such a positive environmental statement from what is, after all, a conservation charity…. we collect the cups, cup holders, plates and the untreated wooden cutlery that we use, and they are taken to a local farmer who shreds them. He then mixes them with his green waste and composts them into a peat free mulch substitute. This mulch is hen taken to the National Trust plant nurseries at Lanhydrock House near Bodmin, who grow, amongst all the other plant, the plants that are sold in the National Trust shop that adjoins the cafe in Boscastle. By doing it this way, we not only successfully recycle the disposables from the national Trust Cafe in Boscastle, but we contribute to saving the limited resources of peat bogs.”

Well done you!

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Eco Thrifty

by Posted in 3.6 campaigner, 3.6 Media, arts & education, 3.7 Other Solutions Tagged

I write a blog about slashing my spending but not my principles! In July 2011 whilst on maternity leave I decided that I didn’t want to return to work, but that I couldn’t afford not to. Among other things, I didn’t want to compromise my eco-friendly principles, so I started working out how to be genuinely eco-friendly on a budget. I found that the two go really well together and have been happily unemployed for over a year now!

I try to avoid disposable plastic items wherever possible and write about the alternatives on my blog.
Currently I am carrying out a Year of Eco Challenges (read more here ) and one of those challenges will be to go single use plastic free for July-14 (http://www.plasticfreejuly.org/).

I have been preparing for it for a while now and have a ‘going single use plastic free – to do list’ page on my blog, where I am keeping track of my progress.

Links –
@ecothrifty
https://www.facebook.com/EcoThriftyLiving
www.ecothriftyliving.com

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This post was written by the contributor and 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.

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

 

 

Ecotales

by Posted in 3.6 Media, arts & education, 3.7 Other Solutions Tagged

EcoTales is a not-for-profit environmental arts organisation using film, art and storytelling to raise awareness of plastic pollution. We produce inspiring films and run a successful arts led educational events programme.

We are passionate about raising awareness of the dangers of plastic pollution to the marine environment and its wildlife and the health implications of plastic on all of us.

EcoTales began with the making of our five time award winning film  “Gloop”, a twisted fairy-tale about the meteoric rise of plastic from its conception to its present day wide-spread use, and carries the message plastic NEVER goes away. “Gloop” was the springboard to start our environmental arts projects, helping us to engage schools and families through creative events, activities and challenges to raise awareness of plastic pollution. Stanleytross at Downing St

Since the conception of EcoTales in 2012, we have hosted a film festival in SW London. In front of a backdrop of recycled plastic art created by local school children, Sir David Attenborough handed out prizes to the young film-makers who created brilliant short films about plastic pollution. In September 2013, we joined other organisations at Downing St to campaign for a plastic bag ban in England.

We are currently running a poetry and illustration challenge in schools across the UK and all over the world which will result in an ebook publication. We are uniting children aged 16 and under with celebrities who are all contributing poems, illustrations or comments on the subject of how plastic pollution affects our planet.

Our website is packed with educational resource packs which are free to download and provide lots of suggested lesson plans and activities.

 

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This post was written by the contributor and 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.

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

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The Rubbish Diet – slim your bin

by Posted in 3.6 campaigner, 3.6 Media, arts & education, 3.7 Other Solutions Tagged

Karen Cannard is a blogger – columnist – broadcaster & creator of The Rubbish Diet.

She first delved into the topic of waste when she attempted a local council Zero Waste Week challenge in 2008 and only threw out a plaster.  It was a challenge that aroused her curiosity about rubbish, creating a desire to help others reduce their waste and discovering what really happens to our recycling and the technological and social innovations that are needed to drive solutions forward.

Karen’s passion is uncovering great examples of what’s possible, what’s happening now and the leaders who are inspiring change. Whilst recognising varying degrees of local limitations, The Rubbish Diet Challenge is a motivating slimming plan for bins, which helps householders and communities to take control of their trash in four simple steps.  Most dieters reduce their waste by 50% in just a few weeks.

Karen is also a trustee of the Zero Waste Alliance UK and ReusefulUK (formerly known as ScrapstoresUK)

Links:

The Rubbish Diet Challenge – www.therubbishdiet.org.uk
Personal Blog – www.therubbishdiet.blogspot.com
More about Karen: www.karencannard.co.uk
Twitter – @karencannard

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This post was written by the contributor and 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.

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

Ecotales

by Posted in 3.5 Plastic Free People, Projects & Campaigns, 3.7 Other Solutions 2 Comments

2013 was a big year for EcoTales. It started with a festival with the collaboration and endorsement of Sir David Attenborough and ended with a meeting with PM David Cameron at 10 Downing Street! We are a small organisation with big ideas and we believe that we can achieve big change.

StanleytrossEcoTales is an environmental arts organisation based in the UK. We have spent the last few months touring the country with “Stanleytross” a giant recycled plastic albatross to raise awareness of plastic pollution. Hundreds of school children helped to create him by cutting out one feather each from a plastic milk bottle or black plastic container. These feathers were then attached to a huge frame. Its feet are made from plastic bags and its head was created by artist Michelle Reader using recycled plastic bottles and bottle tops. Its stomach is transparent and has been filled with discarded single use plastic items. Our iconic albatross dramatically illustrates the dangers and real horror of plastic pollution to marine animals.

In September 2013, we made a trip to the Houses of Parliament and held a rally. After the rally, a group of school children took the Albatross to No.10 Downing Street, where they met MP Zac Goldsmith and Prime Minister David Cameron. They handed the PM a scroll of their poem “Dear Albatross” which explains how litter finds its way into the River Thames, and a letter calling for a charge on plastic shopping bags in England. The charge has already been introduced in Wales where government statistics show a drastic drop in plastic bag usage. Northern Ireland and Scotland had already signed up to the charge too, leaving England looking out of touch and lagging behind. However, it looks like the PM took the childrens’ message on board as he announced a 5p charge on plastic bags one week later!

But plastic bags are only the first hurdle and there is still a long way to go to stop plastic pollution. The report into plastic in the River Thames is the start of an awakening. If the Thames is clogged with plastic then so are all the other rivers in the UK and around the world.

As 2014 began, EcoTales collaborated with the Natural History Museum in London and other local groups for a plastic in the Thames awareness weekend. Members of the public came along in huge numbers to free workshops armed with plastic bottle tops they had collected and helped to create a giant mosaic. This will be the front cover of our under sixteens poetry and illustration challenge book. We took a time-lapse film of the book cover coming together.

Embedded Code for timelapse film:

The culmination of this project will be an ebook app of poems and pictures by young people of 16 and under, to send out a powerful message to our Government and the plastics industry, to help stop plastic pollution and Sir David Attenborough has written a powerful foreword for the book.

We are so excited that our campaign is now spreading across the globe. In 2013 we were thrilled to be invited to join the Plastic Pollution Coalition, and since then, we have received match funding from the Jack Johnson “All At Once” Foundation. In addition to this the brilliant charity Bookbus is helping to link us up with children in Africa, Asia and South America.

To top it all, some very big and plastic conscious celebrities and renowned artists are giving us some wonderful doodles and poems which will be featured alongside the childrens’ creations in our ebook. Stanleytross at Downing St

We are inspired constantly and driven by the incredible work and dedication of other individuals and organisations all over the globe. Through Twitter, Facebook and blogs we are proud to be part of such an active and rapidly growing community.

We would love to get feedback and have conversations with anyone out there. We believe that together we are stronger and change will happen faster.

Happy New Year from EcoTales! by Miriam Muscroft

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Russell Brand – sipping pretty or slurping dirty?

by Posted in 3.5 Plastic Free People, Projects & Campaigns, 3.7 Other Solutions Tagged

Michelle Cassar has been refusing to abuse for a while now. Doggedly saying no to plastic has become a way of life but, as Pam can well testify, it can sometimes feel like a pointless exercise . But while I sit sulking in the wardrobe, Michelle is distinctly more plastivist. What is needed she figured, is a celebrity spokesman, one who talks the eco talk but is also a dood, a happening hipster.

So, she put together a plastic free gift pack, went to see Russell Brand and gave it to him…. personally.

I was so impressed when I heard this, I tracked Michelle down and pestered her into giving me the story.

In her own words

I recently heard Russell Brand talking about corporate greed & how we are destroying the planet, and wanting to live in harmony with the animals and other humans. I then went to see him live & noticed he -like everybody – was drinking out of single use plastic bottles.

As someone who´s been refusing plastics for over 5 years I know how they tie into everything he´s talking about . So I decided to give Russell Brand a solution to what´s he´s discussing. I personally gave him a plastic free hamper at his show in Newcastle upon Tyne. In the hope that he would look at the information and start to use it some of the products. Maybe even in public… Russell Brands simple actions of using a metal bottle rather than a single use plastic one would speak volumes. He wouldn´t even need to speak!

As yet I haven´t seen any pictures of him using it. I´m not sure if he would of read my letter. But I tried!! It can feel like a lonely endeavour refusing single use plastics, but there are people out there quietly doing it. Hopefully soon it will become trendy and what better person to lead that trend than Russell Brand!

With or without him though I´ll carry on refusing SUPs (single use plastics) and it´s great meeting other people online knowing there are others out there doing the same. Making a difference, one refusal at a time.”

Let’s hear it for the girl!

The gift pack contained all kinds of plastic free loveliness including deodorant, shampoo in tins, a massage bar wrapped in paper and a metal water bottle – but not just any old metal water bottle, a gorgeous Klean Kanteen.

klean kanteenA KLEAN KANTEEN water bottle.

I have been wanting one of these forever but simply cannot pay the asking price. I am not saying they are overcharging just that we don’t have much in the way of disposable income.

So far Michelle has had no feed back on her gift but I can hardly believe that Russell is drinking water from tacky plastic in preference to that uber stylish bottle? However, if he is keeping it in his trousers so to speak, perhaps he could pass it on… to me. I hate to snatch at a mans water bottle but this is a Klean Kanteen we are talking about.

So Russell – are you sipping pretty or still slurping dirty? Caring people want to know – and me, well I want your Klean Kanteen.

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The UK Directory Of Plastic Aware Iniatives

by Posted in 3.5 Plastic Free People, Projects & Campaigns, 3.7 Other Solutions

I am putting together a UK BASED  directory of groups, people, organisations, businesses and anyone else interested in tackling the consequent problems of our misuse of plastic.

But why? you might ask.

You already blog, at some considerable length about this very problem, offer all kinds of useful plastic free tips and have put together huge list of plastic free products. What more can you possibly want to say on the subject?

Well that’s just it. My blog, my rules – that’s how it should be. But my rules of course aren’t the only ones. For example – recycling! In the plastic free world there are those who think it is practically green washing, an excuse to consume yet more plastic. Then there are others who promote it as the saviour. I want a forum on which to post both arguments undiluted by my own opinions (GREENWASHING!!!!).

Also, chatty as I am, I cant say everything that needs saying on the subject. Nor do I know it all. No, really, I don’t. There are others out there – experts in their field who I would love to feature.

And as the number of plastic related projects and plastic free products increase I  cannot keep up. I do not have the time to review them all nor the capacity. The directory is a place where people can present their own work. Obviously I cannot vouch for it but the plastic free world is a pretty honourable place.

Finally time will come when I am back on the road trying to access the internet from some remote dusty spot on a computer held together with string. Before I want to go I want to contribute to the growing plastic debate by helping build a plastic free community. As well as supporting and promoting each other, the aim is show others that there is a market for plastic free products and services and a growing concern about the problems of plastic abuse.

So blog for me, directory for everyone else: What they do in their words -a resource for anyone who wants to know who is who and what is what in this plastically challenged world.

Have a project you think should be featured? Submit….

plastic free uk flier

 

 

Recycle your own plastic…

by Posted in 1.51 Reusing & Recycling Plastic, 3.5 Plastic Free People, Projects & Campaigns, 3.7 Other Solutions Tagged

Just read this article in Recycle Reminders  about Dutch designer Dave Hakkens. He has just gone and made himself a plastic recycling machine that  combines “a plastic shredder, extruder, injection moulder, and rotation moulder to create bins, lampshades, candle holders, and other knick-knacks from waste plastic. “I wanted to make my own tools so that I could use recycled plastic locally,” he said.”

Course you did, who doesnt? And he is not just clever but generous. Check this out.

“He plans to upload the blue prints of his project online, so that people the world over can set up their own recycling workshops and create new products from neighborhood waste. He hopes that ideas generated due to crowdsourcing can help improvise the prototype.”

Do read the full article … and if you have any spare change…… And you can visit his precious plastic project here and see his other projects here.

 

Of course the best solution is not to make any plastic waste at all.