Plastics must go

Dear Supermarket

 

I am a concerned citizen, writing to you about the use of plastics in your store. I am also the writer of a blog called www.thegreenqueen.co.ukand I’m encouraging my readers to write to you also.

 

First of all, I would like to applaud the work you are doing to reduce the amount of plastic bags your customers use, and also increasing the amount of recyclable content in your current bags.

 

Plastic bags are just part of the problem. You already must know that discarded plastic bags disrupt waterways, clog sewers, and choke soil. Over 100,000 marine animals die every year from plastic entanglement.

 

Plastic is versatile, durable, waterproof, convenient and very, very cheap. Many things in your store are made from it, including; the millions of toys you sold last Christmas; household items like kitchenware and shower curtains; wrappings of food; bottles of soft drink, milk; and the millions of shampoo, conditioner and other personal care items.

 

This all goes into landfill or the oceans. Hardly any of it is recycled, and it’s an intensive process to recycle it at all. It’s a seemingly insurmountable problem, and it’s increasingly worrying due to the environmentally devastating affects this will have on future generations.

 

I would like to urge you to consider the following steps:

• Phase out bottled water – except the larger containers, possibly refillable. A lot of bottled waters (remember Dasani? are just reprocessed tap water. 

• Consider boycotting flavoured water products, such as the ones aimed at children. These small, single use drinks promote unhealthy lifestyles and are a completely unnecessary product.

• Urge your suppliers to use aluminum or glass for all their soft drinks. They are easier to recycle.

• Provide refill stations, like Ecover does, in which customers can bring back their empty bottles and fill them up again. After all, their bottles will last for approximately 1000 years; they may as well reuse it!

• Insist to suppliers that plastics are made with recycled content.

 

Most of all, I would like you to reduce the amount of plastic products sold in your store. According to Earth Source, there are a number of common myths about plastic recycling. 

The first is that the chasing arrow symbol means that the container is recyclable.  The second is that curbside collections have taken care of plastics recycling.  The third is that if something goes into the recycle bin that it gets recycled and we know that that is not true.  It depends on what that particular recycling program accepts.  Fourth, there a misconception that plastic packaging is somehow made from oil refinery waste.  That is not true.  The fifth is that there is a closed loop on plastics recycling.  In reality, plastics recycling does not occur in a closed loop.   www.earthresource.org

 

We need to stop living under the illusion that recycling will take care of everything.  We need to design plastics with the idea in mind of how we are going to get rid of them after were done using the products.  Failing that, we need to boycott it.

 

I know that giving up our dependence on plastic will not be easy. I am urging you to be a leader in this field and do what needs to be done.

 

I will publish any answer you give me on my blog.

 

Thanks for your attention.

 

Denise Thomas

www.thegreenqueen.co.uk