“100,000 marine creatures a year die from plastic entanglement and these are the ones found, while approximately 1 million sea birds die from plastic” – Ocean Crusaders
The stats are sickening and shocking.
According to Ocean Crusaders:
- At least two thirds of the world’s fish stocks are suffering from plastic ingestion.
- Every year, 6.4 million tonnes are dumped into the ocean. This is the same as 3,200 kilometres of trucks each loaded with garbage.
- There are believed to be 46,000 pieces of plastic in every square mile of ocean
- Shoppers worldwide are using approximately 500 billion single-use plastic bags per year
- Scientists have identified 200 areas declared as ‘dead zones’ where no life organisms can now grow.
Meanwhile CHINA (choking in its own toxic smog) is the world’s worst ocean polluter (by a long shot) while Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam follow behind.
Changes we can make – now:
GLOBALLY
– Plant healthy, versatile, useful hemp instead of unhealthy addictive tobacco
– Use hemp instead of trees for products like paper (we’re not even talking about CBD here, putting the CBD element to one side for the moment hemp is one of the planet’s oldest and most versatile crops). Hemp cleans the air, regenerates soil and doesn’t need much water – plus, it has innumerable uses (see infographic below)
– Cycle instead of driving
– Encourage pedestrian-only city centres (like many cities in Italy)
Hemp is an eco superstar for many reasons, including:
PLANT HEMP & USE IT TO ITS FULLEST POTENTIAL
✓ only takes 3-4 months to grow… whereas a tree would take 20 years
✓ absorbs 8 times more CO2 than trees
✓ uses less water and does not require pesticides or herbicides to grow
✓ purifies the soil through phytoremediation
Source: Canna-Paper.com
And because trees are the lungs of our planet and help keep global warming temperatures down, deforestation is suicide.
“I am not a plastic bag” . Carry your farmer’s market herbs and honey home in a hemp bag
THINGS TO DO TODAY, EVERYDAY
EASY BASICS
1) Never leave home without reusable shopping bags
2) Don’t use or buy single use plastic (plastic bottles, straws, etc, the bane of our land, oceans and wildlife), take a reusable bottle everywhere instead. Horrifyingly, items like plastic bags and bottles take hundreds of years to “break down”, choking life during their almost eternal existence.
3) Buy local, buy organic, buy loose, buy in bulk.
I wrote about my Organic Fruit & Veg Box Delivery the other day. It honestly has been a life changer, making me eat veg I wouldn’t normally think of buying/trying and I’ve had to get more creative with recipes. I’ve been making some amazing California-style salads and I jotted down 20 recipe ideas in the post including two of my favourite healthy and super-quick Andalucian lunch dishes, gazpacho and salmorejo, here:
4) Grind your own coffee beans (then use the grounds 11 different ways, some interesting ideas HERE)
5) Buy things like beans in glass jars (then use them for storing rice, grains, Epsom Salts or as loose change or candle holders afterwards)
6) Use refillable or glass bottle non-toxic cleaners around the home. Better for the planet and safer for humans, pets – and particularly babies and toddlers!
7) Use a washable, REUSABLE face mask (Covid). I have drastically limited my shopping expeditions other than occasionally shopping from organic stores.
8) Boycott pesticide-sprayed produce (and companies like Monsanto). And simply refuse to buy from brands that are clearly not planet-positive.
As ModernFarmer.com explains:
“Founded in 1901, Monsanto was one of a handful of companies that produced Agent Orange, and its main poison, Dioxin. It sold DDT, PCBs, the controversial dairy cow hormone, rBGH, and the cancer-linked Aspartame sweetener.
Starting in the ’80s, however, Monsanto shed its chemicals and plastics divisions, bought up seed companies, invested in bio genetics research, and ultimately reincorporated itself as an agricultural company.
But most Americans hadn’t heard of Monsanto until it tried to sell the seeds to Europe. That’s when things turned sour.”
The “turned sour” bit refers to a tidal wave that quickly gathered force thanks to a growing number of switched-on, eco aware British activists who flagged the health dangers of Monsanto’s “Round Up” (it contains glyphosate which is toxic to plants and red flagged as potentially carcinogenic for humans).
GreenPeace swung into action, miring Monsanto in a giant quicksand-style scandal from which it never recovered…but at the end of the day – shamefully – RoundUp is still manufactured and sold.
For safe alternatives to RoundUp see:
HORTZONE: 17 BEST GLYPHOSATE ALTERNATIVES (AS VOTED BY THE GARDENING COMMUNITY)
And
12 WAYS TO GET RID OF WEEDS WITHOUT USING ROUND UP
And just last month [24 June 2020] the New York Times ran this:
ROUNDUP MAKER TO PAY $10 BILLION TO SETTLE CANCER LAWSUITS (German company BAYER bought RoundUp two years ago – if you buy Berocca or Supradyn vitamins, they’re Bayer products)
I’ve gone off track here away from plastic, but “plastic-free and pesticide-free” are both critical for us, our children, and “the future of our planet”.
So back to plastic…
Innovation through nature – what are the alternatives?
Pressed hay egg cartons (click on the image to find out more)
In Thailand, a country with a particularly big plastic problem, one supermarket ditched plastic packaging last year and has been wrapping banana leaves around loose veg instead.
There’s a list of plastic alternatives at Eartheasy worth earmarking:
The Best Eco-Friendly Alternatives for the Plastic in Your Life
AND WHAT ABOUT BEAUTY?
SULAPAC
Homing into beauty, specifically, Helsinki-based no-plastic packaging specialists Sulapac.com (“Accelerating and inspiring the plastic waste-free future”) have created an all natural alternative to plastic packaging (for beauty, food and other products including chocolates). What’s the secret? Sulapac’s main components are wood and plant-based binders.
Cosmetics companies can switch to Sulapac quite quickly because Sulapac’s skincare containers are compatible with existing machinery. Not surprisingly, a number of Scandinavian cosmetics companies – especially in Finland – are using Sulapac’s “natural pots” for balms and lipsalve, etc.
Some of the beauty brands already using Sulapac’s naturally-derived packaging
BAMBOO
Ask a beauty fan to name a couple of bamboo-centric cosmetics companies and Zao and Canada’s Elate Cosmetics (a 2020 Beauty Shortlist Awards winner) will likely pop up. Aside from their aesthetic appeal, Zao and Elate both carry refillables.
MYCELIUM (MUSHROOM PACKAGING)
Ecovative Design is one company “champignon-ing” (sorry French readers) the mushroom packaging trend:
“At Ecovative our mission is to grow better materials that are compatible with Earth. Using our Mycelium Foundry, we are collaborating with companies to create alternative meat products, biodegradable packaging, animal-free leather and more…”
Interestingly, uber-versatile hemp shows up here yet again, this time as the other headliner in mushroom packaging (the hemp hurds, the woody inner core that are combined with mycelium).
Substances such as seaweed and bagasse (from sugar cane) are two more innovations in the future-driven eco packaging design arena, and the key word has to be: COMPOSTABLE (which eclipses “biodegradable”):
As a blog post by Nature’s Path points out:
“While biodegradable items refer to just any material which breaks down and decomposes in the environment, compostable goods are specifically organic matter which breaks down, the end product having many beneficial uses which include fertilizing and improving soil health”
One such 100% compostable, zero waste beauty brand is freshly launched Australian company BIODE.com, with three products including its new all-natural, all-rounder SKIN SALVE-ATION beauty balm.
Here’s how BIODE’s beautiful “zero trace + back to the earth” cycle works:
Win-win. More trees planted. Less landfill.
Biode’s all-round balm and two natural totally home compostable deodorants, created by skincare expert Vanessa Gray Lyndon (founder of Vanessa Megan Advanced Organics) and Zoe Gameau.
There’s a breathing space/clutter-free simplicity that enhances your life when you banish plastic from your personal world. But it takes some organisation and determination: like a detour to the bulk store, or the farmer’s market for your plastic-free fresh produce, only buying loose fruit and veg and things in glass jars…making dinner from scratch…grinding your own coffee beans.
I use my organic box delivery wooden crates as herb “planters” (or give them back the following week) and I have glass jars of all sizes in the kitchen, filled with tealights and flowers and rice, oats, tea, coffee or use them for sprouting alfalfa and broccoli seeds. Or as large drinking glasses, filled with iced lemon and strawberries or mint water on hot days…
Cornwall-based Beauty Shortlist winner Made For Life Organics’ glass balm jars come in deeply beautiful colours: dark purple, fuschia and ocean blue, all of which you could repurpose afterwards as tealight holders – they look magical glowing in the bathroom when you’re having a long, warm winter bath.
Or fill them with mint, orange, eucalyptus, rosemary or lavender essential oil-scented Himalayan Salts and use them in the bath. (If you have some essential oils handy you’ll just need a jar of plain Epsom, magnesium or Himalayan salts to add the oil to).
I sometimes keep a jar by my bed, topped up with salts and lavender or rosemary oil to subtly scent my bedroom.
Once you develop an intense dislike of plastic, it’s so easy to shun it. A demon of our time, plastic will still be littering our planet and choking sealife for lifetimes to come – long, long after we’re gone and frankly there is no reason why anyone should be using things like a plastic shopping bag.
So many industries – and food and beauty we’re looking at you! – are still grappling with the plastic problem, which explains why the popularity of cardboard-wrapped hair-and-bath artisan soaps has soared in the last couple of years.
We saw a big surge in natural soap entries in the 2019 and 2020 Awards and of course now, in a new twist, soap is critical in the war against this coronavirus.
And, really, when a product is natural, simple, cruelty-free, performs well, smells divine and also plastic-free (eg a nourishing face balm or hand soap) you’re on to a winner…
I’d love to hear your ideas about this issue. How can we accelerate the progress towards a plastic-free beauty industry (any industry!)?How do we speed things up. Be agents of change. Refresh consumer fatigue. Things are not moving nearly fast enough and time is no longer a luxury for our planet, so please do share your ideas below…
Which changes are you making during Plastic-Free July? If you have any clever/easy/life-changing tips, feel free to share your thoughts!
#PlasticFreeJuly
#PlasticFreeLife