PHP4C is starting a
ZeroWaste community-based
"Care and Share" Program
What: We want to share research and ideas about what can be done to reduce waste, and particularly address the multiple problems of plastics. We want those ideas to lead to both personal education and action as consumers, residents and voters.
Why: Waste is probably solve-able - it can be greatly reduced, to the benefit of our wallets (local tax dollars) and also the economic and health costs of local/global dumping. But plastics are a big part of waste...
Plastics: There doesn't seem to be any real answer other than to limit drastically and/or ban. As products of the oil and gas industry, they are part of environmental degradation and greenhouse gas production. They break down but never disappear. Microplastics are showing up in our food, bodies, and animals, and the larger pieces are still 'circling the drain' in our oceans and landfills. Only a very small % are recycled into virtuous goods. There are a limited number of recycling go-rounds and plastics ultimately degrade. Black plastic is not currently recyclable here. The larger the # in the triangle, the harder/costlier it is to recycle, so a "6" container might just not get recycled. A load can be ruined by small amounts of contaminants and be rejected without recycling.
How: The PHP4C steering committee will choose a topic to highlight in each newsletter or general email. The responses and ideas that you submit after that will be reviewed and aggregated in a following communication, and comments and proposed actions will be shared.
You are invited to:
Submit topics, ask more questions, provide information, suggest actions that can be taken and request help in carrying them out to infophp4ca@gmail.com. It would be great if your response can also focus on our local PHP stores, parks, schools, neighbourhoods and public spaces. Tell us the good things that you do and want to do, and don't worry about strutting your virtue - it's OK with us!
So, diving into topic #1: PLASTIC FOOD PACKAGING AND BAGS
Issue: Food shopping is an exercise in futility if you want to avoid plastics. Food products (when not in bulk) are almost universally offered in full or partial plastic packaging whether as wrap, container or tray/sleeve/lining. Then there's the price tag/sticker (even on fruit), a plastic shopping bag offered at point of sale, and the shopping receipt on thermal paper which contains the same chemicals as plastic. Most PHP grocery stores give us limited or no options to avoid plastic!
Some Questions:
HOW CAN WE REDUCE/REFUSE/REFILL/RECYCLE/RETHINK/REACT? What do you do to avoid this? What should we ask of our local stores? Should we throw out our plastic containers and bags (adding to the waste) or re-use them until they die? If reusable containers are safe during the pandemic with usual precautions (115 scientists), then why aren't stores returning to bring-your-own container programs?
Example of a possible reader response: If I can't get what I need at a farmers' market (which is much of the year), then I bike to a supermarket, greengrocers or bulk store. I put my loose purchases in plastic bags with re-used twist-ties, or zip-locks, that I bring with me, and everything goes in my back-pack after it's paid for. No has told me I can't "bring my own" at either of my 2 No Frills (Tim and Sue's, Nicholson's), or at Foods For Life, or local fruit + veg stores.
I empty the carry bags when I get home and they go back into the back-pack because they don't really get dirty and I wash the fruit + veg that I'll buy in them next time before eating anyway. I re-use bags to buy walnut pieces and other bulk foods, usually without washing after. Fridge-food is put in several IKEA glass storage containers that keep all sorts of veggies fresher longer than plastic, and I've got the beeswax re-usable wrap for cukes etc.. The final use of a bag in my household is usually to take out the organic waste. Yes, I'm using plastic briefly, but much of my fruit and veg aren't touching plastic from shortly after I get home until I eat it. I wish there was some solution for salad in the box...
I'm willing to:
- work with a group, like Roncy Reduces (?), that asks local stores to tell their suppliers to rethink or reduce their packaging in some way and helps them get comfortable with removing plastic from our lives. I just heard about this letter I can take to my stores, and maybe we could get a number of signatures on the same letter refillables letter
-Please consider signing petitions aimed at changing packaging like these: https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-1834
https://you.leadnow.ca/petitions/ban-plastic-bags-in-toronto-1
-use my vote to support a party that will implement a Single Use Plastics ban.
-I'd also love to hear others' ideas on what they do about reducing or replacing plastic.
Thank you!
PHP4 Climate Action Team