Four Inspiring Ways To Lose The Plastic Habit

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Love nature, get inspired, find solutions!

You don’t protect what you don’t value, and you don’t value what you’ve never experienced. – David Attenborough

Absolutely, Sir David! It’s the power of nature to refresh and inspire us. Nature heals, it’s our home.

Welcome to Inspirationalise. I’ve been concerned about the environment ever since I was sixteen, and in this blog I want to increase awareness of the issues but especially some of the amazing solutions science and technology can offer.

Changing the World, one Card at a Time.

Sometimes I like to surprise people by handing out one of these. I came across the Plastic Pollution Coalition in my search for environmental groups I could get inspired by. Raising awareness about the plastic things we throw away that find their way into birds, fish, rivers, oceans and all over our beautiful planet Earth.

Plastic straws are fun, but not for the birds, fish and oceans they are choking.

Solution? Don’t use plastic straws! Obvious really. Drink straight out of the cup, or the glass or bottle. And there are alternatives to the plastic straw. For example, you can even “have your straw and eat it” http://plasticpollutioncoalition.org

Read Plastic Free by Beth Terry. Beth has 100 suggestions for living a plastic-free life. Here they are: https://myplasticfreelife.com/plasticfreeguide/

http://thelastplasticstraw.org/resources/ – fun list of non-plastic straw alternatives

Cleaning up the Pacific, One Bag At A Time

I’m closely following Boyan Slat’s Ocean Cleanup project. This amazing endeavour aims to literally sweep up 50% of the Pacific Ocean’s plastic waste, starting 2018. So far they’ve raised $$31.7 million.

Says Boyan: “Our mission is to rid the world’s oceans of plastic, and this support is a major leap forward towards achieving this goal. Thanks to the generous support of these funders, the day we’ll be returning that first batch of plastic to shore is now in sight.”

Caterpillers that eat plastic

Then there’s the plastic-munching caterpillar. Luckily for all of us, the larvae of the greater wax moth (polythenus munchalotus – ok, I made that up) love to eat polythene. They turn this into ethylene glycole, which any motorist from a cool climate will recognise as the main ingredient of anti-freeze. Here‘s the article

Chemicals that dissolve plastic

To make a big dent in the plastic waste problem, all we need is the will. Scientists at the University of California have invented catalysts that can turn plastic bags back into fuel that might be used to power diesel engines. Here.