Wednesday 3rd July 2019

So for my first post I thought I would share how I’ve recently really switched on and have started to wake up to the crisis of trying to preserve our planet. In the last few months things have really hit home to me about how bad things have got with regards to plastic waste. Thanks David Attenborough and Blue Planet 2! Let’s get real here, we can all do more to reduce our carbon footprint, our plastic waste and just generally be more green and eco friendly with the way that we live our lives. By now we have all seen the pictures of the islands of plastic waste out in the world’s oceans, and we are bombarded with news stories about how the world is warming up at a dangerous rate. Surely as the supposedly intelligent species on the planet it’s more than a choice to look after our world, it’s our overriding duty to pass it on to the next generation in the best state possible. So I have started to make some proper changes to my lifestyle to try and incorporate this and do my bit. 

I recently watched the three part series titled “The War on Plastic” on the BBC and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone that hasn’t seen it. In watching that what was clear to me was just how much single use plastic we all have in our homes that we are basically unaware of, at least I was anyway. What was also clear was how easy it is for us all to reduce how much single use plastic we use, and the positive impact that can have, however small it may initially seem. I used to be of the mindset that why should I bother if no one else is? This is clearly the wrong attitude to have and is part of the problem that we are all contributing to. If everyone started to make small changes and really do their bit I’m confident we would start to see some positive impacts and maybe the problem sources (supermarkets) would actually start to take note.

So the changes which I have made are as follows:

Started cycling to work / using more public transport. Obviously this will only work if your place of work is within a reasonable distance. It saves money and get’s you fit and as a family we have been able to switch to one family car.

Switched energy supplier to Octopus energy, who claim that all of their energy comes from 100% renewable sources.

I bought a Chillys bottle to use rather than buying bottled water. Although they may look expensive initially, they’re extremely well built and keep your water ice cold for ages!

Purchased an rCup reusable coffee cup for coffee on the go. I’ve become slightly addicted to coffee (and the odd slice of cake) and let’s be frank the amount of coffee cups we use every day in life which are never recycled borders on being criminal. This cup so far seems really good and is also made from recycled plastic. Some coffee shops will also offer you a small discount for using a re-usable cup. It may seem like a small amount but multiply that by how many cups of coffee we buy in a year and it will be a worthwhile saving that you can use elsewhere.

Getting big food shops delivered. This reduces the amount of vehicles driving to and from supermarkets by having one vehicle deliver several customers’ shopping. With an almost two year old daughter it’s also a lot less stressful as I don’t have to constantly prevent her from touching and removing every single item from the shelves.

Switching to bamboo toothbrushes. Apparently toothbrushes can’t be recycled. I’ve also switched to replaceable heads by LiveCoco for my electric toothbrush as these claim to be recyclable if you send them off.

Getting milk delivered in reusable glass bottles.

I made my own household cleaner. It uses all natural ingredients and reduces the amount of spray bottles which I use which contain a lot of different plastic parts and are difficult to recycle.

Switch to LED lightbulbs throughout the house. These use a lot less energy than normal lightbulbs so in the long run will save you money on your energy bills.

Reduce use of single use wet wipes. In the recent BBC show “The War on Plastic” these types of wipes were found to contain a shockingly high amount of plastic. If you look around your house I reckon you will have a few types of these wipes around the home…baby wipes, toilet wipes, disinfectant wipes. Do we really need to use that many?

Obviously many of the points which I have listed above require some form of initial investment, however I think it’s time everyone wised up to the cost our 21st century lifestyles are having on the world around us.

Moving forwards I would like to continue to reduce the amount of single use plastics that I use at home. Where I do have to use household products for cleaning etc. I would like to switch to products which claim to originate from natural sources. I would also like to tackle the huge problem that we have of waste and single use plastics at work. I’ll keep you posted.

I’d love to hear what steps anyone else is taking to be more eco friendly in their lives.

Thanks for reading

Andrew