Facts About Recycling♻

From 2000 to 2020, people recycling their things went from 11% to 44%, and yes that is incredible how it has quadrupled in 20 years, and I really don't want to seem negative but it is still less than half. The EU's Circular Economy Package wants to reach '65% municipal recycling rate by 2035', and it won't happen in the next 15 years without drastic change. By 2025, we are hoping that packaging will be designed to be clearly recyclable (as in, they will show on the packaging that it is recyclable and is clearly seen by customers) where suitable and beneficial. WRAP want to make it easier to recycle for thousands more households, and increase the quantity of things collected for recycle.

However, Greenpeace have posted a really interesting article on their blog about the question: What really happens to your plastic recycling? We are always told to recycle more (and I know I tell you to, too) and lots of us do. But the problem isn't really focused on us anymore, it's how much is sent away from the UK, and 'recycled' there. Before all that, household recycling gets taken to a place where people and machines sort things like cans, paper and cardboard, paper and general rubbish into different types. The government says that almost half of the UK's plastic packaging is recycled, but that's a lie. The truth is that less than 10% of our plastic packaging is recycled. 

Where the rest goes changes all the time, and right now it's in other countries, more than half going to Malaysia and Turkey. It's technically illegal to do this, sending plastic to other countries if it's not going to be recycled, and Greenpeace found British packaging all over these countries, and actually sometimes being set on fire. This is really bad for people who live near there, who are constantly feeling unwell and having breathing problems. Astonishingly, the amount the UK sends abroad every day is around the size of three Olympic sized swimming pools. 

I'm not saying to stop recycling. What needs to be done is to stop producing so much plastic that's just thrown away. You can read the Greenpeace article here.

Thank you so much for reading my blog!

Violet

         xxx

Now that Some Things are Going Back to Normal...

In January I wrote a blog called What has Covid-19 done?, and now that lock downs are easing, and things are slowly going back to normal, it's easier to do even more environmentally friendly things. Yesterday, I finally got a new bike after not having one for ages (I grew too tall for it over the first lock down), I'm not sure about charity shops, but there are those swapshops you can use to get second-hand things, and (this is less to do with lock down but) Spring has come, so in warmer weather, we'll be spending more time outdoors, so your thermostat doesn't have to be as high!

However, after reading a post by Circular., I learnt that Covid-19 has reduced the amount of people trying to do environmentally friendly things. For example, in December 2019, 61% of people were avoiding single use plastic, but in February 2021, that dropped by almost half, becoming 36%. An Aviva study showed that people said the pandemic has made half of UK adults more environmentally conscious, and only 4% said they were less. However, the actions that I mentioned before shows that people are not as green as they think.

Some more statistics are: (December 2019, February 2021)

• Using your local bin collection to recycle: 73% to 51%
• Taking fewer trips in your car: 34% to 26%
• Reducing food miles by eating locally sourced produce: 37% to 25%

There were also statistics showing people over 65 are more likely to change their habits to be more environmentally friendly, however they are the least likely to change to a vegan diet (with only 1% of that age group). Although the article says under-25s are least likely to do these things, the data actually shows that the age group 25-34 are least likely to do all the actions (apart from becoming vegan, at which they're highest at 9%). 

There, of course, are reasons why some things aren't being completed, like the fact that some shops are closed (making it harder to buy second hand, or local products) and so people are preferring to stay safe from the pandemic than be environmentally friendly. Gareth Hemming from Aviva says, "We can hope that once people exit 'survival mode', their green behaviours will be boosted again." ('Survival mode' being about staying safe from Covid-19).

You can read more statistics on this website, and I'd read it all, since it's very interesting.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you learnt something from this🙂. See you next week!

Violet

         xxx

Setting up/ Using a Swap Shop! 🛒

Charity shops have been closed for a while because of covid, and since that's a way that we like to re-home things after we've had a clear out, it's a bit annoying. However, a few months ago, my mum found this group on Facebook that give away and swap different things around the area I live. We've used it lots, giving away my old clothes, my dog's old things (which aren't as chewed up), garden furniture, basically anything. Recently my mum went and collected a plant, and today I'm going to get a copy of a book that I want.

The reason I want to talk about it is because I don't want people throwing away old things, or maybe making their home cluttered with things that don't really need to be there. The quote "One man's rubbish is another man's treasure." helps with this because while you may think something is useless, someone else might be needing it. This whole swap, give-away shop-thing helps with recycling, reusing and re-purposing things. You may not think about re-purposing, however if something is broken and you personally aren't able to fix it, someone else may be able to, or they could find a whole new use of the object.  The one we use isn't a swap-shop, we just go and collect the thing we want (if we are chosen to have it), but there are some where you do swap. This helps even more to move on the things you don't want to other people! 

Helping recycle and reuse things is really important. In 2018, it was said over 300,000 tonnes of clothing goes into UK landfills every year, and clothing consumption is 5% of the UK's total annual water and carbon footprint.  Each person in Britain throws away 3.1 kg of textiles each year.  Only one tenth of that is recycled, and only about 13% is reused. 1.7 kg is sent to landfill - which is more than half - and 0.8 kg are burned (these statistics are from Circular). Giving things to charity shops is something I've been doing since I was really young, so the thought of throwing old things (which could easily be re-homed) in the bin is really weird to me. 

So, see if your community has one of these, and if they don't, maybe you could be the one to set it up! Using a group on social media would be easiest, but you could think of other ways too. 

Thank you so much for reading this blog, and I hope you find a way to join one of these groups! 

Violet

         xxx

Happy Easter! 🐰

This morning, I had a very fun Easter egg hunt, but after all the excitement had subsided, I looked at the foil wrapped around the eggs, and the packaging they came in etc., and I wondered how much of a difference it made to the environment. But we were very happy, because not only did we get big chocolate eggs too, their packaging was just cardboard (well, read on to see how we could check the looks aren't deceiving us into thinking their isn't plastic). 

In 2018, the UK was one of the biggest consumers of chocolate each year. And with a huge piece of it used just for the joy of Easter, it is a bit worrying about the amount of waste that follows. A few years ago, WRAP (who I wrote a paragraph about in this blog) calculated that over 3000 tonnes of packaging comes with the 80-something million eggs we buy each year. 

To check whether your Easter egg has hidden plastic - because as much as it may look clear of it, there could be quite a lot - there are a few tests. If your cardboard looks shiny, there's a chance it has a plastic coating on it, and to check you can get a piece and soak it in water for a few hours. If something, well probably plastic, starts peeling off then you know that it shouldn't be recycled and maybe not buy it next year. With the foil that wraps the whole of your eggs, it could actually be a more plastic film. To be honest, I always thought it was foil, but there's a test to check. If you scrunch up the wrapping and it stays in a ball, it is most probably foil. However, if it sort of bounds back and doesn't stay in a ball, then it's probably plastic (made out of the same stuff that some crisp packets are made of) and can't be recycled.

Speaking of recycling, make sure you save and then roll up all the foil (if you have it) into a ball, so the small pieces don't get lost or anything. However, you also need to check with your neighbourhood to see if you are allowed to recycle foil, because I'm not sure I'm actually allowed to recycle the foil - so doing that could do a bit more damage than good. 

Many big companies who sell Easter eggs don't use plastic, and some even put that on their packaging, however - a few years ago - Friends of the Earth showed that quite a few companies did use plastic packaging (including: Maltersers from Mars and Thornton's classic collection). They asked how many of their Easter products had plastic packaging, and not all responded. Click here to read about what companies including Nestle, Mars, Lindt and Thornton's had to say. 

Also, click here to take part in a petition to urge the government to reduce production of plastic waste. I'm going to add my name!

Thank you so much for reading this week's blog! I hope you have a lovely Easter! 

Violet

    xxx