Plastic-less living?

Plastic. It’s hard to imagine the modern world without it.

It’s in virtually every consumer product conceivable, from clothes to computers and cars and much else. It’s almost ubiquitous, yet it’s only been around for little more than a century. The Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland invented Bakelite, the first fully synthetic plastic, in 1907. Bakelite and other plastics are a tribute to God-given abilities to invent useful stuff.

And yet, as with many new technologies, useful stuff can have entirely unforeseen consequences. The world now produces an estimated 335million tonnes of plastic a year, and we haven’t worked out how to get rid of it properly when we don’t need it anymore. You may remember seeing horrific images of ocean creatures entangled in plastic in the Blue Planet II series or pictures of rivers in Asia choked by plastic rubbish.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, plastic is so durable that it effectively lasts forever. Litter is just one of the more visible impacts. It may break down into smaller bits, eventually forming microplastics and even-smaller nanoplastics. Microplastics get eaten by animals from shellfish to whales; they may accumulate in the food chain, cause starvation or be toxic.

According to a recent study, plastic bags and flexible packaging are the deadliest plastic items in the ocean, killing wildlife including whales, dolphins, turtles and seabirds around the globe. An audit conducted in 2020 by 15,000 volunteers around the world showed that Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestlé were the world’s top plastic polluting brands. Single-use plastic items are particularly problematic, reflecting badly on our throwaway culture.

Plastic-less living

It’s hard to imagine a plastic-free world, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Several years ago, a group of concerned Christians pledged to use less plastic for Lent and the idea snowballed – see their Facebook group Plastic-Less Living for ideas and support.

As the problem of plastic has become more widely-recognised, more alternatives are becoming available. I now have a bamboo toothbrush. My wife is a big fan of a local refill shop where you bring your own containers for products such as flour or rice. Magazines and newspapers, including en, are switching to biodegradable or recyclable wrappers. I’m looking forward to using my church’s compostable communion cups, and we ditched plastic cups for the after-service refreshments some time ago.

Consumers acting together can make a big difference, but governments need to play their part as well. A good example is the plastic-bag tax which was introduced in England in 2015. At the time, people were using 7.6 billion bags a year, amounting to 61,000 tonnes of plastic. The 5p levy has led to a 95% cut in plastic bag use in major supermarkets. Now most of us are used to taking our own bags to the shops; it wasn’t really that difficult to make the change, was it? The levy is going to go up to 10p in April and will apply to smaller shops as well, to further reduce plastic waste.

What can I do?

If you want to find out more about plastic waste, especially how it’s affecting the world’s oceans, check out ‘A Rocha’s Microplastics Toolbox’ at www.arocha.org. I also recommend Ruth Valerio’s L is for Lifestyle: Christian living that doesn’t cost the earth (IVP, 2019) for practical tips on cutting down on plastic and much more.

Maybe we can’t give up plastic entirely, but why not consider doing with less plastic for Lent? What could your church do to cut down on plastic? Let’s use God’s good gifts wisely, and in that way his world will suffer less.