My kitchen is the heart of my home. My friends all like to hang out in there instead of in my more spacious living room.
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My kitchen is the heart of my home. My friends all like to hang out in there instead of in my more spacious living room.
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We produce nearly 300 million tons of plastic every year, half of which is for single use. More than 8 million tons of plastic is dumped in our oceans every year.
I’m part of a generation that grew up using paper bags when we went shopping. They weren’t sturdy – if the grocer put in anything damp like a head of lettuce, it would soak through and the bottom of the bag would fall apart.
Then, in the early ‘Eighties, came the plastic shopping bag. Both light and strong, this unassuming little bag soon replaced all others types. Paper bags were a thing of the past – modernity demanded plastic! They were strong enough to be reused again and again, although it’s been found that the average ‘working life’ of a plastic bag is actually fifteen minutes.
How many of us have been amused to find in granny’s kitchen drawer a stack of neatly folded plastic bags? The concept behind these bags were that they were made to be disposed of, something we were happy to do.
Plastic shopping bags are not the only change our daily shopping went through. Food could be preserved for longer, and in better condition, if wrapped in plastic film. Plastic bottles are more easy to pack than glass.
Supermarkets discovered that we consumers are attracted by bright, gaudy packaging, and plastic proved the ideal material for this. Plastic is cheap and versatile, with properties that make it ideal for many applications, but these same qualities have caused it to become an environmental issue.
The longevity of plastic means that future generations many years from now will still be dealing with our discarded plastic bottles. While our forefathers left us monuments and artistic objects of great beauty, we will be leaving vast oceans of plastic.
There’s a growing realisation that we need to put a stop to this. Unfortunately, this is more easily said than done. We need to rethink just how, for instance, our food is produced. It’s difficult to shift tons of fruit from continent to continent without protection. It’s difficult to store foodstuff in bulk and in safety without sealing it in some way.
Plastic gave us all of this, and although scientists are working to develop biodegradable plastic alternatives, these are anything up to five times the price of conventional polymers. Industry has proved reluctant to make the investment required to build production facilities.
Most of us, at one time or another, have been shocked by images of birds and marine animals left dead or dying from ingesting plastic waste. The solution, unfortunately, requires us to change the way we shop.
Would we be happy to go back to buying only seasonal produce? Would we willingly wash and reuse our glass bottles? Or go through the extra hassle involved in buying only what we need, when we need it, instead of bulking out our cupboards and fridges? Would we be happy to go back to the paper bag?
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AuthorI love cooking, and when it comes to quality I'm quite fussy. Archives
February 2018
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