ABC Catalyst: Plastic Ocean

While researching container deposit schemes, I stumbled upon a short video on ABC’s Catalyst showing a CSIRO study on the amount of plastics on Australian beaches.

Warning: Some images you may find disturbing. 

The lowest count for plastics of beaches surveyed so far was in South Australia. Is this a result of its geographical position or the community’s support for a container deposit scheme?

Think Beyond Plastic Competition

Think Beyond Plastic (June 13-14, 2013) is an innovation contest sponsored by the Plastic Pollution Coalition for disruptive solutions to the global plastic pollution crisis. First place prize is a $50,000 investment! Applications accepted until March 10, 2013.

For more information click this link

Clean Up Australia Day 2013

Next Sunday 3^rd March I will be volunteering in my local clean up Australia day event.

Clean up Australia Day is an annual event held on the first Sunday of March every year, and encourages people to clean up waste from their local areas. Activities on the day include the collection of general waste lying in public spaces aswell as removing larger items such as dumped cars and shopping trolleys from water ways.

In 2012 an estimated 591,400 volunteers cleaned up 16,169 tonnes at 7,363 sites right across Australia. But we can do better! So be a good sport and join the team to Clean Up Australia on Sunday, 3 March 2013. 

Anyone can participate by volunteering to clean up a site, registering your own Clean Up Site to be cleaned or by donating

 

Clean Up Australia Limited is a not-for-profit Australian environmental conservation organisation founded by Australian Ian Kiernan, and co-founder Kim McKay, in 1989. It works to foster relationships between the community, business and government to address the environmental issues of waste, water and climate change.  Clean Up Australia day has been running since 1990 and has since grown to become the global Clean up World movement, involving organisations and communities in 130 countries. 

Bag-Free February

Queensland Conservation is campaigning for retailers and consumers to ‘kick the plastic bag habit’ this month.

Bag-Free February is an initiative of Queensland Conservation’s ‘Plastic Bag-Free Queensland’ campaign. Queensland Conservation Executive Director Toby Hutcheon said the initiative encourages people to swear off plastic shopping bags during the month of February and see how easy it is to create a plastic bag-free Queensland.

“The aim of a bag-free February is to raise awareness about the harmful affects of plastic bags in our community and we hope that, after spending a month free from using plastic bags, that many individuals will continue to use alternatives when out shopping,” Mr Hutcheon said.

“Finding an alternative to single-use plastic bags is easy. Shoppers can, ideally, bring their own reusable bags. These can be made from anything: fabric, green bags, recycled plastic and jute for example.”

Mr Hutcheon suggests retailers offer alternatives such as boxes or compostable plastic bags.

“South Australia, the Northern Territory and the ACT have all enacted bans on single-use, non-compostable plastic bags. South Australia’s ban means that 400 million less plastic bags go into landfill every year,” he said. 

“For the sake of our environment and to reduce waste, isn’t it worth a try?”

Source: http://retailmedia.com.au/resources/RW_eNews/RW_eNews_010213.html

Plastic Free Shopping –Update

This weekend I had a first real attempt at doing a grocery shop plastic free. Overall it was not a success-- Most products available even at the organic store still come packaged in plastic.--Deli does not allow own containers—However on a positive New Woolworth's “macro”  bags made from 100% Jute.

Firstly, I went to the organic bulk foods store, it was a 30 min drive from our home so I took a great big list of things to get to make the trip worthwhile. This store has bulk food bins and paper bags with items such as rice, pasta, muesli, nuts, and sweets. However I was quite shocked at the prices! On average everything was about 4 to 5 times more expensive than a regular supermarket.

I only walked out of the store with some small amounts (*less than 1 kg) of brown rice, quina, and about 200 g of pine nuts and some chocolate macadamia nuts and this cost me more than $70. I did take a tour around the rest of the store but everything else still seemed to be packaged in plastic. I didn’t buy any fruit or vegetables on the list simply due to cost.  The organic store is sadly just too expensive for me to be a viable option.

I went back to Woolworth's supermarket and Aldi close to home to do the rest of the shopping. Aldi was not too bad, but I did mostly buy canned goods and jams etc in tin or glass packaging. Only plastic items I got from Aldi was some organic wholemeal pasta spirals. Not a bad effort overall.

At Woolworth's the fruit and vegetable shopping was pretty good using my homemade fabric bags. The little bags were probably the most useful for zucchinis, tomatoes and carrots (and they did look quite cute in the bags) and the bigger ones for onions and potatoes. I will be making some more bags for sure. 

I had no luck at the deli with my own containers, it is not allowed due to food hygiene regulations so I ended up buying a bigger lot of stuff. I plan to freeze some of the bacon and ham in butcher paper and will see how that goes. I will use my plastic freezer bags for the chicken still until I figure out a way around this. 

I purchased some golden circle juice in the tin cans and some cans of Pepsi max to avoid plastic here. And where I could I opted for glass jars. But some items such as meat I still had no plastic free-alternatives (and I’m not sure this will be possible anyway at the supermarkets). I didn't buy any frozen vegetables this trip so no comment here. 

At the checkout I did have to take my fruit and vegetables out of the bags as I did not want to get charged for the extra weight. The checkout girl was really lovely so that was a bonus I got someone cool with the process. 

At the checkout I also noticed the new macro green bags. Finally green bags not made from plastic! The macro bags are made from 100% Jute, a strong natural plant fibre. They do look quite nice however I don’t remember the price of them but I’d say they are about $5. and are $1.99 each.

What I've learnt this week is to try to find alternatives to plastic using your own bags for produce, buying in bulk, and selecting products packaged in cardboard, glass or aluminium where possible.

Happy shopping!

Plastic Free Shopping - DIY Cloth Produce Bags

A great way to reduce your plastic usage is to grocery shop using re-usable bags. These can be made from almost any material including old t-shirts and are simple, and inexpensive to make. I used the tutorial here http://www.purlbee.com/easy-drawstring-bag/ to make my produce bags for my fruit and veg.  I made different sizes for different fruit and vegetables.

These can be folded up into a log shape to be put inside your handbag so you are never without a bag. Keep extras in the car but remember to bring them into the store with you. Once you get home and unpack chuck them straight back into your car so they are not forgotten next time. 

Of course if you don't want to make these yourself, you can buy them from places such as http://www.jillbyeco.com.au/23/reusable-produce-bags/

http://veronicajoyceboutique.com.au/produce-bagsset-of-4.html

http://www.zurihomewares.com.au/shop/category.php?id_category=45

These bags don’t have to be used only for produce either, use them for all shopping such as clothing and electronics. To clean just put them in the regular wash when needed and air dry in the sun.

How do you avoid paying for the additional weight?

• You could make these bags out of more lightweight material than I used such as silk or mesh
• You could take them out of the bag to weigh them and put them back in.
• I haven’t tried this yet but I’ve made tags on my bags and I will write the weight of the bag on the tag and hopefully the cashier will deduct this from the total weight- I will update on how this goes