Yep, oceans were made for fish, not takeaway forks or plastic bottles (which will still be floating around in 450 years) and I am proud to say that Leafology is officially at war with the pervasive existence of one-use-only plastic.
Photo used with personal permission by artist & campaigner Von Wong.
See the end of this post to read about the ways in which Leafology is saying ‘nope’ to the epidemic.
I’ve seen the light; plastic is disgusting… What can we do?
Plastic: Urgh. I am finding myself evermore aware of how absolutely swimming in it we are in these modern times. It is hard to avoid the stuff!
…Except it isn’t that hard – it just takes a bit of thought and planning, which most of us forget to account for in our everyday choices, partly just out of habit and partly because the big companies make plastic the default for so many products and processes that you have to aggressively attack the system with a karate chop of ‘No thanks’ just to shake up the norm (I’m thinking of you, waiter in Singapore who gave me a takeaway juice in a plastic cup with plastic straw and plastic carry case, as though I might not be able to carry a cold cup of juice without it!).
I am learning a lot about the ‘zero waste’ movement, much of which I am already aligned with, and plenty of which I am excited to put more consistently into practise. Every little helps!! Truly. This is one way in which it is ultra fun and clever and necessary to be a bit of a rebel. Below are some links to some brilliant blogs, for inspiration, tips on where to start and general thoughts on saving the universe. You can start very small and it all adds up, plus you’d be surprised at how accommodating people are – just the other day I got a compliment from the supermarket cashier about what he called my ‘wash bags’ (the mesh grocery bags I filled with loose veg to go inside the trolley) and the village bakery in which I used to work put my delicious multi-seed loaf in my own drawstring bread bag with a veritable thumbs up. Sometimes little switches are actually very simple, and I for one, feel embarrassed that I hadn’t thoroughly examined all of my choices before now (yet proud to be getting on with it as much as I can from now on!). I have always believed that:
Where you choose to put your money says a lot about the kind of world you want to live in. Every purchase is a vote for what you believe in.
(this is actually one of several reasons I went vegan; and yes, small movements turn into big, world-shaking ones!)
Links to get started (I follow all of these and find them inspiring):
Let’s keep the oceans glorious!
I was lucky enough to snorkel in the Low Isles (Queensland) on my recent trip to Australia. It was a beautiful experience; always astonishing to peek below the surface of the water, but inevitably tainted by the awareness that so much of the coral is dying, and we were told that turtles are often found with their stomachs full of plastic; they can neither digest it nor eat any more actual food, so they starve to death.
That said, here is one beautiful and seemingly healthy turtle enjoying a back scratch against the coral (photos by my friend Anne Duffy), plus a sleeping reef shark:
Even David Attenborough is worried about the plastic situation (and breaking hearts with the hard-hitting facts about albatrosses and how their lives have become entwined with microplastic nonsense). I can’t wait to watch the new of Blue Planet. I briefly dated a man who was working on the upcoming series, which I’m sure means I’ve met David Attenborough himself by six degrees of separation… or something.
Leafology’s ‘ONE PUMP FOR LIFE’ SCHEME!!
The majority of the Leafology range is intentionally & proudly plastic-free, apart from the few glass bottles which are topped with recyclable PET plastic pump-dispenser lids until viable alternatives are successfully sourced. However, if you want to avoid plastic, these can be bought optionally with elegant metal screw-cap lids instead (and as they are simpler and therefore cheaper to supply, the saving is passed on to you!).
Choose your lid option when you add your item to your basket. This means you can:
– buy your first product with the pump lid (recommended for easy use when dispensing), but
– choose to buy all your future re-fills of the same size bottle with a plastic-free metal screw-cap instead, and simply transfer your old pump lid over to your new bottle. Every little helps!
– OR, you can bypass the plastic completely and simply opt for the (rather elegant) metal lid from the word go, keeping your Leafology supply extra ocean-loving and gleaming.
…It’s up to you!
Please read more about Von Wong’s ‘Mermaids hate plastic’ photoshoot, here.