
Plastic Free July - sexy_seedbox
https://paulrhayes.com/plastic-free-july/
======
spodek
One of the greatest misunderstandings of acting to clean our air, land, and
water is that it's a burden or chore. In my experience, it's the opposite. I
recommend taking on similar challenges. I bet you'll enjoy them and
incorporate them into your life as improvements.

I challenged myself to buy no packaged food for a week. I made it 2.5 weeks at
zero and the experience improved my life so much I decided to keep going using
as little packaging as I comfortably could. As my cooking skills improved I
bought more fresh fruits and vegetables and, from bulk bins grains, dried
beans, nuts, and dried fruit. I shopped increasingly at farmers markets. I
came to see Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and other markets as wastelands with
more garbage than food in them.

I was throwing my trash out once every other week, then once a month. Now the
last time I emptied my garbage was September 2018 and the time before that
July 2017. Here's a video showing my garbage the first time I went one year
without filling a load: [http://joshuaspodek.com/year-emptied-
garbage](http://joshuaspodek.com/year-emptied-garbage).

My food tastes better, costs less, is more convenient, and connects me with my
community more, as more people come over and I've visited the farm where most
of my vegetables come from.

If you also believe that we need institutional changes from corporations,
government, etc, the fastest, most effective way is to start with personal
behavior, building on it, and leading others.

~~~
Noos
OP, your shift changes. You no longer work 9-6. You now work 4-12. How easy is
it?

You now no longer live in a metropolis. You live in a town of maybe 15,000
people. The nearest Trader Joes is an hour drive away. Again, how easy it is?

You now are paid $15 an hour instead of what you are making. Is it sill not a
burden?

I think people here need to really keep in mind how much life situations
differ in the USA before they consider something to be a burden or not. A lot
of people here at HN live like college students; very close to their
work/study, no family, no children, and with generally small footprints in a
closely clustered urban area that caters to them. Even the focus on metal work
is the same.

It really changes if you aren't this type of person an yes it's a burden. You
simply don't have the disposable time if you have kids for one, unless your
wife is stay at home.

~~~
princekolt
> I think people here need to really keep in mind how much life situations
> differ in the USA

Ah yes, let me not write about, or even _do_ anything else, ever, in my life,
because some folk in the US of A are too "burdened".

~~~
Noos
Don't make universal statements about how easy or better something is then. It
can be a lot harder for others. It's easy for some peole to give up a car; for
others its three hour commutes.

------
runj__
While I appreciate the effort I find that plastic is an excellent way of
reducing food waste which environmentally should have a larger impact than the
packaging itself [1]. Glass bottles vs. plastic ones also seems like a fairly
straight-forward issue, the energy required for transport and the fact that
they sometimes break doesn't seem to be worth the perceived re-usability.
Either way, an experiment like this seems to be a good way to find just how
dependent we are on plastic/packaging rather than trying to be kind to the
environment on a macro scale.

[1]
[https://www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-...](https://www2.mst.dk/Udgiv/publications/2018/02/978-87-93614-73-4.pdf)

~~~
benj111
You do have a good point. Plastic wrapped cucumbers seems to be the poster
child that gets rolled out because it increases the shelf life so much, I
envisage use always using at least some plastic, it's advantages aren't going
to disappear.

But we can do better, I've seen cucumbers with a 2nd outer plastic bag, you
don't need that. All the packaging with mixed materials at the moment can't
really be recycled, theres a huge amount of plastic packaged, and plastic made
things, that don't need to be.

Its worth pointing out that lots of people are coming at this from different
angles. Some people have seen Blue Planet and don't want to pollute the ocean,
some people want a sustainable solution, and some people want a low/no co2
solution. Neither of these perfectly aligns. You're looking at it from a
co2/energy point of view, there are others who see plastic as unsustainable
because it can't be infinitely recycled, so the glass in still better.

------
danw1979
This sounds like a great idea - go without something for a while and you'll
appreciate it and notice it more when you go back to using (hopefully less of)
it.

It sounds like a significant challenge to do this outside of an urban
environment that is well served with "alternative" retailers though.

A friend nearby, leading a similar suburban-supermarket lifestyle to me, tried
a slightly different thing for a few months - all single use plastic was
disposed of in a very visible location (a clear plastic (doh) sack in the
kitchen) as a reminder of how much you've used. Apparently it was very
shocking.

Other motivational ideas:

\- any plastic you use goes to landfill. In your back yard.

\- Collect all your plastic waste. Take the 10% that would on average
(globally) end up in the ocean. Chop it up and add it to your meals. See if
you like it as much as the seabirds and turtles do.

\- Admit that any plastic you send to recycling is just going to get
"recycled" into energy anyway. Incinerate it at home instead.

~~~
heavenlyblue
Is that a joke?

\- 10% of the plastic I dispose of doesn’t end up in the ocean because I live
in a civilised country that disposes of it in the places made for it’s
disposal.

\- Plastic is incinerated in special chambers that make sure everything burns
to a simple combination of CO2+H2O, while your home probably doesn’t have the
necessary equipment to do so.

~~~
danw1979
Yeah. I wasn't being serious.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
Yep, I think it was pretty clear you were being sarcastic.

------
frosted-flakes
> This didn’t mean we could buy ice cream. And on the hottest July day on
> record.

In Ontario, Chapmans ice cream (and other brands too, probably) is available
in cardboard boxes which unfold, leaving you with a perfect rectangular block
of ice cream sitting on a flat piece of cardboard.

Otherwise, ice cream generally comes in rectangular-oval tubs made of
cardboard. The only plastic is in the rim of the lid.

You can also get no name "ice cream" in 4 litre plastic buckets, but that
generally has so little cream it's technically "frozen dessert".

~~~
beatgammit
Yeah, I don't live in the UK, but I don't think I've purchased ice cream with
plastic in years.

The hardest part for me would be milk. I buy milk by the gallon (usually a
gallon per week), and my kids love to drink it. I make yogurt and occasionally
make cheese, so we would probably not suffer too much if we can get milk
relatively cheaply. Milk does come in cardboard containers, but I'm pretty
sure they're lined with plastic, not wax, and I honestly don't know where to
get milk in glass containers.

Meat would also be hard since it always comes shrink wrapped in plastic and I
don't know how to get it otherwise. We have a butcher nearby that would
probably work with us, so it's solvable.

Instead of trying to eliminate plastic, maybe I'll try this with eliminating
all waste. Food scraps will go to the compost and packaging will need to be
recyclable. It would be interesting to see what I can cut out that isn't
recyclable.

~~~
techer
After a few decades I've seen the return of a milkman on my block. Glass
bottles that are picked up at the time of delivery. Not sure about the overall
environmental impact though as the milk is driven to your door. In the 80s I
recall them being delivered in electric vans. Actually called a milk float.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float)

------
2T1Qka0rEiPr
Interesting read, but I still think the sentence in the article which most
resonates with me is:

> Buying without plastic is a privilege. It’s the pricier goods that are
> plastic free.

Perhaps people still need to lead the way by first buying the more expensive,
plastic free alternatives, before we see a real change, but to me this is
still the biggest kicker. The article also says, "frozen food doesn’t depend
on plastic to keep it fresh or to protect it from spoils". Is that true? What
about vegetables (peas, sweetcorn etc.) I'm probably being thick, but what
else do they come bagged in?

~~~
dEnigma
Frozen vegetables here in Austria more often than not are available in little
cardboard boxes. But a lot of them, I think mostly the larger sizes, are also
sold in plastic bags.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
There are a couple of shops near us that sell loose frozen fruit and veg which
you could put in your own containers. It is much more expensive though, there
is nothing like this at Aldi.

------
chiph
That's really difficult. As you can't even buy canned goods, as the can has a
plastic liner sprayed on it to keep the steel or aluminum from corroding from
acidic foods like tomatoes.

~~~
II2II
Experiments like this are better at pointing out things that we take for
granted. Sometimes the things that we take for granted have negative
consequences and no real benefit, such as the author's boxes with plastic
windows. Other times there may be negative consequences, but some benefits.
Your example of the plastic protective layer fits into that category.

With respect to long term impact, we are better off taking other approaches.
Reusable glass may sound great, until one realizes that they end up with
mountains of glass in the place of mountains of plastic. While there are
places that will take back glass jars for reuse, a lot of glass simply ends up
being recycled. The actual issue is packaging.

To see how much of an issue this is, start saving the realistically reusable
packaging instead of recycling it: glass jars, plastic tubs, cardboard boxes,
etc.. For most people, the amount that they collect is in extreme excess of
what they can reuse.

Getting back to the original point: don't fret over that plastic sprayed
liner, plastic tub, or plastic bag. In a lot of cases, it serves a legitimate
purpose. It is far better to think about what it says about us. The author
illustrates that in the article. He discusses the impact of convenience meals
in his life. He noticed that he was ordering a lot online rather than
supporting local producers and vendors. The lessons that Hayes takes away from
his experiment may be different what other people learn, yet they are lessons
all the same.

~~~
chiph
Glass is pretty recyclable. The issue is that it takes a lot of energy to
remelt it, and fuel to transport it because its so heavy. Not to mention the
breakage aspect.

I worked at a supermarket in high school and this was back when the glass
2-liter soda bottle was introduced (during the US's short-lived metric system
push). And shortly afterwards, the 3-liter bottle was added. Since they were
glass, when one fell off the shelf it was a huge mess (the 3-liters were
significantly more delicate). Several times a week, we'd hear a smash,
followed by "Wet clean-up on aisle 5"

We had a wire cage at the front of the store where you could return the
bottles and get your deposit back. None of the employees liked dealing with
it, as customers never rinsed their empties, so it attracted insects. Branding
also entered into it, as the Pepsi deliveryman would only take Pepsi empties,
and the Coca-Cola company only wanted theirs. So their route was delayed as
they fished around for their bottles in the cage.

I think reducing the amount of plastic we use is an excellent goal. And it's
possible today that people are as-or-more accepting of the extra work involved
than they were in the 1970's. But I doubt that it'll gain widespread
acceptance because plastic solves so many problems. So an incentive may be
necessary, like deposits on plastic bottles & containers, to encourage people
to return them (and they don't end up as litter)

~~~
Symbiote
I've been to a couple of states in the US that had a bottle/can deposit system
-- a machine took the empties and gave 10¢ for each can or bottle. Are the
glass bottles just melted?

In Denmark there are two categories of glass bottles with deposits. Particular
types of drink must have a deposit on the bottle, and imported or smaller
producers don't reuse the bottles. The biggest producers (e.g. Carlsberg, Coca
Cola) wash and refill their bottles.

Here, plastic bottles and drinks cans are crushed and melted, but in Germany
the largest users of plastic bottles (Coca Cola etc) use sturdier bottles,
which are washed and refilled.

------
ericdykstra
Plastics are bad news for your own health, the environment, and ecology
generally. I've been cutting out my personal exposure to estrogenic items (a
good list here, check the guy's book if you're interested in the gritty
details:
[https://www.ajconsultingcompany.com/estrogenics.html](https://www.ajconsultingcompany.com/estrogenics.html)),
and it has, as a result, lead to less plastic use overall.

Depending on where you live, it can be pretty hard to find non-plastic
alternatives for some products; for example: unless you have a butcher that
will give you meat served in butcher paper, your meat is probably stored in
plastic. However, many things are easy to eliminate, such as low quality
cooking oils stored in plastic. It's easy to find olive, avocado, coconut,
mct, and other cooking oils in glass containers and to use those (and butter)
instead of canola, soy, or vegetable oils.

Do what's reasonable personally for your and your family's health, and
advocate for bans and restrictions on environmental plastics in your
countries, as that's really the only long-term solution.

------
exabrial
Ask your butcher to wrap in butcher paper or waxed paper, which can be
recycled, composted, or at worst it will break down much quicker than plastic.
You could also bring Tupperware with you and have them tare it out. No reason
this should be more expensive than pre-packaged meat.

------
DenisM
So what’s wrong with plastics?

If not recycled they go to landfill and stay there, buried. No greenhouse gas
emissions, no ocean pollution.

If one wanted put efforts into ecology one would be more productive
reconsidering their commute options - each commute trip in a car is a gallon
of gas that goes straight to CO2.

------
paulcarroty
Cool quest. The number one question is: how to handle water without plastic.
Suggested glass bottles for milk aren't effective here.

~~~
Xylakant
Tap water is superior to bottled water in many places and doesn’t need
carrying either. Have a reusable (metal) bottle to take along. If you live in
a place that can’t make tap water safe to drink, I’m sorry for you. You’ll
probably have to stick to plastic. (There’s also bottled water in reusable
glass bottles around here, but that’s really heavy)

~~~
gambiting
And in many places, tap water is vastly inferior or straight up unsafe to
drink over bottled water. When I was growing up the only way to safely drink
tap water was to boil it first, which is a major pain in the ass if you just
want to drink something.

~~~
esotericn
If you just extend the metaphor slightly and have tap water mean 'comes from a
tap' rather than 'comes from a municipal supply' it still works.

The supermarket that currently has thousands of individual plastic bottles
could have a big tank with a tap on it.

It sounds more like a trust thing. You need to know that the water is safe. If
you know it's safe, you're good.

