Plastic Fantastic

Plastics are some amazing, versatile products. They are available in all colors, some are soft to touch others are hard depending on what they are used for. Since World War II, when the plastic industry really came of age, it has only gone one way for plastic and plastic - upward and forward.

We use plastic in everyday life from morning to evening. Almost everything we buy is wrapped in, or made of plastic. Cars, phones, kitchen appliances, TVs, PCs, clothes, shoes, creams, soaps, shampoos (both the product and the packaging), diapers, furniture, lamps, there are many plastic products in our lives.

Can we do without it? It's hard to say, because are you willing to compromise on the standards in your life? And what are the alternatives? And if a plastic product lasts a really long time, why we should we the avoid using it?

I have an old Bosch plastic hand mixer. It's my grandmother's and it's from the early sixties - that is, the 1960s. It still works perfectly, while I've worn up three or four coffee grinders in the last two years because the bearings are of plastic.

And that's what's it's all about. Until the 1980s, products were made to could last a long time, decades at least. You don't see that today. Phones typically last 3-4 years, then the software is no longer updated. A TV lasts 5 years. Home appliances 5-7 years, then the bearings are typically gone as they're from plastic (nylon). As a consumer, you are lost from the moment you turn on the appliance or machine for the first time.

"Use and throw away - buy our products, we constantly make new hot appliances, all better than what you've already got"...

But we MUST do something. We see photos of plastic isles floating in the ocean, whales with nothing but plastic in their stomachs, turtles with straws in their noses and fishing nets around the shield, ducks in lakes smothered by plastic rings from a six-pack they got around their necks, plastic mountains in Malaysia and in the Philippines, rivers in Asia and Africa covered with plastic.

That's the plastic we can see, something completelydifferent are microplastics.

An invisible enemy that it's hard to fight. Microplastics derive from many things, plastic in nature and the sea and the mentioned plastic isles have great focus, but in fact clothes, and laundry and drying are huge culprits too. Another large sinner are car tires - believe it or not.

A study a few years ago showed that wear and tear of car tires on the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco was the main source to microplastics in the bay.

That's something we normally don't give much thought, right?

So, what to do? What can I do and what can you do? Should we stop driving and sell the car?

"Hmm, I can't do without the car, but I've phased out the plastic bags for shopping and have a smart shopping tote from fabric instead" you'll probably say. Fine, that's a start.

I myself, have a whole drawer filled with plastic bags for kitchen waste, garden waste, for the freezer, for packed lunches etc. Another drawer contains plastic tubs for food - many tubs (often without lids, they disappear just like the socks do in the washing machine).

I need to clean up the drawers while I learn what the future holds for plastics.

In our family we don't put cotton swabs in the toilet, we don't leave anything in  nature that doesn't belong there, and we only use plastic where it can't be replaced by something else.