PerspectivesOnPlastic

All good advice http://www.goodhousekeeping.co.uk/news/how-to-cut-down-plastic-usage?utm_content=buffer2c4d8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffe r

Three empty large plastic manure bags are sitting in the garden. At the bottom left you will see the sign that these are recyclable.  That's the theory.  It's always worth checking however.  Jessie Harrison-Ford from Herts County Council Waste Management emails me in reply to an enquiry about these bags to say: ' Plastic bags cannot be recycled on our sites as the plastic is of such low quality there is no market for it and these currently go into the residual waste which goes to landfill.' So... just because it says it IS recyclable, doesn't mean it can be.  At least not where I live.  These are large bags and that's a lot of landfill space I don't want to be filling.  The same applies to the magazine wrappers in a previous post. What would it take to be able to recycle these recyclable plastics? Does anyone recycle them?  The questions accumulate.  

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 ...