I have been participating in Plastic Free July for a number of years now. Every year I assess my purchasing habits to see what is contributing most to my household waste, then try to eliminate it from my lifestyle. Past years have been surprisingly successful, for example, I no longer buy any bottled drinks, I make my own yogurt in reusable glass bottles, and I have been refilling my shampoo and conditioner bottles for almost 4 years now! But there is still much more progress I could make.
For this month's blog I decided to delve into the word of plastic, find out where it comes from, why there are different types, and what makes it so damaging as a single-use material. Plastic, like many other products we use in our daily lives, is made from oil. In recent years, there has been a step change in how we view the consumption of oil, and a growing urgency to move to cleaner energies such as gas and renewables. But energy is only one product of oil. In reality, we must aspire for, not only a net zero carbon economy, but to reduce our entire HYDROCARBON footprint by reducing our use of all products derived from oil.
Oil use & products
Crude oil is extracted from deep below the Earth's surface, and is made of a varied mixture of hydrocarbon compounds. In order to be used, it needs to be refined into products of consistent chemical structure (called fractions). This process, called fractional distillation, splits the crude oil into usable products such as bitumen, diesel, petroleum and gas amongst others.
In the UK, over 70% of oil is used towards transportation: petrol, diesel, and aviation fuels. A small portion goes into heating homes that are not connected to the gas network, or goes back into refining. A significant portion of the remaining oil goes into 'non-energy uses' that provide materials for the manufacture of plastics and other products within the petrochemical industry. In recent years, the portion of oil being used for non-energy uses has been steadily climbing, and is now stable at around 10% (DUKES).
These materials for the petrochemicals industry, grouped as 'feedstock', are raw materials for detergents, polymers, and solvents. A huge number of items we use every day are made up of feedstock, including all the plastics we use in the home, at work, and as packaging.
Plastics: manufacture & types
Feedstock fractions such as ethene, propylene and benzene are crucial compounds for the production of plastics. These fractions are combined in different portions with catalysts, to create one of the six main types of plastic resin that can be cast, pressed, or extruded into a variety of shapes - such as films, fibres, plates, tubes, bottles, boxes, and much more:
PET: commonly used for soft drink and condiment bottles, strapping, food packaging, and microbeads.
HDPE: used for milk and shampoo bottles, shopping bags and liners.
PVC: for table cloths, clingfilm, toys, and vinyl flooring.
LDPE: Used for garbage bags, and product bags. LDPE also acts as the lining on 'paper' cartons, coffee cups and sandwich boxes.
PP: Used for yogurt and food containers, luggage, plastic furniture, and clothing.
PS: Polystyrene can be expanded for use in cool boxes, floats and cups, or can be higher density, used for plastic utensils, containers, commercial, packaging, medical devices or microbeads.
Other: A whole suit of other resin types make up all remaining plastic types. These include CDs, car components, ropes and textiles, and my least favorite of all, cigarette filters.
Reducing you hydrocarbon footprint
The figure above summarises the recyclability of the various types of plastic. What is clear, is that the vast majority of plastic ends up in landfill, or worse. Coyle et al. (2020) report that around 10% of all plastic ends up in the ocean where they break up, but do not easily decompose, forming 85% of all marine litter. By 2050, we will be producing over 5 times more plastic than today. To avoid the continued deluge of plastics into the oceans, the best thing we can do as consumers is to reduce our use of plastic.
Plastic Free July is a brilliant time to try adjusting habits to reduce your waste. I target one achievable habit to change every July, and try to maintain this going forward. I thought I would share some of the easiest and most effective ways I have reduced my hydrocarbon footprint over the past years.
1. Food & Drink on the Go
By far the most effective reduction in plastic and other waste I've made has been to move to preparing packed lunches and getting into the habit of carrying a refillable water bottle. Using reusable water bottles, coffee cups and cutlery can make a huge difference to reducing waste while out and about. I use a cutlery set taken 5+ years ago from a in-flight meal and it does an excellent job! I've also tried to reduce food and plastic waste by having more packed lunches, and by making my own yogurt. This year, my Plastic Free July goal is to remove cling film from my life, and make my own bees wax wraps.
2. Shampoo & Shower Gel
Shampoo and shower gel bottles are made from HDPE, and take over 100 years to decompose. Luckily, these have been one of the easiest things to remove from my routine. Switching to plastic free bars of soap (and sometimes even making my own at home!) was a very easy switch. I now buy shampoo and conditioner refills from my hairdresser, supplied in-bulk by sustainable cosmetics company Davines meaning that I have used the same bottles for almost 4 years now. I also use small travel bottles to decant into for gym trips and holidays.
3. Loo Roll
Plastic lining for toilet roll is very difficult to recycle, and given the bulky nature of rolls, requires a significant amount of plastic to cover. Luckily, there are some brilliant companies out there who offer completely plastic free and responsibly sourced options. I particularly like Who Gives A Crap, who donate a portion of their profits to build toilets for those in need. Their packaging always brightens up my day (and that of the postie) too! There are many other great companies out there that help to reduce plastic waste in the bathroom, such as Hey Girls, who offer a great range of buy one- donate one waste-free menstrual products, and Bam & Boo who sell a great range of bamboo dental products, including floss.
Plastic is an amazing material, and I find surprising that this versatile product comes from a black sticky liquid found kilometres below our feet. Plastics are, and will continue to be, hugely important and irreplaceable for a suite of medical and sanitary applications. However, we cannot continue to treat it as a single use product out of convenience, otherwise we will continue to fill the ground beneath our feet and our oceans with this material that takes hundreds, sometime thousands of years to decompose. There is still a lot more I could do - but just these simple changes I have highlighted above add up to a lot over the course of a year. I firmly believe that consumers have the power to drive change by altering buying patterns. Whilst we will struggle to eliminate plastic from our lives entirely due to its versatility and medical uses, we can all work to reduce the amount we use, and recycle or reuse the products we do use.
More than 1.2 billion metres, equating to 745,000 miles of cling film is used by households across Britain every year – enough to go around the circumference of the world 30 times over! Kath Austin 2018
This year, I pledge to remove plastic wrap (cling film) and other PVC products from my life, and look for alternative, sustainable alternatives. Through writing this blog, I've been pretty shocked to discover that polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is almost never recycled. By reducing this product, I think I can make a pretty big impact to my waste going forward. Now - what will you pledge to do to reduce your hydrocarbon footprint?!
Happy Plastic Fee July!
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