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The lady who runs my local shop is kind enough to cut a slice from a whole cheese for me and put it in one of my own boxes.

It looks like I might be very fortunate in this. I'll be interested to hear if others are as lucky where they live.

it sounds like have quite a find with that local Farm shop of yours :)

Hope you don't need any urgent medical or dental care during your 31 days, obviously from the humanitarian point of view, but also as the amount of plastic packaging we use/generate as a result of cross infection control measures is truly staggering. Absolutely none of it can be/is recycled. What's more, as a dental practice we don't even get a council box for recycling paper etc from the office (probably no tick box for businesses, even though we are in the centre of a residential street). So it all goes into landfill. Bottled ale, BTW, is IMHO 1000% better than the dreaded nitro-grot widget.

Can't you go for bottles of Grolsch (or equivalent) they have the wire framed seal and keep the contents intact with a rubber washer.

Good point indeed Dougie about Grolsch. Those bottles are good and very convenient for home-brew, as well (which may or may not be environmentally friendly, as quite a lot of hot water etc is used). Our local shop has a Polish beer using similar bottles.

We buy our eggs and cheese from a local farmer (we are in an suburban area with some farms) We are able to bring our own containers to put them in. This is unusual in the US where regulations state that all cheese and everything else must come in a plastic container.

An easy way to reduce plastic medical waste is for everyone to wash their hands for a few minutes with soap. The less infected people we have, the less people are in the medical system where gloves are needed to protect patients and staff.

We use a metal container for our water bottle.
It is durable (it has already fallen with no dents) and safe (not glass) we wash it out after use. It doesn't taste like metal either.

Good luck with your task.

re comment two, I work in a major high street bank and all our paper is "confidential waste" which is collected separately from normal waste. Due to this security, we are not allowed to recycle anything as we're subject to random checks on our normal waste to make sure we haven't mixed it up.

Interesting blog Chris; it's not really something I've ever thought about but it's definitely making me more aware of all the packaging in every day life!

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Fangferrier wrote 'What's more, as a dental practice we don't even get a council box for recycling paper etc from the office (probably no tick box for businesses, even though we are in the centre of a residential street). So it all goes into landfill.'

You don't get a box for recycling paper because the council don't have a statutory requirement to collect recyclables from commercial and industrial premises. They can chose to collect trade waste (and charge for it), but they don't have targets set on them to recycle it (unlike the household waste targets) where it is collected separately from household waste, and the trade waste rounds do not get counted against their landfill allowance targets from memory. It's a trade collection that the council just happens to run.

As a business, the onus is on you to recycle. There are loads of support organisations out there to offer help, and I bet that with a bit of searching you could find a local recycler who will take your office paper.

I personally think that there shouldn't be a distinction between household, commercial and industrial wastes, and that unified collection and recycling arrangements should apply to all, regardless of who collects this under which contract. Will we see this any time soon? I'd like to think it will happen sooner or later - it makes so much more sense than the current system. After all - your dental practice will be paying 拢拢拢's in business rates and getting little in return, and nothing to support waste recycling. Isn't it about time that some of this money was better allocated?

I sligth problem ladies and gents, Grolsch used to use porcelain, now it is PLASTIC in the UK. Oddly, now for the Netherlands

As a business, we get rather a lot of 'the onus is on you' - type comments. Our main 'onus', oddly enough, is just to keep ourselves in business. That way, we all remain solvent. Agree, BTW, re our business rates, for which we get square root of sweet Fanny Adams. As expenses of things like clinical waste disposal escalate, it all gets passed on to .....guess who? The consumers, in our case dental patients. That's life, I suppose!

Belgian beers are nice and usually come with real corks in their tops covered with a bit of foil and a metal twist off covering (keeps cork in) like in champagne bottles.

I avoid plastic wrapped cheese quite easily as I make all my own cheese from milk from my local farmer, I just wrap it in greaseproof paper for the fridge....it tastes far better than shop bought and is so easy. I also avoid plastic widgets as I brew my own beer too, and just recycle the bottles I have.

In response to an earlier post about large quantities of hot water being used; I use 1.5 litres of boiling water as the basis for 40 pints of Pils type lager, it also costs me about a tenner for those 40 pints and the "beer miles" is vastly reduced too by not buying from a supermarket.

I think that one also should remember that not all plastics are made from petroleum products. That said many of not most still are, so maybe another aspect of "plastics" question should also include research onto what kind of the plastics are you using? coupled with a stronger public support of ecologically safe forms of plastics made from renewable sources such as soybeans, cornstarch etc. Also of course using as much reusable materials as possible. Also one should be aware that just because it's "biodegradable" or "natural" that doesn't mean will quickly decompose, just of aluminum cans, or depending on where you live even nature waste like orange peels take many years to decompose. Equally what is good mandated recycling if there isn't the infrastructure to handle and reuse in our re-manufacturing of the recycling, which as already happened in certain areas of the U.S. traveling distances that may make "cycle" of recycling should studied.

I've just returned to the UK after spending several months travelling in Africa. I noticed several examples of recycling that happened as a matter of necessity, rather than choice. For example, the collection of empty beer bottles for re-use was conducted with aplomb in ever bar I visited. Often you would recieve a bottle which had many years worth of scratches - the bottles were simply cleaned and re-used - they didn't have to go through a "recycling" process and the people were unperturbed by these visible marks of earlier use. Well done Africa for managing to conduct a simple exercise like this without the collective back-slapping and/or marketing hype "aren't we great" nonsense that we Europeans seem to need. Like the beer, it was most refreshing.
I wish good examples of minimising waste were a matter of course, so I hope your blog helps raise the bar. Best of luck.

Greetings fellow Staffordian.
Regardless of the plastic content, I suggest you don't try the 'Staffordshire' cheese from the farmer's market- it is not good.

The fruit wine is though, I recommend the blackbeer flavour.

It is almost imposible to lead a plastic-free existence these days, especially in the US where there is so much more unnecessary packaging than in Europe. I send mail to all the major marketers who use excessive packaging explaining that it deters me from patronizing their business, but they seem less than impressed.

It seems to me that valiant efforts to avoid plastic, like Chris Jeavans is engaging in, are not the answer although they do make the point that plastic is omnipresent. In addition to reducing the amount of synthetics (like the washer on the Grolsch bottle, which is a plastic and not natural rubber) and recycling, we will have to acknowledge that the human population cannot continue to grow, but must shrink.

While it's true that the earth could produce enough food to feed even more people than currently alive, it would require the eradication of most wildlife and would not be sustainable, in any event.

Quoting: AdeJones.

You don't get a box for recycling paper because the council don't have a statutory requirement to collect recyclables from commercial and industrial premises. They can chose to collect trade waste (and charge for it), but they don't have targets set on them to recycle it (unlike the household waste targets) where it is collected separately from household waste, and the trade waste rounds do not get counted against their landfill allowance targets from memory. It's a trade collection that the council just happens to run.

My company (small business) disposes of its waste is a very poor way as the council costs are very high.

Some of it goes into peoples residential bins, and the rest goes to the dump and gets mixed into whatever the dump takes - cardboard for example is recycled, althouh I cant say for the rest.

Why the council charges 4x the price for business customers vs residential customers I dont know, but they dont even offer the option of recycling - what are businesses supposed to do.

Andy

to Fangfarrier123

If you are interested in recycling some of your waste the first thing I would suggest is NOT to talk to your council - what we get for the massive business rates we pay is a mystery to me. Also give your garbage collection company a miss - they will charge a small fortune.

We get our recycling collected by a small local firm, who will take all paper/card, cans AND all plastics, unlike the local council, who only allow the recycling of plastic bottles at their recycling points.

Whilst I understand that you are watching your bottom line this service costs us about 拢120 per YEAR, so it's not that much really.

The purpose of plastic packaging is to extend the life of food. It isn't needed for fresh locally produced food, but is for the processed rubbish large multi-national companies produce. It's regretable that some authorities treat fresh local produce as processed.

I've just come back from Sri Lanka, and like Africa, they know that re-use is preferable to re-cycle. I bought a bag of nuts and the bag was made from a sheet of A3 invoice that had been folded and glued quite professionally. It did the job fine and saed a bit of recycling (or in their case more likely thrown on a rubbish pile).

I read with surprise that local environmental health laws prevent packing cheese in anything other than plastic. Denmark has strict environmental health laws but I can buy cheese (and fish) at my local market which is packed in waxed paper and then a paper wrapping. Most of the veg stallholders pack things in paper bags or directly into (cloth) carrier bags which the customer brings with them. All that is needed is a change in attitudes and expectations from the British public!

I have just returned to the UK after living in France for 10 years. One thing I notice is that food shops do not smell of food anymore in the UK. It is certainly not an EEC regulation so it is UK nanny tate stupidity that made this happen.

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I live in the US and I can get cheese cut off a wheel and wrapped in greaseproof and wax paper from the organic and cheese stores in my town. The town also has a great recycling policy where they collect paper and cardboard one day a week and plastics and glass on another day (they collect 6 days a week as well). They also will collect appliances and furniture on Sunday.

My local Cheese shope "The Mousetrap" in Hereford sells cheese by weight and wraps in in paper.
OK the paper is lined with plastic but its a start!

I have been living in Germany for about a year and I can say that not all of Europe has a bad attitude towards recycling! I live in student accomodation and we are provided with 3 separate waste bins, as well as glass recycling facilities. Supermarkets are also quite environment-conscious, charging a small amount for a plastic bag, thus encouraging you to take your own along. The best policy in Germany which somebody also experienced in Africa is the re-using of plastic bottles. With each purchase you are required to pay a little extra on top but you get your money back when you return the bottles to the shop. The bottles are cleaned and then re-used as opposed to being totally recycled which I'm sure is much more environmentally friendly.

This is fascinating. Where do you get eye glasses without plastic? I practice moderation rather than fanatical eradication of specific aspects of modern life so this article is just plain funny to me.
Jahfre Fire Eater

Thank you so much for doing this! It's fascinating to follow.

Cutting down waste can only be a good thing. But have you considered some of the trade-offs that have occurred due to this process? For example, switching from aluminum cans to bottled beer. Which takes more fossil fuels to recycle: aluminium or glass? The council might collect the cans but personally I have to visit a bottle bank for my glass, meaning a car journey. Since this car journey takes place purely for my bottles, it increases the carbon footprint quite a lot. I don't know the answer, but have you considered it?

Or, how about visiting this farm shop? Is that much of an extra journey for you? Getting plastic-packed cheese from the supermarket has a low carbon footprint because it's transported en masse, and you would buy it with the rest of your shopping. So which is worse: the extra CO2 you put into the atmosphere by going to the farm shop, or the cheese wrapper in the landfill? Two different issues, but with the environment in mind, they should be considered.

Which is more important: the burying of waste or the impending climatic crisis which, in turn, will lead to a humanitarian crises on an unimaginable scale.

So I guess the underlying question to ask is, has your anti platic period caused an increase or decrease in your carbon footprint, or has it not impacted it at all?

Re: Comment #13.
Good point about the different kinds of plastics. The coffee shop at which I work uses cornstarch cups for our cold drinks. They're a lot more biodegradeable than regular plastic, and easier to recycle. The only problem is you can't use them for hot liquids, as the cup pretty much melts instantly and crumples up into a small plastic ball!

What are you going to do when it's 'that time of month'? All of the sanitary protection has plastic in it in various forms - outer wrapper, the individual wrapper, the towel, tampon applicator, tampon string etc are made of plastic!

I don't think shops sell towels with loops and a belt to put through the loops (as my mother told me she used)

Another thing - medication. Very difficult to buy liquid medication in glass bottles with metal caps.

Don't get me started on tablets!

Whilst I applaud your experiment i am curious about just how far you have thought this through.

Maybe someone has already pointed this out, but ...

a. Are you walking to the supermarket? There is a *lot* of plastic in your car / bus / train

b. Are you wearing clothes made from all natural fibers? - polyester is plastic and is often mixed with cotton for fabrics.

c. Are you using a wooden keyboard or dictating all of this to a proxy? I fail to see how it is possible to use a computer, given the stated aims of your experiment.

d. Are you going to publish this comment?

Regards

The experiment was to avoid buying any new plastic products or packaging, so using an already-owned computer, for example, has nothing to do with the 'stated aims' of the experiment. You may disagree about whether the experiment is an interesting or useful exercise, but I suggest actually reading the previous posts and understanding exactly what it is and why it's being done before you jump in to comment or criticise.

Frankly, I have never read so much rubbish in my life !

All this busines about 'green', 'eco', etc. is sheer nonsense. Just get on with your life as best you can. In one hundred years we won't be here, so why worry ?

Cheers !

i think that is a noble effort. i am always trying to cut down on waste. here in maine u.s.a. we have a great food coop system. food coops are great because you can become a member for a small amount and volunteer for and additional discount on your purchases. the service they offer that is the most attractive to me are bulk food bins. you can bring your own clean food containers to refill. this really cuts down on the waste i bring home. most of the local food coops offer a large variety of locally raised food as well. we also have farmers markets to boot. good luck in your efforts. your planting a good seed by starting the conversation.

to pinkfloydareace; time of the month is easily solved with a mooncup - see

to tedbayne: unfortunately for our children/grandchildren they are likely to be still here in 100 years and thanks to you - enduring a much harder life.

Not only that but in the next 20 years or so those people unfortunate enough to be living in more vulnerable parts of the earth than the one you are lucky enough to inhabit will be suffering as a direct result of attitudes like yours..........

''An easy way to reduce plastic medical waste is for everyone to wash their hands for a few minutes with soap. The less infected people we have, the less people are in the medical system where gloves are needed to protect patients and staff."

No really true -- anything sterile will be packaged in paper or plastic or a combination of both, and gloves are indispensible as a means of controlling infection -- handwashing is always necessary, too, but is no substitute for an actual barrier. The medical field is just inherently wasteful due to the need to avoid cross-contamination -- there is very little anyone can do about it!

Here in Ontario Canada we were very pleased to learn that empty beer bottles and cans along with wine bottles are taken to the Beer Store ( regardless of where they were purchased) and you get your deposit back. This is the best incentive I know for recycling. For those who cannot be bothered just gather them up and sooner or later someone will come round to collect them on behalf of some charity or other ( usually a high school sports team) The supermarkets have started charging for carrier bags but they always have rolls of bags available at the meat counter to put your pre packaged meat into!! I guess this is to stop the blood leakage but it seems a bit over the top. My local supermarket also has a 'butcher counter' where you can buy meat in the precise quantity you require and they will wrap it in paper for you.

I commend you for such a radiacal move in todays world. As a museum professional I am well aware of the encroachment of plastics into our daily lives. Some are considered "inert" and some are considered toxic because of the chemicals they "off-gas." I look forward to seeing how you do.

I think I am going to repeat the following comment until somone actually listens (barring the occasional educated voice from the wilderness):-

If you want to "do your bit" to reduce global warming, lower your carbon footprint and feel environmentally good about yourself and your life.........

Stop demonising the most versatile material man has ever invented. It is not going to help one iota with any of the above.

Plastic is not the bad guy here. Your car, your cheap flights, your holidays, your energy consumption and your food waste are the things you should be addressing and reducing for one month and hopefully the rest of your life. Focusing on cutting out all plastics is a one dimensional, ill informed and carbon increasing lifestyle change, despite the very best of intentions.

Driving a 4x4 to the supermarket, after dropping the kids at school and then using a 'bag for life' so you feel good about yourself aint making a jot of improvement to anything.

It really doesn't matter how good these things make you feel. You remain ill informed and delluded if you think it's helping. Tackle the things that really matter.

In India, there is an entire profession for scrap dealers. They go from home to home collecting old newspapers, books, bottles, electronics, shoes and actually pay you for it. Items made of glass, steel etc have a pre-set rate per kilo. Plastic, Paper and books also have a pre-set rate.
The bottles are then sold back to the manufacturer, the scrap metal is sold to factories and the paper is used to make small paper bags. These small 'envelope' size bags are used in the smaller shops for dispensing a candy for instance.

This entire set-up worked just fine until recently.

Now most nuclear households in the metros just chuck these items into trash. Young homeless youth scavenge the big trash cans in hope of finding such items so they can sell it to the scrap dealer. In the process they are sometimes exposed to harmful chemicals.

In essence, the recycling is still happening, but at a higher cost.

Hi there from OZ, I live close to, and sail on Moreton Bay off Brisbane, a vast bay, home to varied and often endangered species of sealife. Dugongs, Turtles, Dolphins etc. One of the biggest dangers to these wonderful creatures is funnily enough, the humble bottletop often thrown overboard. Bottles themselves are not too bad, they form a reef item for habitat, Aluminium cans will, if torn, disintegrate in 3 weeks. The bottletop, however, will sink, the metal, attacked by the salt, will eventually corrode away, releasing the plastic seal to float away. Prise one out and look at it. It looks, in water, just like a baby jellyfish....prime food source of turtles and many other marine animals. Recycle what you can, but please collect your bottletops--they are a big killer of our sealife.

Where I used to live in St Andrews you could get trappist beers in ceramic bottles with champagne style corks, you could try looking for those.

Also, I used to work in a cheese shop where we consciously avoided wrapping cheese for the customers in plastic. Vacuum packing cheese actually negatively affects the flavour, that's why supermarket Stilton always tastes so terrible. Cheese needs to breathe, if you don't let it, it reabsorbs the moisture it lets off and goes oily and bitter. The best thing to do is to loosely wrap it in wax paper.

Some bottled beers are still sealed with cork. Jan van Gent, from Belgium, for example.