I knew I’d like this book, despite its depressing subject, and I did. I’m a fan of Lucy Siegle’s writing on environmental and consumer matters, I’ve heard her say interesting things on panels and I’ve had a very few brief chats with her. She would have been the perfect chair for the otherwise all-female panel discussion on plastics at last weekend’s Bird Fair (or Birdfair, or BirdFair).
This is a book of two halves. The first tells you about why and how plastic is a massive problem. I thought I’d skip through this but I kept failing to skip because I wanted to read. There is plastic everywhere – in far more places than you may realise. And the second half of the book has a whole bunch of sensible practical things to do to reduce your plastic use. You’ll struggle to drop plastics altogether but you will come much closer than you are at the moment if you follow the advice in this book.
I’m already doing quite a few good things (which is a relief) but not nearly enough. I have got a reusable coffee cup (and I use it a lot these days), I do use loose leaf tea (although that was before I realised that tea bags contain plastic – did you know?), I do have milk delivered in glass bottles (for a variety of reasons), I refuse plastic straws, I do recycle and I could go on for a while but there is so much more I could do, and have resoved to do after reading this book.
My green fleece is bad news for two reasons – it sheds plastic and Lucy Siegle doesn’t like fleeces. I’m not sure which will motivate me most not to buy a new one. I bought this fleece years ago, actually because I knew it was partly made from recycled bottles. It’s a bit like my diesel car which I bought for environmental reasons many years ago and then discovered that knowledge had moved on and I’d bought the wrong thing! Well, just as the car is ancient and has done over 230,000 miles the fleece is over 20 years old (because there is a Facebook photo of me wearing it with my kids from almost that long ago!) and so I’m doing quite well on the ‘Don’t buy any clothing that you won’t wear 30+ times’ score. If this fleece, which I’m wearing while writing this review, is shedding plastic every time it is washed then I’m surprised there is anything left to wear after all these years. I won’t buy another one in 10 years’ time when it may give up the ghost.
There are braver members of my family who get into interesting conversations at supermarket counters about whether they can take things without them being wrapped in more and more plastic. You see – I’m the shy one!
This is a campaigner’s Bible written by a campaigner for people who want to campaign but also just to do some good on their own. It’s upbeat, it’s entertaining, it’s sensible it’s important. Buy it, read it, do it!
Clever cover too by Bonnie Monteleone.
Turning the Tide on Plastic: how humanity (and you) can make our globe clean again by Lucy Siegle is published by Trapeze.
Remarkable Birds by Mark Avery is published by Thames and Hudson – for reviews see here.
Inglorious: conflict in the uplands by Mark Avery is published by Bloomsbury – for reviews see here.
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I’d find it really hard to live – sometimes in the literal “the alternative is death” sense – without fleeces. But then whereas I wash a shirt or pair of socks after each use, a fleece is only washed a few times a year, generally before and after a big trip to the mountains (unless I spill something on one at home!).
A bit like driving, however green you aspire to be, unless you can live as an off-grid hermit you have to live in the world. There are better ways for me to reduce my plastic consumption than giving up fleeces.
But a bit like action on climate change, individual changes and sacrifices only go a short way unless government and industry change the ground rules. Calling for cosmetic change costs a politician nothing – its when there’s a debate on a new airport runway that we understand whether or not they really care, and so far most still fail that test.
jbc – well said.
Re Fleeces
As a family, we have loads and I was worried about the microfibres we were shedding in the wash.
We found something called a Guppyfriend which is a mesh bag to wash them inside.
The mesh traps microfibres and you can then put them in the bin rather than let them go into the ocean. Seems like a better idea than throwing away lots of perfectly serviceable clothes.
Simon – thank you for your first comment here.
Simon, that sounded interesting so I had a look. Guppyfriend is £29.99 on Amazon UK, $29.99 in the US direct from Patagonia, both of which strike me as extremely expensive for what is actually nothing more than a finely woven but water permeable plastic bag. Someone is making a very good gross margin.
Has anyone found one at a sensible price in the UK?
A quick observation. I did my research and I approached Lucy Siegle, through various channels, to sit on the Plastics Debate panel at Birdfair, but she didn’t respond at all for months. Then last minute she declined. I also asked the male CEO of Iceland Supermarkets but he declined. I also asked a high-profile male ocean plastics campaigner, but they declined. A female ocean plastics film-maker also declined. All cited family holiday commitments in August taking priority. Some also hinted that Birdfair, in a field at Rutland Water, wasn’t the type of event that they did. It wasn’t London, you see! I do think the mid-August, school summer holidays, timing does and will rule out a lot of folk we would all like to see at Birdfair. We have to accept and respect that. So many people approached by Birdfair each year say no, which must be so frustrating for Birdfair organisers. I believe that wonderful Ellie Harrison has made it quite clear that August is her time with her family.
Organising these debates has made me realise how lucky we are that certain ‘names’ in the wildlife world put Birdfair in their diaries as non-negotiable each year. That must frustrate their agents (‘the gatekeepers’). We all are invested in Birdfair. It is part of the rhythm of the natural history year for so many of us. We must recognise, as I was forced to this year, that some folk in the wider environmental/sustainability world are just not invested, they just don’t get it, and nor importantly do their agents (especially as everyone gives their time for free). The agents of some of the regular loyal Birdfair personalities might dictate terms in August 2019 if Countryfile Live Yorkshire comes asking with lucrative appearance fees.
Rob – thanks for that. Useful to know.
Everything has an environmental cost. If the alternative to fleece is to go back to wool, then raising more sheep leads to uplands being overgrazed or sheepwrecked as George Monbiot would say. Replacing plastic packaging with paper, cardboard or plastic substitutes made from starch would require more land to grow trees, potatoes etc.
All the recent attention focusing on plastic seems to be saying that is bad full stop. Personally I don’t think that plastic itself is bad, it’s what people do with it that causes environmental damage. I think that if all plastic was recyclable and there was a way to ensure people used less and recycled everything they did use then plastic might well be the least bad option.