How Are They Not Panicking?,

Once upon a time, there was a man named Alexander Parkes, who created something plastic in about 1862. Whilst he isn't single-handedly to blame for the fact that the surface of the world can now be seen to be covered in a layer of it, the deepest dived depths of the oceans are littered with it and very few people seem to give enough of a toss to do anything meaningful about it, from my (exceedingly limited) research, he seems to be the start of the chain. 

Now, climate change and plastic litter aren't exactly the same thing, but they're produced by the same attitude, which is a generalised ignorance/IDGAF to how the next generation on this Earth cope, I just want my money, my fast fashion, my something for nothing, my ease, my convenience, my slice of the pie. The best reason I can see for this is either the fact that it's what the previous generation got or an enduring feeling of entitlement from everybody who likes to say that millennials are entitled little shits. Either way, I'm conflating the two issues for the purposes of this rant/blog. 

Yesterday the world was stunned as a relatively senior government official roughly handled a peaceful protester out of a fancy dinner. The fact that this protestor was a woman and that he's previously made speeches about how women in Britain should feel safe is awful, don't get me wrong, but to treat anyone like that is despicable. Furthermore, how is he, and every other politician in that room, not waking up anxious about the direction that we're headed in? I know I have an anxiety disorder, but I'm genuinely scared. 

But here's the big problem I have. The other video I watched on my phone this morning was about the mountains of plastic that we've all dutifully deposited into our recycling bins in the hope of creating a better tomorrow. We're trying. We the public understand we're in a f**king mess and WE. ARE. TRYING. but it turns out that, since China stopped importing plastic waste in 2018 an old problem got a hundred times bigger and now there are large scale dumps of recyclable left out to the elements, where they are damaged to the point they can no longer be recycled for one thing, and for another, there are more and more of them ending up in our water. Yes, it's our water. If the next major conflict in the world is over resources, it won't be about oil - it's going to be water. 

With that in mind, I frantically looked into something which has interested me for a while. In Google'd how I can recycle more at home and cut out the middle man. 

The first thing that came up was a flooring company and how they use these large scale, industrial machines (which would definitely not fit into my living room) to recycle their own waste and some of the waste from their suppliers, into vinyl flooring. Now, that's incredible and I can only hope that they link up with companies like Huf Haus, who prefabricate housing modules and use their own sawdust waste as a component in their insulation, to provide homes with a really decent eco-vision behind them, but Huf Haus is expensive. It's a build you're own vision of homes, and it's based in Germany so there are all those complications like exchange rates and Brexit, plus all of the miles that the materials travel when they're made into their pre-fabricated panels, but still...

As much as those two companies are amazing, and they are, even them working together is just this idea of a small number of people doing low waste or zero waste really well, and it's not something which can be replicated on a major scale to address the plastic problem (even if prefabricating housing means you can reduce costs, provide a better environment for workers and build homes much more quickly which would also cut across to the housing crisis, and using a lot of recyclable materials which are already doing nothing would significantly reduce costs further). (Take a breath, Charlie)

There is a company which has released their designs for a small production line like set of machines which grind plastic into small pieces, like Hama beads for example, melt these pieces together and create either a wire, which can be wound into things like bowls, or light shades, or can also be melted into molds to create things like bowls, spinning tops, ornaments, or really anything you wanted to make as long as you could create or source the metal mold for it, but the problem with that is, well there are several. 

First one, who has the space to fit these things? I live in London, so that's a no. Everywhere we are being encouraged to economise on space, because it's cheaper and because then they can jam more people into a smaller area and the housing crisis looks a little bit less awful through the government issue rose-tinted spectacles. Number 2 (deviating to numerical indicators makes them easier to find - sorry.) These machines are still expensive. I applaud the people at that gave away their designs, really, I do, but the number of people who really have the cash to commit to something like this is not going to be high if we're being completely honest. 3, These are not some IKEA flat packs with a funky sounding name. They are pretty complex pieces of machinery and you need to be able to build them. There are a lot of Youtube videos provided to walk you through the process, but there is a certain amount of tool waving know-how you're going to need to bring to the table, too. And 4, there are only so many plastic bowls and light shades and other things we need in the world. Just because it's made of recycled plastic, doesn't mean people are going to want it. 

So, where the hell does that leave us? Or me, because I was originally thinking about this in a context of what can I do. 

Well, it seems I'm in the exact same boat I was before. All I can do is try my best within the limits of what I am able to do. I'm proud of the fact I own metal straws and generally, say no to plastic ones in bars (generally because sometimes I don't see them until they're in my drink and then they're going in the bin regardless). I'm proud that I haven't used a disposable coffee cup since the beginning of this year. It has been longer than that, but that's the marker I gave myself. I'm proud I haven't faltered on that even what I've forgotten my reusable and I really want a coffee. I'm proud that most of my clothes come from charity shops or eBay because there is still a hell of a lot of life in them yet. I'm proud that I fix things rather than throw them and I'm proud that I do what I can to find options for purchasing things with reduced or no plastic. I'm proud of the fact that I've been getting cans of diet coke when I want a diet coke, rather than bottles because cans are easier to recycle and are more wider recycled. As far as I'm aware, there aren't the same mountains of Coke cans in Malaysia or elsewhere that have been discarded. I am so proud of those things, but it still doesn't feel like enough, and I don't know what more to do. 

Despite the anxiety, despite Pete's screaming that the world is on fire, I know this is something it's reasonable to worry about, and it just has me questioning, how are politicians, bankers, billionaires and the girl who lives in my building who puts her food waste in plastic bags, despite the fact I've politely told her it's a redundant thing to do...how the hell are they not scared? How are they not panicking? 

I Will Not Vent, I Will Not Vent, I Will Not,

Screw it, I'm not even going to finish that sentence because I know that I can't stick to it... Let's just get this over with. 

I am fed up. I am MASSIVELY fed up, and I am annoyed that when I try and vent my fed-up-ness it gets put down to rant-y women or rant-y vegetarians or event just rant-y environmentalists. Yeah, aren't all of the above people such butt holes for wanting to make the world a less crappy place? Anyway, this is not about that, this is about: 

REALLY STARBUCKS, REALLY??? 

Okay, so forget for two minutes that Starbucks is expensive. Forget for a minute that a lot of people cannot afford to buy food, let alone the luxury that is take out coffee (because I can only keep a lid on the lava of my personality if I only have a Venti Mocha Chocolate Rant about one thing at once. Single shots, people. (I'm sorry. I'm funny in my own head!) 

Taking all of the above off the table and any other issues you have with Starbucks (be it tax avoidance or them charging London Fire Brigade staff for water during the July bombings, because I know that was also pretty unforgivable) and having a clean slate: why is it my problem as a consumer to carry around a reuseable cup to use in your cafe? Okay, it's a five pence charge and actually that makes most of your drinks cost an even whatever instead of me getting five pence pieces in my change (I don't, because I live in London and never really carry cash, but just go with it for a second) but Starbucks, why is this my issue? 

I know, you've tried to make it easy for me by making a reuseable cup with your "legendary" design, it's only a pound and there is normally a basket of them sitting somewhere where I can conveniently grab one in the store. You're even so nice as to offer me a 25 pence "discount" if I reuse this or any other reusable cup, but actually, it's five pence. I'm probably only going to give a monkey's left proverbial because you haven't previously charged me for this and we all hate price hikes. And Starbucks, I know it's not just you. Pret do the same damn thing (actually, in some ways they are worse, because they provide biodegradable cutlery only in their Veggie stores and not across the whole brand and still called it a trial on Facebook the other day despite the fact that veggie Pret has been open for a significant period of time (not completely sure if it's one or two years on the original place now, but still - how long is this blooming trial???

My big issue is, it's a token effort. I hate token effort. 

Suppliers of biodegradable and compostable cups and lids and cutlery all exist. Instead of encouraging a behaviour change in your consumers which is unlikely to have a big enough effect to prevent whales from starving to death with stomach's full of plastic bags of us using a ridiculous amount of landfill to essentially bury and forget about our sins, why not just make the change yourselves? Okay, so not every cup is going to go into a compost pile, there might still be a significant number ending up in the ocean, but at least it's not made of something that is likely to outlast the sun. At least it is far less damaging than what we currently have. 

Or how about, do both? 

How about you switch to these kind of cups and lids and cutlery and other packaging and then say, we screwed up. We as humanity screwed up when we started to rely on plastic, because it was easy. And to pay for our screw ups, we are going to donate money from every drink sold to research into sustainable resources, or ocean clean up projects. Hell, we're even going to get rid of our plastic gift cards and find something more sustainable there, too? 


I'm quite lucky that I can get this out of my system. I read an article over the weekend that fish even at a very deep sea level have ingested micro beads and plastic, and they can't get it out of their systems. I know I mentioned this earlier but a whale died because it had 30 plastic bags in its stomach last year and it was assumed that it starved to death. This is madness. This is utter madness. I don't give a flying **** (I can't replace that word right now, I'm livid) about token effort right now!! 

I feel the same way about the plastic bag charge as well and straws - don't even get me started on straws...

(taking deep breathes for a second)

I know we have some level of choice in these issues, because we can use reusable cups and just make the effort, same with bags, and we use them for their lifetime and it's LESS plastic (because ultimately as lot of the alternative bags for life and reusable cups are also plastic) but there are alternatives. Companies could choose to make a real difference and inevitably I don't feel that they put in enough effort. 

I know that they're not going to read this, but I just had to get it off my chest. #rantover