Landlocked Mermaid

Something I bang on about a lot is recycling. I do it here, I do in real life, hell I do it at work too! It may only be a small step in reducing plastic pollution, but it is an easy step everyone can take. And should take, honestly. But what happens to our household waste when it is recycled? I've seen pencils made from recycled plastics, and certain products do promote the fact they are made from recycled goods. But what else happens to them? So I went digging on the internet. I have found three cool initiatives that I wanted to share with you all. Bottle Bricks Photo from Natural Building Blog Bottle bricks are where empty (waste) plastic bottles are packed with sand or other non-recyclable plastics, rendering them a strong building resource. They are being used to build houses, schools, or even just benches! They are a versitile building block and made from an all too readily available material. A number of projects using this new style of brick are h...

Dear Shropshire County Council, I'm sure you are well aware of the recent media attention plastic pollution has been recieving. Between David Attenborough's Blue Planet II and charities such as Surfers Against Sewage , the desire to turn the plastic tide is becoming greater. While I am aware we are landlocked Shropshire - our plastic waste is still an issue and is contributing towards the ocean pollution as roughly 80% of all waste in the ocean comes from the land. But to bring the issue back home, our streets are covered in single-use plastics. With the recent good weather over the Bank Holiday weekends, I, personally, saw a massive increase in litter spread far and wide across my town. Water bottles, lolly wrappers, cans, take out containers. It was everywhere. Just a small example   While I do not blame you for the publics' wanton littering, all this rubbish begged the question: Where are all the bins? Some context for you, I live in Market Dra...

In case you missed it, cutting out plastic from my life sent my brain reeling somewhat. I rambled incoherently for a lot of words and didn't really make any concrete plans. Things have changed. A little, I mean it is still colossally overwhelming. I just have to keep remembering, I am but one human, at this juncture I can only take baby steps. But baby steps add up, especially if I can inspire some of you to follow in my tentative steps. And that is exactly the ethos behind the source of my newly gained confidence. The #2minutesolution book: No. More. Plastic. by Martin Dorey. I got this book at the beginning of the week and I have already finished it. By the founder of the Beach Clean Network and #2minutebeachclean. I found this book massively helpful because it has an easy reading tone. It's not agressive or preachy; it just talks sense. And the best bit? It offers help. Excuse me while I sing a chorus of heavenly hallelujahs. It has a logical progression ...

This post has been a long time coming for me. It has even taken me three days to write it. I wasn't sure how to approach my own plastic comsumption, let alone blog about reducing it. This post has been pushed back and back and back... My beautiful handwriting But I guess the reason why  I was having such trouble is because plastic is just so problematic . It's everywhere! So much of my life seemingly depends on the substance suffocating our planet. Grappling with this warrants blogging about, so I am diving in. Problematic Plastic will no doubt become an on-going series as I figure out how to undo nearly thirty years of bad habits. It's all part of the journey. My starting point was the Earth Day Plastic Pollution Primer , which was both inspiring and a little infuriating. It pushes the core message: Reduce, Refuse, Reuse, Recycle, Remove . All good, these are all things I can do. Reading further it even has a plastic calculator to figure out how much you use...