2 thoughts on “Ep. 38 – Envisioning a Reusable Future”
Good to see another episode: lots of comments.
Regarding plastic particles and pollution: the plus side of plastics may be carbon stored in a non reactive way, but the really damaging bit is how non-digestible the microplastics AND macroplastics are to animals at all levels of the food chain. Little fish die from eating microplastics, creating food shortages all the way up the chain. And then, when a seal dies from having a tangle of plastic bags in its gut that it cant pass, and that cause it to starve, that is a tragedy. An iconic dugong died this summer from having plastic in its stomach. And since researchers determined this year that the average european adult has a credit-card’s worth of undigested plastic in their gut, the chance that it affects our health, too, is very high. So, the soil and plant roots might not mind, but animals do.
Regarding bulk buying: I forget you never lived in Davis. I got really used to buying everything in bulk at the Davis food CoOp, bringing my own containers for peanut butter, olive oil, cereal, laundry soap and cat litter. There are no large super markets to buy bulk at here in Belgium, at least not that i can drive to and buy lots at. The bulk consumer market is growing again here, but seems really aimed at individuals buying small amounts infrequently. It exists at downtown stores without parking, for example. For my family, I’m back to buying glass refillable bottles with deposits at the regular store I can park at. I still refill my own kitchen containers, but by emptying the storebought bags into them and recycling as much of the packaging I can. And the packages are more paper these days, so that is nice, but when I buy, say, 12 1kg bags of flour to get the volume I need, they come wrapped in plastic anyway! And now our stores are ot allowed to hand out plastic bags in the store to bag up fresh produce, so we take our reusable produce bags, but all the fresh produce is now shrink wrapped so it doesn’t matter anymore. I think we used one bag for a melon last week. This is a change in the last 9 month, and I suspect a direct negative consequence of the new plastic bag law.
Cheers!
That’s a good point about the plastics.
After editing this episode, I’m starting to think anew about ways I can reduce my packaging. I just met some women who own a goat farm and make goat’s milk soap here locally. I want to gradually start using more of their stuff & less liquid in plastic bottles.
Artist/Materialist 
Good to see another episode: lots of comments.
Regarding plastic particles and pollution: the plus side of plastics may be carbon stored in a non reactive way, but the really damaging bit is how non-digestible the microplastics AND macroplastics are to animals at all levels of the food chain. Little fish die from eating microplastics, creating food shortages all the way up the chain. And then, when a seal dies from having a tangle of plastic bags in its gut that it cant pass, and that cause it to starve, that is a tragedy. An iconic dugong died this summer from having plastic in its stomach. And since researchers determined this year that the average european adult has a credit-card’s worth of undigested plastic in their gut, the chance that it affects our health, too, is very high. So, the soil and plant roots might not mind, but animals do.
Regarding bulk buying: I forget you never lived in Davis. I got really used to buying everything in bulk at the Davis food CoOp, bringing my own containers for peanut butter, olive oil, cereal, laundry soap and cat litter. There are no large super markets to buy bulk at here in Belgium, at least not that i can drive to and buy lots at. The bulk consumer market is growing again here, but seems really aimed at individuals buying small amounts infrequently. It exists at downtown stores without parking, for example. For my family, I’m back to buying glass refillable bottles with deposits at the regular store I can park at. I still refill my own kitchen containers, but by emptying the storebought bags into them and recycling as much of the packaging I can. And the packages are more paper these days, so that is nice, but when I buy, say, 12 1kg bags of flour to get the volume I need, they come wrapped in plastic anyway! And now our stores are ot allowed to hand out plastic bags in the store to bag up fresh produce, so we take our reusable produce bags, but all the fresh produce is now shrink wrapped so it doesn’t matter anymore. I think we used one bag for a melon last week. This is a change in the last 9 month, and I suspect a direct negative consequence of the new plastic bag law.
Cheers!
LikeLike
That’s a good point about the plastics.
After editing this episode, I’m starting to think anew about ways I can reduce my packaging. I just met some women who own a goat farm and make goat’s milk soap here locally. I want to gradually start using more of their stuff & less liquid in plastic bottles.
LikeLike