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idontmuchbut

Listed below are comments made by idontmuchbut between Sunday, 31st August 2008 and Tuesday, 2nd September 2008.

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Top tips from plastic-free bloggers 10:32pm on 02 Sep 2008 #36 - CurlySteve
# 39 - AdeJones

Caught up with my contact today who tellms me that carbon comparison work he has stopped short of disposal, which is hugely frustrating. Up until that point plastic bags were winning hands down!

However he did say that he thought Carrefour (French Supermarket) had recently done the same piece but 'cradle to grave'. I will try through another contact tomorrow to get hold of the Carrefour findings. I have a cunning plan!!

More to follow........
Top tips from plastic-free bloggers 10:28pm on 02 Sep 2008 #44 - Chris_Jeavens

"Encouraging people to bring reusable bags is, in part, about saving resources by avoiding disposability itself. It would not matter if the bag they bring is a plastic carrier bag as long as it is being reused".

- I could not agree more. re-use is far better overall.

"However littering is also a big issue with plastic bags - and that is one reason why people dislike them and prefer paper bags".

- Littering is a social / behavioural issue and not one that is solvable by switching to paper nags. The material that a bag is made from is completely irrelavant and does not alter the fact that some lazy chav has seen fit to leave it where they finished with it.

You cannot pin 'littering' on plastic.
Back to plastic? 10:20pm on 02 Sep 2008 #28 - pinkfloydareace

You can now 'tick a box' for "no carrier bags" when ordering on-line. Most supermarkets now do this.
Top tips from plastic-free bloggers 11:11pm on 01 Sep 2008 #39 AdeJones

I know for a fact the EA commissioned a piece of PIRA LCA research along this same route, asking the same questions. Plastic bags if re-used or even re-cycled were significantly better than their paper cousins.

Needless to say the PIRA research was not what the EA wanted hear and they promptly 'buried' and never published the findings.

Fast forward two years..........

Gordon Brown crusades against the environmental evil of the single use disposable carrier, threatening legislation in the process.

I have never seen anything to support the 'belief' that paper bags are any better environmentally than plastic bags.

I will post insight from my contact tomorrow.
Top tips from plastic-free bloggers 10:01pm on 01 Sep 2008 ANYONE

Where have all the live threads gone that were still under debate? Why have all the old threads that were dead been dragged back up again?

Answers on a postcard.
Back to plastic? 9:57pm on 01 Sep 2008 Chris Jeavens

As a major contibutor to this debate, both professionally and personally I have enjoyed it enormously. Many have said "why not go a month without glass" or a "month without aluminium" or even "a month without paper". Yes any of these routes would have been challenging and yes you would have reduced your waste. However to have done so would have taken away the one thing that drew attention and focus over the last month, 'fantastic plastic'.

By far one the best inventions man has ever come up with. In being versatile, cheap and easy to manufacture it has slipped into every corner of our lives. It's in our TV's, aplliances, cars, windows, cables, pipes, phones, healthcare, and yes, we use it to package our goods, including our food. So good is plastic that we now take it completely for granted.

Plastic is a victim of it's own success. A material so widely pervasive it's now become conspicuous by its very presence. Plastic has become a totem for our rally against the throwaway disposable culture we have all created. It's also become a totem we look for to deliver the nice warm feeling inside that people desire when they want to 'do their bit' to save the planet. They think, plastic, there's just so much of it - it must be killing the fish in the ocean, it must strangling the planet and draining it of its resources. I know, I will ban plastic from my life and do my bit.

As we have found out through this excellent blog plastic just aint that simple. It's lightweight, it's efficient, it's cheap and above all it's carbon efficient. If we can capture it through controlled LA collections for recycling and really close the loop then no other packaging material today comes close to it's carbon efficiency. Capturing the inherent calorific value and energy trapped within plastic that cannot be recycled further adds to sustainability of the versatile material. Glass, Aluminimum, Wood, Paper and Steel may "feel better' for the planet but as we have learnt, that just is not the case.

I think the blog has been excellent throughout and that the vast majority of contributors have been ready to debate, to listen and to learn. Of course debates have become passionate at times, but surely any debate worth having should involve passion.

On reflection I think your blog has achieved three things:-

1. A peronal reduction for you of 80% of your former plastic consumption. A fantastic effort, well done.

2. A balance in the presentation of all sides of the arguments. Your personal header blog posts have always told the story from both sides. For that I thank you.

3. A much needed public platform for all stakeholders and interested parties to openly debate and to learn. this can only serve well for the future debate as more people become engaged.

I have enjoyed it enormously. I have also enjoyed watching some begin to shift their perceptions and assumptions based upon hard facts and evidence. The fact we have had the public debate of the last month has, for me been the biggest success of this whole experiment. If we could only find the channels to continue.

Good luck with the future, thank you and enjoy your crisps!
Top tips from plastic-free bloggers 9:23pm on 01 Sep 2008 #36 - CurlySteve

Re' paper bags vs. plastic

I have a call out to a very good contact who has the definitive answer on this. He is due to call me back in the morning so I will post a proper response then, if I may.
Top tips from plastic-free bloggers 10:22pm on 31 Aug 2008 #28 - Loreav

"This still implies plastic waste. Only 40% of the plastic could be recycled this way (if more than 40% were returned for recycling they'd have to start throwing it away)."

Just re-read your earlier and 'twigged' what you mean.......

I think you are assuming we only recycle 40% because we cannot handle any more without affecting performance. This is not the case.

The 40% refers to the percentage of post-consumer waste (PCW) recycled content that is used, therefore in this case 60% virgin polymer. However these percentages can and are flexed for various materials and applications anywhere up to and including 100%, as the Marks and Spencer example illustrates.

100% of material collected is recycled. The percentage of the PCW recyclate 'blended' with the virgin polymer can be varied on any scale to meet the users requirements - supply of PCW feedstock allowing.

Does this explain - am I making sense?
It works in my head at least!
Top tips from plastic-free bloggers 10:09pm on 31 Aug 2008 #30 - Graphis

"It's down to the supermarkets to supply paper rather than plastic bags, or take your own".

The subject of plastic bag vs. paper bag has already been debated, at some length. 'Environmentally' (from a carbon perspective) plastic bags win, every time.

Paper is extremely energy-intensive to produce and extremely heavy and bulky to ship. You get far less paper bags on a pallet, so therefore less per vehicle / container. If you are getting less bags on a vehicle then you're clearly consuming far more fuel (additional road miles) to transport them.

Imagine how many 'produce' bags are used in this country every year, then imagine the amount of vehicles used to ship them around, then times that number by 23! Paper bags are not best, in this case, or that of carrier bags actually.

You are however quite right in saying we should use reusable containers / bags, much as we do with 'bags for life'. Removal is far better than jumping to something that 'feels better'. Yes, bags make it easier for the cashier but no supermarket is going to bother too much when you put your produce through in your container. It's a fairly minor inconvenience.
Top tips from plastic-free bloggers 9:36pm on 31 Aug 2008 #28 - Loreav

Marks and Spencer already have 100% rPET milk bottles on sale. These 'technically' perform very well I believe. All supermarkets are pushing hard for recycled content in plastics - the issue, as has been debated here at length is the avilability of high volumes of feedstock. This feedstock shortage shortage is down to sketchy LA recycling strategies and performance as well as relatively low consumer participation.

The UK still only recycles 1 in 3 plastic bottles. yes it is increasing but it is still too low.

Also, in my experience 'recycled content' does not mean 'inferior performance.

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