We Live In A World Full Of Plastic, And People Are Sick Of It.
Movements to eliminate single-use plastics are sweeping the globe.
The first thing you notice when you enter Natural Weigh, Chloe and Rob Masefield’s small shop in the Welsh town of Crickhowell, is the enticing smell of food. Then you see that people have brought their own containers and bottles and are filling them with rice, pasta, seeds, oils and beauty supplies. They then pay for their products by weight.
“Zero-waste” or plastic-free shops, which sell nothing wrapped in plastic, are springing up worldwide, a groundswell of consumer protest over both the sheer wastefulness of resources in modern packaging and the impact that the world’s most ubiquitous material is having on wildlife and the environment. Many of the shopkeepers report a growing enthusiasm among their customers for a simpler, more sustainable lifestyle.
The Masefield’s shop is one of the nearly 60 plastic-free shops in the United Kingdom known to have opened in the last 18 months. “It has been a great success,” says Chloe. “Trade is growing all the time. We both worked for environmental organizations and were shocked at the amount of plastic we saw everywhere. We would pick up pieces on our walks and see some were 15 years old. We were just so frustrated that we could not buy anything without it coming covered in plastic.”
Plastic-free aisles are becoming common in supermarkets across Europe, and shops selling groceries without packaging have opened in the United States, Canada, Australia and mainland China. In Berlin, Germany, a plastic-free supermarket now sells over 600 products.
purred by celebrities and popular TV programs like “Blue Planet 2” showing marine wildlife choked by plastic and by reports of plastic micro-particles entering the human body, powerful international campaigning groups and foundations like Greenpeace, WWF, Oceana and Friends of the Earth are waging a war against plastic. Newer groups like 5Gyres and the Plastic Pollution Coalition are joining them.
Together they highlight the exponential growth in the use of plastic in the last 30 years and urge people to refuse single-use plastic. World production of plastic, they point out, has tripled from around 100 million metric tons in 1989 to over 335 million metric tons today; one study found 91 percent of all plastic made is not recycled. Instead, most of it goes to landfill sites, or is thrown away or burned. By some counts, plastic packaging now accounts for about half of the plastic waste in the world.
Until consumers started to campaign loudly, food, drink and other heavy plastic-using businesses took little responsibility for single-use plastic waste, expecting urban collection services and a small recycling market to clean up the litter and dispose of their products.
Environmental advocates are now taking the battle to those companies who flood cities with billions of coffee cups that cannot be recycled and the 5 trillion plastic bags a year that are designed to be used only once.
Ten years ago, it was rare to see individual fruits and vegetables wrapped in plastic. Today raw produce and even wood, metal goods and building materials invariably come wrapped in a plastic film.The companies respond that plastic protects goods from damage and extends the life of food.
Public backlash has shaken global corporations, and now many of them have pledged to change their ways. Led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, over 250 food, drink and other consumer multinationals ― including Coke, Danone, Mars, L’Oreal, PepsiCo and Unilever ― have signed the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment. The companies vowed to tackle plastic pollution. Some have promised to eliminate all “un-necessary” packaging, others have pledged to ensure theirs is 100 percent recyclable.
But although many supermarkets have promised to eradicate un-recycleable ketchup bottles, yogurt cups, and bags of mixed fruit and vegetables, the measures are often vague and voluntary, and many will not be enacted for several years, say consumer activists.
Not only are companies delaying change, they often confuse consumers by saying their plastic is “recyclable,” “bio-degradeable” or “compostable,” all of which sound good but in practical terms may be of little use, says Greenpeace U.K. campaigner Louise Edge.
“The individual commitments being made by these companies just don’t go far enough,” Edge says. “Making packaging more recyclable is a step forward, but making more recyclable packaging isn’t. The problem is that leading brands are already producing more plastic waste than our recycling systems can cope with. Just because something is recyclable, it doesn’t mean it will actually be recycled.”