I would like to say that I am now a single-use plastic expert. Over these last few days I have been researching about how single-use plastics are having a real impact on the environment. Of course, there is still so much yet to know about the impact that plastics will actually have on the world for the future generations. But, education on this topic is the first step, so here are a couple of resources about the use of single-use plastics.

War on Plastic with Hugh and Anita

Firstly, we have a documentary on the BBC. This programme looks at how much plastic we produce and how they are embedded into our society by studying a street’s use of plastics.

Did you know that a lot of our plastics get exported to Indonesia for them to sort out? A lot of our plastic bags from supermarkets and food waste bags from councils end up in processing plants. This is was new news to me as I thought it got exported to China, but this stopped in 2019 as they had environmental concerns.

This show really made me think about my use of single-use plastics. As a result I am going to collect any single use plastics that I use and include them into my work. I like how it will maybe look like a visual diary of the single-use plastics I use. Anyway, you can find this enlightening documentary here.

Plastics and the Circular Economy

If you read my previous blog posts from this project, you will know about the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. If not, you can read that blog post here. They are a great foundation, educating people on how to include Circular Economy principles in their businesses. Not only do they help these big corporations but have also helped me to understand how plastics can be incorporated into a Circular Economy.

Their vision in relation to plastics is:

• Eliminate use of unnecessary plastic packaging
• Have reusing models
• Any plastic packaging is either reused, recycled or composted
• Free of hazardous chemicals
• Decoupled from consumption of limited resources

In short, to have a Circular Economy in relation to plastics we to eliminate, innovate and circulate.

You can find further resources on their website, which you can find here.

Right, thats enough on my research, time to sample with my plastics!