On Wednesday 18th November we held a fantastic Zoom meeting featuring Ruth Strange from Ethical Consumer magazine facilitating a discussion on tips for a Plastic Free Christmas. In this blog post we will share all of the links and notes shared at the meeting.
Ethical Consumer articles
- Article on ‘Tips for a Plastic Free Christmas‘
- Article on bottled water
- Article on ethical soap
- Article on what companies are doing to get rid of single use and non-recyclable plastic, and campaigns that encourage them to do so
- Article on ‘A guide to bio-based plastic packaging’
- Note from Ruth: Make sure that you don’t add bio-based plastic to kerbside plastic recycling schemes. The material will pollute the recycling stream
- Article on ‘Microbeads: The hidden plastics in your cosmetics’
- Article on ‘Campaigning for plastic free periods’
- Article on ‘Choosing sustainable fabrics’
- Article on ‘Is there Plastic in my Tea?’
- Article on ‘Christmas Gift Subscription’
- Article on ‘Ethical money & finance’
- Barclays and HSBC including First Direct over $200bn between them Total fossil fuel finance since 2016 – switch your current and savings accounts, mortgage!
- Article on ‘Banks, climate change and the environmental crisis’
Just a few of the responses to the question: Why do you want to reduce plastic use? / What motivated you to engage with this issue?
- “David Attenborough’s Blue Planet! I think I started off with mooncups & fabric pant liners & then went a bit mental about it.”
- “Initially from my work with Dan from Everyday Plastic got me interested. I’m now very keen to set a good example for my kids”
- “The environmental impact”
- “Concerns about the ocean, wildlife”
- “As part of low impact living generally”
- “An incredible amount of littering”
- “Right thing to do for future of our planet”
- “It affects absolutely everything I buy and use now”
Responses to the question ‘What Christmas plastic do we need ideas for replacing?’
- Sellotape
- Packaging
- Wrapping paper
- Glitter
- Crackers
- Decorations
- Food packaging
- Selection boxes
Some solutions to this:
- Sellotape now sells ‘plastic-free’ sellotape – Waitrose/Asda?
- Paper tape
- Brown paper for wrapping and decorating it with pens/ink stamps/potato stamps
- Wrapping without glitter
- Fabric wrapping / old head scarves
- Furoshiki – the Japanese art of wrapping presents in reusable cloths/scarfs
- Make fabric bags for presents
- Use reusable cotton drawstring bags
- Use fabric bags you get with bedding as bags
- Use newspaper or magazines for wrapping
- Use old maps for wrapping paper
- Using last year’s calendar as wrapping paper
- Use loo roll packaging for wrapping
- Use old cards as gift tags
- Keep selling the ‘pop’ element of crackers so we can make our own and they can still ‘pop’
- Make your own crackers
- Instead of crackers, write a bad joke each
- Plastic-Free crackers – supermarkets selling these including Morrisons, Asda, Booths. Asda sells empty plastic free crackers so you can fill them yourselves
- Kids to create mini artwork as cracker fillers
- Competition to make hats out of wrapping paper
- Paper chains
- Make bunting from scrap materials / old fabric
- Collect colourful boxes from cereals etc. through the year to cut up for Christmas decorations
- Collecting and drying leaves/pine cones/holly/berries/oranges/cloves/natural items for decorations
- Decorations made from salt and flour (saltdough) baked and painted
- Willow for wreaths
- Popcorn, cranberries and gingerbread biscuits strung around the tree
- Wine is plastic free!
- Go to butchers and greengrocers and bring your own containers
- Make food from scratch rather than buying in products wrapped in plastic
- Online advent calendar – every day a different activity to do, like colouring, baking, subscription to a magazine
Ideas for #PlasticFreePresents
- Start with ‘The Ethical Hierarchy of Gift Purchasing’
- Buy second hand gifts
- Buy a tree to be planted
- Planter with bulbs
- Packets of seeds
- Grow your own loofahs!
- Compostable plant pots – (someone bought a borage plant in a coir pot from Nottcutts)
- Make your own plant pots out of newspaper
- Drying veg in a dehydrator as gifts
- Food hamper of fair trade food
- Cook Christmas Dinner and give that as a present
- Baking biscuits / cakes
- Make your own Xmas puddings
- Share old LEGO instead of buying new
- Make your own body care and cleaning products
- Reusing containers like washed ketchup bottles with refilled shower gel
- Favour vouchers – e.g. run a bath, make a coffee, bake a cake, cook a meal, buying jigsaws, baby-sitting, dog walking
- A music lesson with a piano teacher – focusing on The Snowman theme
- Experiences like days out – treating people to things they might not have treated themselves to
- Zipworld vouchers – they are OK to use for 2 years and were 2-4-1 last week
- Theatre tickets
- Gardening vouchers
- Quizzler – quizzes and games subscription
- Charity Water – they encourage people to donate their Christmas present money to the charity which digs wells and puts in pumps and taps
- Toilet Twinning – Pay £60 to have a toilet built somewhere and get a framed picture to put in your loo
- Get a Kiva loan – micro finance for people who can’t get a loan from a bank
Upcoming event
Wednesday 2nd December, 11.30am
Will COVID-19 break or build our bond with plastic?
https://www.policy.manchester.ac.uk/activities/events/policymanchester-presents-in-conversation-with-dr-helen-holmes/
