A lot of my educational life was spent teaching about environmental issues - this blog is a bit different as it is a call to action - hope you are inspired! Let me know if you are.
In my handbag is my latest buy and I think
you’ll agree it 'steels the show' when it comes to ecologically friendly
consumerism. All at the same time I am protecting my health, saving the oceans,
doing my bit for global warming and taking a swipe at greedy corporations.
My new purchase sits snuggly in my bag alongside
my foldup cloth bag – since the ban on free plastic bags I never go anywhere
without it. And this should give you a clue as to what I’m taking about – it’s
that 20th century invention: plastic. We all know plastic is bad as
harrowing pictures of strangled seals, trapped turtles or birds dying of
starvation with their guts full of plastic appear on our social media feeds, but
what I didn’t know is that the single-use plastic drink bottle is far more
sinister.
I know I should cut down on plastics, but a
look through my weekly shop and the amount of plastic is simply overwhelming; I
can’t do anything about all that packaging and it can just feel so disempowering.
But I can do something about changing my drinking habits and that’s where my
beautiful stainless steel bottle really steels the show.
I no longer spend my hard-earned money on
water in a plastic bottle and that makes me smug. To understand my
self-satisfaction you will need to follow me for a minute as I trace the journey
of one bottle of water from source to ocean.
The humble drinking bottle began life in
the laboratory. Clever scientists took the raw material of oil and created
PET(E) – that is polyethylene terephthalate or, as I prefer to call it, PETE. PETE
is an incredible material; it is clear, tough and shatterproof. The downside is
that it was only ever created for single-use. If you decide to re-use a PETE
bottle you are likely to absorb some of the dangerous toxins used to make it as
they leach out with multiple use.
So re-use is not a good idea, but surely
it’s fine as long as we recycle. Well partly, however, in reality less than 10%
of plastic bottles are recycled and MOST of the 3 million bottles we throw away
every day end up in the oceans – out of sight, out of mind.
You are probably wondering just like I did,
how the bottles get in the oceans. Some bottles are blown by the wind into the
river and float out to sea, but the majority is buried in landfill where the
plastic gradually breaks down and is leached into the ground water and gets
into the river that way. Breakdown sounds good doesn’t it? But breakdown is not
the same as biodegrade. It takes 500 years for plastic to break down completely,
and breakdown creates trillions of microscopic pieces of plastic that are eaten
by fish and fed up the food chain back to us – 5.2 trillion at the latest count.
And that is serious. Studies done on
laboratory animals have shown that PETE can cause genetic damage. Other studies
suggest links to breast, ovarian and prostrate cancers, to liver damage and
diabetes as well as decreasing male fertility. It’s not just ocean wildlife
that is affected.
So what about my latest purchase? My stunning
stainless steel water bottle – well, I think it is rather beautiful and it has
certainly attracted bottle envy from my friends. It’s a one-off-buy as it will
last for life – always assuming I don’t lose it! But the joy is that it is
insulated and keeps the water cool. Surely there is nothing worse than warm
water out of a plastic bottle that has been sitting in the car!
So I can sip my cool water and feel smug –
not only am I not adding umpteen plastic bottles to the ocean every year, but
I’m protecting my health – stainless steel by the way doesn't contain any
hazardous chemicals.
Think of the knock-on effects from this one
consumer choice. If we all did this we would save the millions of barrels of
oil that is used for the sole production of disposable plastic bottles. We
would save water – the manufacture of plastic bottles takes more water than the
bottle actually contains. We would not have to transport the bottles from the
factory to the consumer burning gallons of oil-derived diesel and petrol – that
has to be good for global warming. And we will have stopped this indestructible
substance filling our landfill and entering the oceans to interact with the entire
ecosystem of the planet.
And for those who want to take a swipe against
big business, we will have struck a blow against the only people to benefit by
the commoditization of water – the multinational companies who bottle tap water
and sell it back to us at huge profit, exploiting our determination to follow
NHS guidelines and drink eight glasses of water a day.
And this is just the beginning. My dear
little bottle only holds 300mm. I want the return of public drinking fountains
in every town and city as we used to have when I was a child and like many
towns in Europe today. I want my local authority to ban the provision of
plastic bottles at events they hold and provide water as a right to anyone who
wants it – to encourage us to come and fill up our reusuable bottles. I’m going
to ask my gym not to sell bottled water but instead sell lovely refillable stainless
steel bottles that I know we are all going to want to buy.
And the best thing is that all the money
I’ll save on not buying water in plastic bottles means I can buy stunning stainless
steel bottles for all my friends and family for Christmas.
I give you the star that steels the show –
the stainless steel bottle – good for the environment, good for our health and
good for our pockets – we are all winners!
Join me and ‘Ban the Bottle’! Post a picture of yourself holding your stainless steel bottle.
