The World Environment Day is celebrated on June 5th every year. This year the theme is #BeatPlasticPollution, so obviously it caught my attention. The host country for this year’s celebration in Korea.
I had re-posted a blog about microplastics last year – The Microplastic Invasion: 12 Ways to Minimize Your Exposure. The one change that I have made since then is to use a steel tea infuser rather than using teabags. I still have some stock of teabags that have to be exhausted but havent bought any. We do continue using cloth bags for shopping, minimal ordering of food because most of it comes in plastic containers, wearing cotton or silk sarees and cotton trackpants or T.shirts and the plastic containers that I do have, get used over several years, so they don’t add to the plastic waste.
Reducing Single Use Plastic
Plastic is a useful invention but it has become an environmental disaster because of its rampant use in areas where it shouldn’t be. Lets look at some of the common problems we face while reducing plastic usage –
- Groceries – Grocery stores, supermarkets and even your corner “Kirana” stores no longer keep staples in the open. Everything is in a plastic pouch. I ordered Urad Dal a couple of days back and Milk Basket had only 500 gm packets. I wanted 1 kg and what should have been one plastic pouch ended up being two. Some spices come in 50 gm pouches …..
- Snacks – Everyone from Haldirams to Sweet Karam Coffee has figured out that they make more money in smaller pack sizes. So you end up with 200 gms packs of these snack items and they are gone in one tea/coffee session !!!! Ideally they should come in larger packs.
- Clothes – When you buy a shirt, there are atleast 6 different kinds of plastic items it comes with. You may be feeling very environment friendly while buying that pure cotton shirt …. but it comes with plastic pins to hold the folds, a price tag that is plastic or polyester thread, a plastic bag obviously and even a sash sometimes that holds the shirt in place. Everything lands up in the landfill and takes 20 to 500 years to decompose.
- Oils – All cooking oils come in plastic bottles or pouches. Some fancy ones come in glass bottles, but its difficult to handle as they become heavy and if they fall and splinter, you have too many issues to deal with besides just cleaning up the oil. I was clearly told by a cold press oil seller in TamilNadu that the government insists on selling oil in a plastic bottle and that they can’t pour the oil into a customer’s can/tin/vessel.
How do we overcome these four issues ?
- Groceries – Ensure larger bulk packs are less expensive. That way many people will gravitate towards those. For spices allow the customer to pick the quantity and then you can put them in a pouch.
- Snacks – The government will have to mandate a larger size pack to be made available. I ordered 1 kg of Peanut bars from Sweet Karam Coffee and it came as 5 packets of 200 gm each :(:(. We can’t give up on snacking, but atleast there could be a better alternative that the plastic wrapping.
- Clothes – once the customer purchases the shirt/saree/clothing, please remove all the pins and the plastic cover. They can be reused and manufacturers can take them back at some periodicity. Maybe the manufacturers can incentivize the retailers to return the packing.
- Oils – Lets go back to the tins !!! That way the oil bottles can be done away with.
Would love to hear your thoughts on how to deal with other plastics that are used everyday and also on the ideas above. If someone has a better way of dealing with these, do share.
Do read my earlier blogposts on this topic – The soul is eternal, so is plastic !! and The Plastic Apathy
#BeatPlasticPollution