PerspectivesOnPlastic

A very helpful letter from Pickett's butchers of Sele Farm, Hertford arrives in this morning's post.  Efforts clearly underway to reduce plastic but for now... take your own reusable container for fresh meat/poultry etc

Today I go shopping to buy meat and fish in Hertford/locally. Clayton's fish stall helpfully wrap my fish purchases in paper, and Foxholes allow me to use my re-usable tupperware to pack fresh meat from their counter.   They don't have paper bags for their fruit and veg but I buy it loose. So.... NO PLASTIC brought home.  Result!

So I buy newspapers on Saturdays and Sundays and the magazines come wrapped in a thin plastic transparent wrapper.   I assume that this is single-use, non-recyclable plastic... but is it?  There is nothing on it anywhere to say it is recyclable.  So I email the Sunday Times to find out.   I receive a prompt answer, as follows: Dear Frances Green, Thank you for contacting us regarding the polybag. Thank you for your inquiry. I can confirm the outer packaging is recyclable. Thank you for contacting The Times and The Sunday Times. I hope you have a fantastic day. If you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us. Kind regards, Robert Smith Online Customer Services So, it turns out that the plastics wrappers ARE recyclable... in theory. But what about in practice, in Hertfordshire?

I set out on Friday to buy meat and fish from local butchers in the hope of avoiding plastic wrapping... but I don't.  A good local butcher and fishmonger both wrap my purchases in plastic and, because there are queues, I'm not brave enough to ask about alternatives. This is my first challenge.  I will send out a few emails to ask whether I can turn up with my own re-usable container or whether paper can be used to wrap my future purchases. And my second challenge.  The magazines in the Sunday Times come wrapped in thin plastic.  And I know this practice is widespread. I don't think the plastic is recyclable... but I will check. On the case...!

So it is.   Footage of albatross feeding plastic waste to their young and photographs of vast areas of ocean littered in plastic are very distressing.  The recent news that disposable cardboard cups are lined with tricky-to-recycle plastic is dispiriting. And, as a prolific consumer of the things, the news that even tea-bags contain plastic stops me in my tracks. What to do? Not all plastic is bad, and some is clearly essential, but I am ignorant about the issue. I vaguely understand the terms 'recyclable' and 'one-use', but I am not confident about exactly what comprises what... and I am sure I can reduce my use. So, I am starting this blog to record my progress answering three areas of question: 1. What exactly am I buying/using under the heading of plastics? 2. Can what I buy and use be recycled... and is it? 3. Are there alternatives, primarily for the stuff that can't be recycled. There is a letter in today's Sunday Times, which suggests ...