by Theodores | 2025-06-04 09:41:34+00:00
> We need to cut down on producing it first, recycle it second, and then bury it as deep as possible.

You mean 're-use' rather than 'recycle'?

It has always been 'reduce, reuse, recycle' but what bemuses me is how this is nigh on impossible for normal people, even those that do their recycling and say the right things about caring for the planet.

Being serious about it means an end to having a consumerist lifestyle. This can be difficult when kids are involved. Mountains of plastic are just there with kids, in everything they do. You can't take your child out of society to live as if it was two centuries ago, their friends and the parents of their friends will have this abundance of plastic, whether it is LEGO bricks or food containers. It is just unavoidable. Capitalism as we know it would collapse if we got serious about plastic.

I am quite serious about plastic, albeit by accident. On a whim I went 'whole food, plant based', which means no processed foods or animal products. One unintended consequence is that my recycling and rubbish shrunk to a fraction of what it used to be. I no longer have plastic trays, plastic bottles and what not, just a few plastic bags, a few tins, a few glass jars and a modest amount of paper.

If I am lucky enough to get a good plastic container, I really will upcycle it.

If I meet up with relatives that live the middle class life, then, vegetable peelings aside, they will create more waste in a weekend than I will create in approximately four months.

I enjoy not having the cognitive dissonance that goes on with buying single use plastic containers whilst knowing that nothing really gets recycled. I am also 'beginner level' when it comes to the art of being 'zero waste', there are those that create no more than a small jar full of plastic in a year.

My relatives genuinely believe they are doing their bit by putting lots of plastic in the recycling, and they would frown upon someone that did not follow their example. They live in a very different consumerist world to me. But, if everyone lived like me, there would not be a lot of the economy left!

People are deeply wedded to their single use plastics. Realistically, cutting down on plastic means an end to the plastic foods that most people enjoy eating, whether that be ready meals, take outs, animal products, produce from far-flung parts of the world and sugary beverages.

A century ago, nobody had anything plastic. Given our consumerist ways, you wonder how people lived back then, when most domestic waste consisted of ash from fireplaces.

A ban on single use plastics is what we need, not any Band Aid recycling solutions. You never see LEGO bricks or anything valuable in the plastic recycling stream, all of it is single use plastics. But a ban on single use plastics would mean people paying for a lot of glass, steel and waxed paper. This comes with problems of its own.

Imagine you are driving a truck load of yoghurts from Italy, over the Alps, through France and to the UK so that middle class people can buy them. If those yoghurts have to be in glass jars then the diesel bill for this important middle class delivery will rise considerably, due to the extra weight of the glass. More CO2 would be emitted getting these vital yoghurts from industrial unit to toilet bowl.

Not buying the yoghurts is not an option as the mind-numbingly boring job of driving the truck hundreds of miles is considered gainful employment. Therefore, 'reduce' is not really an option, so that means 'recycle' or landfill. Anecdotally, as in my instance, 'reduce' is definitely possible and definitely the way to go, but, given how most people live, it is a total non-starter, mostly because it would require dietary changes.