मुख्य Quitting Plastic: Easy and practical ways to cut down the plastic in your life


Where do you start if you want to reduce the plastic in your life? Especially when most of us are wearing it, eating and drinking from it, sitting on it, walking on it, and probably even ingesting it. Anywhere you go, plastic is within easy reach - even in Antarctica and the North Pole.

We didn't quit plastic overnight. In fact, it's still a work in progress. But along the way, we have learnt a lot by researching the issue from the grass roots up, speaking to people, and finding out what works and what doesn't. We answer the tricky questions, like 'How will I wash my hair?', 'Do I have to give up crackers?', 'What about my bin liner?' and 'Is this going to be expensive?'

As we continue to remove throw-away plastics from our daily lives, we've discovered we're friendlier with our local communities, we're eating healthier food, and de-cluttering happens by itself. It feels great!
वर्ष: 4
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भाषा: english
पन्ने: 155
ISBN 10: 1760528714
ISBN 13: 978-1760528713
File: EPUB, 2.21 MB
डाउनलोड (epub, 2.21 MB)

Most frequetly terms


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वर्ष: 2016
भाषा: english
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Understanding Social Life. The Method Called Verstehen

वर्ष: 1975
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CLARA WILLIAMS ROLDAN is a young policy and legislative advisor in NSW Parliament. Witnessing parliament at work has convinced Clara that lots of individual actions which may seem small at the time can drive important changes in our lives. Clara is writing with her mother, LOUISE WILLIAMS, a Walkley-award winning journalist and writer with a lifelong interest in environmental protection. She has served on the Waste and Recovery Strategic Reference Group of the Northern Beaches Council in Sydney and is co-founder of the Baringa Bush Community Garden. Louise is the author of A True Story of the Great Escape.

First published in 2019

Copyright © Clara Williams Roldan with Louise Williams 2018


Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065


Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

Email: info@allenandunwin.com

Web: www.allenandunwin.com

ISBN 978 1 76052 871 3

eBook ISBN 978 1 76087 052 2

Cover design: Madeleine Kane

Cover illustration: Estee Sarsfield

Dedicated to my wonderful grandmother, Margaret (‘Marga’), who passed away during the writing of this book. Thank you for teaching me how to knit, for sharing the books you loved, making the best bolognese ever—and never being ‘ordinary’.

We all miss you so much.

1 Breaking Up With Plastic

2 Good Plastic, Bad Plastic

3 Old Habits Die Hard

4 Getting Started

5 The Kitchen

6 The Laundry and Cleaning

7 The Bathroom

8 Your Wardrobe

9 Plastic-free Kids

10 Entertaining, and Eating (and Drinking) Out

11 The End of Single-use Plastic?

What More Can I Do?



I am a 27-year-old eco-warrior. Just kidding. But I do have an issue with plastic and how much we use.

When it comes to reducing plastic, it can sometimes feel like a battle. A battle against the sheer volume of plastic that has crept into virtually every corner of our daily lives. A slog through the immense number of blogs, how-to-guides and #hashtags to find good, practical information about why and how to use less plastic. Sometimes it feels like you’ve lost before you’ve even started.

I didn’t quit plastic overnight. In fact, I haven’t got rid of it entirely. That’s partly because plastic is so intrinsic to our lives, quitting will always be a work in progress. And it’s also partly because I’ve discovered there are some plastics we still need. This book is about avoiding the many, many plastics we really can do without.

Everyone has their own reason for wanting to quit plastic. Maybe you want to reduce waste; maybe you just want less stuff filling up your house, your bin and your life. Mine came down to health: my own and that of the environment.

It’s no secret that plastic waste is overwhelming our natural environment. What you may not know is that virtually all the plastics ever manufactured are still with us, somewhere on earth. And, of all the plastic wrappers, packaging and bags we use, worldwide, about one-third leak into our oceans and natural environments. While recycling seems like a good solution, the reality is only nine per cent of all the plastics we’ve manufactured to date has been processed for re-use. Which explains how we have a floating island of plastic in the Pacific Ocean, the great Pacific Garbage Patch, that’s almost as big as Queensland. Plastic’s durability, which makes it so useful and versatile, also means it doesn’t break down like organic materials, leaving it to clog up our waterways and choke our ecosystems, wildlife and sea life. Putting it that way, it seems illogical that such a strong, high-performance material is used to make disposable items that we toss away, often within minutes and without a second thought.

And what about all the plastic we can’t see? Microplastics are entering our ecosystems—and the food chain—as plastics break down into tiny fragments. Even washing our clothes is fuelling the problem; synthetic fabrics shed billions of tiny fibres that run off into our waste water.

It’s also worth considering that part of what makes plastic so hardwearing are chemical additives such as something called BPA (Bisphenol A). You may recognise it from the number of water bottles, Tupperware containers and even tin cans that now proclaim themselves ‘BPA free’. That’s because while BPA is great for making plastic more durable, transparent and heat resistant, in the human body it doesn’t do such great stuff.

For me, quitting plastic has been an exercise of trial and error. It has been coffee spilled from leaking travel mugs, the absurd Tetris of trying to carry all my groceries in my arms when I’ve forgotten a reusable bag, and that distinctive odour of sauerkraut that followed me everywhere when I was experimenting with apple cider vinegar as a substitute for hair conditioner. It’s also been a family effort, as my first go at the age of sixteen challenged, and eventually galvanised, us all to find creative ways to reduce the plastic in our lives. Which is why I am writing this book with my mum, Louise (who knows a lot about both writing and plastics), why my younger sister, Elowyn, did the illustrations, and why my older sister, Prema—a new mum—was such an invaluable source of information about how to be plastic-free with babies and toddlers.

Over ten years a lot has changed. The clunky online message boards I first sought out have been replaced with communities going ‘plastic lite’ or ‘plastic free’ and who are keen to share their tips. They’ve been followed by innovative businesses and manufacturers offering alternative materials—as well as an explosion in research and development (R&D) that is putting more and more plant-based bioplastics and compostable packaging made from plant fibres within reach.

If you are already actively taking steps to reduce your waste, you’ll know it’s pretty satisfying. I started using a reusable coffee cup in 2010, which, for someone at my level of coffee addiction, adds up to two less disposable cups and lids a day in landfill, for eight years. That’s approximately 5844 cups (I did the maths). It’s powerful to see how much impact you can have as an individual.


I don’t think we realised how much plastic was in our lives until we tried to reduce it.

At first I thought we’d just go cold turkey, but then we realised it would have to be a process.

We wrote lists of things we wanted to change and we researched alternatives and their costs, so it took about three months to transition.

Nowadays we cook a lot more from scratch, make our own nut milks, cleaning products and even face scrubs—but the one thing I haven’t solved is where to get corn chips without plastic!

—Aimee Pickles, Christchurch, New Zealand

Aimee, a 26-year-old personal trainer, says there was no single trigger to giving up plastic, just a growing awareness of the damage it was doing, especially as she lives near the coast. So, she and her partner, A.J. Dixson, thought they should ‘give quitting plastic a go’. She’s found it fascinating and now considers being plastic-free an engaging hobby.

When you decide to quit plastic, it’s easy to change your habits if you create consequences for yourself.

If you don’t bring a reusable coffee cup, don’t have a coffee, or ‘drink in’; if you forget your bags, don’t go shopping; if you forget a water bottle, use a bubbler or tap. It works!

—Suzie Morris, Caloundra, Queensland

Suzie came face to face with ocean plastics on a holiday in Thailand—and it changed her life. Not only did she see people tossing their rubbish directly into the turquoise waters, snorkelling revealed just as many plastics as fish. When the one-time beautician came home to Sydney, she immediately gave up disposable plastics and shifted industries and states. She moved to Caloundra, where she now runs the local Source Bulk Foods store and hosts workshops about how to live well with less.

I am optimistic, I think there is a new environmental movement coming through.

There is so much awareness out there now about plastics and lots of new small eco businesses are popping up. I know there are lots of people who will still put one orange in a plastic bag—but there are also lots of people passionate about change.

—Shannon Lenihan, Wellington, New Zealand

There was no light-bulb moment for Shannon, a 27-year-old graduate architect, just the long slow realisation that plastic wasn’t doing the planet any good. Having been brought up to consider the environment, she started researching plastics as she got older and gradually made the shift. She’s learned to make her own beeswax wraps, face scrubs and moisturiser, and doesn’t hesitate to email companies and challenge them on plastic packaging. And some do get back to her with new ideas, she says.

Don’t underestimate your power as a consumer.

If consumers tell us they would like to buy a certain product but have decided not to because it comes in plastic, we can push that message up the line to the producer.

We’ve done that recently with a popular product that was in plastic shrink wrap—now it comes ‘naked’ on an unbleached cardboard backing.

—Joanne Musgrave, Tuggerah, New South Wales, founder Shop Naturally

Struggling with sensitivities to chemicals, Joanne realised she could combine her professional web development skills with her search for the best natural products. After combating her own problems, she decided to establish Shop Naturally, an online sales site linking customers wanting to avoid certain chemicals to innovative eco-businesses. That included reducing the plastics in her life and, more recently, completely eliminating plastic packaging for shipping in her business, right down to swapping plastic packaging tape for water-activated paper tape.

And we’ve also discovered unexpected benefits. Plastic isn’t just a material, it is a lifestyle or even a culture. Plastic has given us drive-through fast-food outlets and anonymous supermarkets groaning with pre-packaged prewrapped meals and ingredients from all over the world. Nothing wrong with that. But to reduce our plastic footprint we’ve had to change the way we shop. We’re using smaller local stores that will put our purchases into our own reusable containers or bags, and bulk food shops and farmers’ markets. We’ve also been inspired to try growing our own (it turns out all sorts of things are easy to grow, even on a windowsill). That means we’re friendlier with our local communities, we’re eating healthier, fresher food, and we’re doing more cooking from scratch. It’s also pushed us towards decluttering. And, if you think about it, avoiding plastics can also remind us we don’t always have to rush. Are we so busy we need to power along the street clutching a take-away coffee cup? Maybe we could follow the Europeans’ lead, pause for a moment and enjoy a coffee out of an old-fashioned ‘drink in’ ceramic cup.

You will, no doubt, find some people who will roll their eyes at your efforts. Why is plastic pollution our problem? Shouldn’t governments and businesses be sorting it out? Well, yes, of course. But think about it the other way around. How consumers shop and behave tells businesses and governments a lot, and that drives policies and practices. If we all sat around waiting for someone else to do something, then nothing would happen. Often, it’s the small stuff that really matters. Eventually, it does add up to change.

This book is a tool to make reducing the plastics in your life as easy and practical as possible. And it is pretty easy, I promise you. We also look at how the future might pan out. To get you started today, we’ve broken quitting plastic down into logical steps and room-by-room guides to help you decide what you can quit and what you might use instead. You don’t have to do it all. There is no way to fail quitting plastic, because it’s a process. Even if you only ditch the big four—the billions of single-use plastic bags, disposable cups, straws and plastic water bottles we use every day—you can make a huge difference.

—Clara Williams Roldan


1. Make a resolution to reduce the plastics you throw away—and post it prominently on social media. Your pride will propel you into action and you’ll open up opportunities for conversations with others doing, or thinking about, the same thing.

2. Buy a metal water bottle and use the tap. There’s no reason for anyone with access to safe, clean water to buy it bottled in plastic. It’s not better for us—in fact, tests show almost all bottled water contains microplastics that we ingest.

3. Stash reusable bags in useful places—folded in your bag, in the back of the car. (I don’t have a car so I use a granny trolley on wheels.)

4. Carry a reusable coffee cup. If you forget, don’t use a take-away ‘just that once’, sit down and enjoy your coffee in a real ceramic cup.

5. Say no to plastic straws and balloons—convenient and fun for a few minutes or hours, dangerous to wildlife and the environment for decades.

6. Give up liquid soap and shampoo. Soap and shampoo bars work just as well and come wrapped in paper.

7. Swap the cling film in the kitchen drawer for greaseproof paper or beeswax wraps.

8. Bake a batch of biscuits—flour, sugar, butter and eggs are all available in paper or cardboard packaging (and are a great way to reward yourself for your plastic-free efforts).

9. Eat an ice cream in a cone—the ultimate waste-free take-away treat!

10. Pick up a few pieces of plastic litter every day. Sadly, this is not hard to find. Every bit we take off the street means less plastic washing into the waterways.

Plastic really is fantastic! In about 60 years plastic has transformed life on earth. I don’t think there are enough superlatives to adequately describe how much plastic has changed our lives. Virtually anywhere you go on the planet today plastic will be within easy reach, even in Antarctica and at the North Pole. In fact, most of us are wearing it, shod in it, eating and drinking from it, carrying it, sitting on it, walking on it, travelling in it and probably even ingesting it. It’s cheap, versatile, convenient, lightweight, strong, waterproof and hygienic—and can even insulate us from electricity.

I can’t imagine life pre-plastic. My generation began reaching for plastic as babies, our infant gyms and cots adorned with shiny, colourful, wipe-clean plastic trinkets and toys. You all know how it went from there, whether you were a Lego kid, a Barbie kid, a PlayStation kid or an iPad kid; pretty much everyone except, perhaps, our grandparents, grew up in Plasticville.

Plastics aren’t all bad—or all good—they are an integral part of life on the planet today. So, if you want to cut back on plastics, it is worth knowing what to avoid and why.

Growing up in Plasticville

Humanity’s love affair with plastic began in earnest after World War II. Like many technological advances, war sped up the development of a range of plastics that had initially emerged in the early 1900s, or even the late 1800s. It was after World War II that the first of today’s workhorse plastics—like Styrofoam, acrylic, nylon and polyethylene—made it out of the lab and into mass, daily use. Life had never looked so bright.

In 1945, Penguin published a book simply called Plastics, which anticipated the dawn of a glorious new era. The new plastic man (yes, no gender considerations then) of the future would be born ‘into a world of colour and bright shining surfaces where childish hands find nothing to break, no sharp edges, or corners to cut or graze, no crevices to harbour dirt or germs . . . The wall of his nursery, his bath . . . all his toys, his cot, the moulded light perambulator in which he takes the air, the teething ring he bites, the unbreakable bottle he feeds from [are all plastic]. As he grows he cleans his teeth and brushes his hair with plastic brushes, clothes himself in plastic clothes, writes his first lesson with a plastic pen and does his lessons in a book bound with plastic. The windows of his school curtained with plastic cloth entirely grease- and dirt-proof . . . and the frames, like those of his house are of moulded plastic, light and easy to open never requiring any paint.’1

How plastic changed the world

So, how exactly did plastic change our world? From the 1940s and ’50s mass plastic manufacturing took off and a steady stream of new and ‘fabulous’ plastics took on traditional materials in virtually every category of production and won; replacing paper and glass in packaging, wood in furniture, natural fibres in clothes and carpets, curtains and upholstery and even fluffy toys, rubber in hoses and all sorts of previously ‘rubberised’ products, and an increasing percentage of the steel and other metals in cars, trucks and aircraft.2

It changed the way we live. In a flash, humanity went from the relative scarcity of natural materials and the deprivation of wartime to a utopia of plenty. We had a new, cheap material that appeared to last forever. In 1955 Time magazine ran a major feature with the somewhat celebratory title ‘Throw Away Living’—it seemed humanity had entered a decadent Golden Age. Cleaning up after ourselves was just another antiquated waste of time, while throwing out more and more disposable items symbolised modernity and efficiency. It represented a triumph over the drudgery of the past. Why wash up if you could just throw the dishes and cutlery away? And plastic was at the forefront of this modern, new world. Sounds great, and in some ways it was—and still is. But if it also sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is.

What is plastic anyway?

‘Plastic’ is just a general term for something that is malleable. At some stage in their production, all plastics flow so they can be moulded, extruded, stretched or cast into any shape, spun into fibres or applied as a coating. It’s this versatility that gave plastics their common name.

Most plastics, as we know them today, are made from fossil fuels using the by-products of oil and gas refining. Take, for example, ethylene gas, which would otherwise be discarded by oil refineries. In the 1930s British chemists discovered it could be turned into polyethylene, which makes up much of our packaging, or used to make polypropylene, which is then turned into things like yoghurt tubs, disposable nappies and even car interiors.

What we commonly call plastics are actually synthetic polymers. They start life as basic building blocks called monomers derived from oil and gas, which are linked together into long chains (polymers) and combined with other chemicals. The long chains have a backbone of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms branching off this spine, as well as a variety of other elements that affect their characteristics, like nitrogen (nylon) and chlorine (PVC). These long chains allow elements to bond in many different combinations and patterns, giving plastics their multitude of properties and enabling chemists and manufacturers to tailor them to almost any purpose.

This might seem like a bit more than most of us need to know, but it is interesting. Why? Because the carbon spine doesn’t necessarily have to come from oil and gas. It can come from plants and even bacteria, which are also rich sources of carbon, but, unlike fossil fuels, are renewable and biodegradable.

The first known bioplastic was discovered in 1926 by the French scientist Maurice Lemoigne while he was working with bacteria.3 However, as oil and gas were cheap and abundant it was of little interest. During the oil crisis of the 1970s, bioplastics were again briefly reconsidered. More recently, there has been intense scientific and commercial interest in making bioplastics using sugar cane, corn and agricultural and forestry waste. These renewable bioplastics are coming onto the market; they’re renewable and can be composted after use—and they’re coming to supermarkets and take-away food outlets near you! But more about them later.

Good plastic

Before the first plastics were invented (Bakelite, for example, was first produced in 19074—think early retro home phones with numbers and dials), we relied on natural materials that were expensive and relatively difficult to harvest. We used to turn ivory, tortoiseshell, bone, skins, fleeces, rubber, wood, iron, tin, silver, gold, glass, porcelain and even papier-mâché into everyday items, which required lots of effort and put pressure on the natural environment. Elephants, for example, felt this demand keenly. As did all those poor tortoises who provided us with tortoiseshell. The products made from these natural materials were costly, as the finite supply of resources and the hard labour required to harvest them would suggest.

Then along came plastic. Imagine the arrival of a new material that could be fashioned cheaply into almost anything. We were freed from the constraints of the natural world and a whole new treasure trove of products appeared (and they’re still coming). Ordinary people could—for the first time in human history—afford lots and lots of colourful, clean stuff. Someone started calling us consumers, and it’s stuck.

But cheaper consumer goods were, of course, only one outcome.

Plastics contribute to health and safety by keeping food products fresh for much longer and delaying food spoilage, which, in turn, reduces food waste. Plastic pipes and containers also provide a cheap and effective means for transporting and storing clean water, something fundamental to life. And, as plastics have a very high strength to weight ratio, you don’t need a lot of them to do the job. This delivers big energy savings by reducing the weight of packaging, or of consumer products themselves. Plastic packaging, for example, normally makes up only between one and three per cent of the weight of what you buy: 1.5 litres of liquid can be safely stored in a plastic bottle weighing only 38 grams, cheese can be wrapped in 2 grams of plastic film and yoghurt can be stored in a pot weighing less than 5 grams.5 Comparable glass containers may be up to ten times heavier.6

Strong, lightweight plastics have revolutionised transport, too: more can be carried, using much less fuel than in the days of heavy glass and metal packaging. And think in about modern vehicles and improvements in fuel economy. Cars are now about fifteen per cent plastic by weight and the Boeing Dreamliner is about 50 per cent plastic by weight.7 Plastic is also an ideal lightweight and protective casing that helps make products like mobile phones and devices, TVs and computers cheaper and more durable. In construction, plastics are used in lightweight, economic panels, sheets, foams, insulation, pipes, coverings, seals and finishings.

And what about medical devices, which were once made mostly from metal, glass, ceramics and even wood? Over the last 30 years the use of plastics in all kinds of common applications, such as in IV bags, lab equipment, insulin pumps, surgical instruments, catheter bags, face masks, syringes, dental instruments, implants and prosthetics has soared.8 Plastic is cheap, so it can be disposed of after a single use, greatly reducing the risk of cross infection. Plastic is also smooth and water resistant, and can be manufactured with an antimicrobial additive.9 Even my grandmother’s hip replacement relied on plastic; it set off the alarm going through security at the airport because of its metal parts, but it was the biocompatible plastic lining10 that allowed her to move smoothly.

Bad plastic

As plastics are so incredibly durable, almost every plastic item we’ve ever produced is still with us, somewhere on our planet (some have been incinerated). If you are interested enough to be reading this, you’ve likely seen the footage of a diver making his way through a sea of plastic in Bali, and the distressing and disturbing images of animals that have been killed after ingesting or becoming entangled in plastic. The problem isn’t necessarily plastics themselves but the disposable culture that has grown up around them.

We are producing plastics at a blistering pace. Global plastic production increased twenty-fold over the past half century and is forecast to double again in the next twenty years. And much of these are single use. The most obvious example is the plastic shopping bag, still hanging limply at the check-out in many supermarkets and other stores around the world, ready to be filled with groceries that are, themselves, covered in throw-away plastic. An average plastic shopping bag is used for twenty minutes, but it has a ‘lifespan’ in our environment of hundreds of years. In Australia, five billion plastic bags were handed out at check-outs every year before new bans came into force in some states in 2018—and just four per cent were recycled.11 In New Zealand it’s 1.6 billion12 plastic bags a year, although a ban announced in 2018 will drive a phaseout. Worldwide, we’re using about a trillion—a statistic so big it’s almost incomprehensible. What might make more sense is the projection that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans, or the discovery of waste plastics in the Mariana Trench, at 11 kilometres below the sea’s surface, the world’s deepest feature. Of these, 89 per cent were single-use plastics.13

Other high-volume single-use plastics are things like straws and disposable coffee cups lined with plastic, and plastic water bottles. Along with plastic bags, these are the big four of waste plastic. They are lightweight, so they ‘leak’ easily into the environment. They are free, so we don’t value them, and they are used only briefly before being tossed. To me, single-use plastic is an obvious place to start; it’s easy to bring your own cup, straw, bag or even cutlery. It’s also great that in some supermarkets customers are no longer offered free bags and must pay a small charge if they want plastic. A start, but it’s not enough.

There are also lots of other short-time-use plastics that end up in the natural environment and begin to break down, finding their way into the stomachs of virtually every species on earth. Think of items like toothbrushes and plastic bottles and lids that are found washed up on distant beaches, and discarded plastic fishing nets that trap countless sea creatures. Half to 80 per cent of all debris found on the world’s shorelines is now plastic.14 In the 1960s, plastics were first found in carcasses of dead seabirds that had mistaken them for food.15 Since then, 260 species—from invertebrates to sea life and mammals—have been reported ingesting or becoming entangled by plastics. Today, waste plastics contaminate soils and water and have found their way into ecosystems and food chains.

Theoretically, we could be collecting and recycling all this plastic. But we’re not. In 2017 scientists worked out how much plastic has ever been produced on earth and where it is now.16 They found that, as of 2015, humanity had produced 8300 tonnes of virgin plastics; most of which, 6300 tonnes or 76 per cent, had already been thrown away. So, where is it all? Only nine per cent has been recycled and twelve per cent has been burned (the equivalent of burning fossil fuels). Most waste plastic remains in the environment, either buried in landfills or as rubbish literally strewn across the planet. The study estimated twice as much plastic waste will have leaked into the environment by 2025. That doesn’t mean recycling is futile. Some countries do have good records and many more have announced ambitious targets and plans. But, so far, recycling has fallen (far!) short. This means using less plastic, or quitting plastic, if we want to address the problem at its source.


Remember all the panic a couple of years ago about face scrubs and other cosmetics filled with plastic microbeads?17 We discovered we were dutifully attacking our blackheads and sloughing off our dead skin day and night, then blithely washing plastic microbeads down the drain into our waterways. Now we’ve got some alternative products available with things like ground apricot kernels and other nice stuff in them. Alas, it turns out, it wasn’t just vanity that was plasticising our ecosystems at the micro level.

First, we’ve got lots and lots of large pieces of plastic slowly breaking down into microplastics in our oceans and freshwater systems and along shorelines and accumulating in soil on land. Beware, for example, of ‘degradable’ or ‘oxo-degradable’ plastics often marketed as ‘greener’ alternatives. All these labels mean is that they break down into lots of tiny pieces of plastic. In Europe, several nations are rolling out bans.18 Then we’ve got a whole range of processes and products that deliver very small particles or fibres directly into the environment. One of these is machine washing clothes made from common synthetic fabrics. A synthetic fleece garment sheds about 1.5 grams of tiny plastic fibres per wash.19 All that active wear, like yoga leggings and gym gear, is also a big culprit because of the fabric it’s made from. So, too, are some detergents (pods and tablets) and things like wet wipes made from synthetic fibres, take-away coffee cups (the plastic lining breaks down), and even tennis balls, glitter and teabags.20

What happens to microfibres and microplastics is all too quickly becoming apparent; they have been found worldwide. Hundreds of scientific reports have documented microplastics ingested by marine species at every level of the food chain, and from the ocean’s surface to the sea floor and from the North to the South Pole.21 How does this affect us? It’s a question of keen scientific interest. We do know that plankton and other small organisms that have ingested microfibres are suffering health issues. We also know that large numbers of fibres have been found in fish and shellfish sold in markets for human consumption. New Zealand scientists began testing natural and synthetic fabrics and carpet fibres in 2018 to document how different materials break down in water.22 Cotton and wool fabrics also shed fibres when washed, but initial results suggest that—in contrast to plastics—natural fibres biodegrade fairly quickly.

All of which could seem depressing. But science is about solving problems. The first step is always to identify and understand the challenge. Many people worldwide are working on microplastics and lots of manufacturers are phasing them out or looking for solutions like filters (more about this in Chapter 11, The End of Single-use Plastic?). For us as consumers, knowing more about plastics is a good way we can work out what we want to eliminate and why.

Harmful chemicals in plastics—what to avoid

If the grisly images of marine life maimed and killed by waste plastics aren’t enough to get our attention, new Australian research linking plastics to smaller penises probably is. Two University of Melbourne researchers concluded in 2018 that exposure to the chemicals in plastics is ‘the number one reproductive issue for men’.

Some of the same chemical additives that make plastics so durable and versatile are in the spotlight, including BPA, found in common packaging plastics called polycarbonates, and phthalates, found in PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, also a familiar household plastic. BPA and phthalates are endocrine disruptors that can mimic the body’s natural hormones and have been linked to a long list of health issues such as infertility, obesity, breast cancer, prostate cancer, heart disease and diabetes.23 A 2014 investigation by Choice, one of many worldwide, found food can be contaminated by chemicals from some types of plastic packaging—from fresh meat and cheese to health foods and even organic vegetables.24

Choice zoomed in on BPA in many polycarbonates—often used for food storage containers and bottles and to line cans—and phthalates in most PVC (polyvinyl chloride)—used to make cling film and seals for jars and bottles. This is easier to remember if you think of their symbols: number 7 is a polycarbonate; number 3 is a PVC. Both BPA and phthalates have been found in human populations, probably because so many of us experience chronic low-level exposure. The University of Melbourne results are controversial, and regulators worldwide have long claimed low levels of exposure to chemicals via plastics is safe. However, in 2009, a landmark British publication concluded plastics ‘present concerns for wildlife and human health’ and ‘many uncertainties remain’.25

There are alternatives: both safer plastics and natural materials. But one thing to take into account is that BPA-free labels don’t guarantee a product is safe for use with food or drink. Concerns about BPA are so widespread that many manufacturers are removing it—especially as babies and children are most vulnerable. However, scientists are beginning to question the safety of another substance commonly used to replace BPA—Bisphenol S (BPS). BPS has also recently been found to interfere with the body’s hormone system.26 This is lot to take in, I know. Fortunately, there are many ways to buy food and drink without plastic. One of the easiest switches—and it’s much cheaper, too—is to replace bottled water with a stainless-steel bottle filled with tap water.

What plastic is what?

Code Plastic type Some uses Human health risks

1 Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) • Water and soft-drink bottles

• Jars for products such as peanut butter

No known health hazards

2 High density polyethylene (HDPE) • Milk and cream bottles

• Yoghurt containers

• Inner bags of cereal packets and similar

No known health hazards

3 Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) • Cling and shrink wrap

• Take-away containers

• Some soft-drink bottles

• Seals on lids or glass jars

Contains plasticisers such as DEHA or phthalates that can leach into food

4 Low density polyethylene (LDPE) • Take-away containers

• Milk carton coating

• Bags for bread and frozen food

• Cling wrap

No known health hazards

5 Polypropylene (PP) • Lids for bottles

• Yoghurt and margarine containers

• Storage boxes

No known health hazards

6 Polystyrene (PS) • Plastic cutlery

• Disposable cups

• Coffee cups (PS foam)

• Lightweight trays for supermarket packaging

Health risks from traces of styrene monomer investigated and appear to be low

7 All other plastics, including polycarbonate (PC) • Sauce and condiment bottles

• Babies’ feeding bottles and infant drinking cups

• Reusable water bottles

• The lining of food cans

Polycarbonates can release BPA into food, especially when bottles are washed for re-use

Source: Adapted from Choice27

In just a few generations we’ve gone from a thrifty ethos of waste not, want not to a disposable culture of waste lots, want more. But we weren’t born to ‘shop and toss’—we’ve had to learn how to throw so much away. In the 1950s, after the first coffee vending machines were introduced in offices in the US,1 workers carefully washed up the plastic cups for re-use. So, too, with the first plastic bags: they could be seen everywhere hanging on our clotheslines. Even in the late 1990s, when disposable coffee cups appeared en masse in Australia and New Zealand, some consumers were initially dubious. Abigail Forsyth, the co-founder of Melbourne-based KeepCup, remembers the rise of disposable cups in the late 1990s well.

‘I had a middle-aged customer tell me he thought it [a disposable cup] made him look like a baby with a “sippy” cup,’ she says of her cafe’s experience with the transition. ‘Now buying a take-away coffee is seen as a signal of “needing” a coffee, you are rushing around doing important things—you don’t have time to sit down.’

Disposable coffee cups were just one more convenient addition to our fast-paced lives. Nowadays, we’re told we should demand a life so convenient that we can slump on our couch after work and summon a beer and hot meal via an app on our phone. We are so busy we need to rush through the supermarket, flinging individually packaged snacks, pre-made meals and plastic-wrapped food into our trolleys. And we are so time-poor we pre-order our ‘ready meals’ online and have them delivered (festooned in packaging!) to our doorsteps. How do we now unlearn these habits so that we can swim against the current, and, ultimately, help turn the tide?

What about if we begin with the facts? Almost everyone knows about the global plastic scourge. Doesn’t that knowledge lead to awareness, then concern, then action? Not necessarily. We are complex, even infuriating, creatures. Lots of things get in the way of change, including the belief we’re not personally responsible for a problem. Then there are practical hurdles, like a lack of time, money or information. Or it might simply be human nature; we are famously better at intending to do something than actually getting around to doing it.

The status quo bias

In reality, old habits die hard. Our fondness for doing today and tomorrow what we did yesterday and the day before that is what psychologists call the ‘status quo bias’. We often plod along the same well-worn paths, unless something prods us towards a new fork in the road. We’ll often sit in the same seats in class, buy the same make of car and stick with the same health-insurance provider or bank even if the status quo isn’t serving us particularly well. Doing the same thing over and over again seems easier, even if there are, in fact, a multitude of other options out there. This common inertia is, in part, about subconsciously choosing the path of least resistance. We’re busy, and change requires effort, some kind of personal motivation or prompt. Consumer research tells us that many people keep paying more on mortgages or for their phone or electricity contracts when shopping around could save them money.

There are other forces in play, too. We also like to be part of the herd; our behaviour reflects that of those around us. This powerful herd instinct is used to explain why, for example, we eat sparingly if we go out to dinner with mostly light eaters. Conversely, if we have family members or friends who are overweight, we are at greater risk of being overweight ourselves. Exercise habits are greatly influenced by the herd instinct, too. If our colleagues and friends go to the gym, we are likely to join them.2 Interestingly, if we walk through an area with lots of litter lying around we are unlikely to pick it up. In fact, we’re more likely to litter.3 This all comes down to the comfort of conformity. We tend to care about what other people think about us and usually overestimate other peoples’ interest in our behaviour. This means we can feel silly or hesitant when we go out on a limb. That might be the first time you put a KeepCup on a counter for a barista, if everyone else is using take-away cups. Or when you present your butcher or fishmonger with a reusable container and refuse a plastic bag.

It can be hard to take the first steps. This is especially true if your own contribution to a problem seems remote or miniscule. You probably don’t think about the future of our oceans and marine life when you step over a single discarded plastic chip packet. You are just getting through the day. But if you do want to do things differently, psychologists have some encouraging news. Apparently, if you publicly announce your new intention—by telling your friends or family or posting on social media—you will feel some obligation to carry through. You are, for example, more likely to achieve a New Year’s resolution you’ve trumpeted out loud than one you’ve only said in your head.

What’s the trigger for quitting plastic?

We’ve had hundreds of conversations and done lots of interviews for this book. What we’ve discovered is that the impetus for quitting plastic is personal. Everyone has a different, unique story. It might be swimming into a swarm of plastic at the beach; or seeing images online of injured, starving or dying marine life; or reading about chemical leaching from plastic; or just realising how ridiculously wasteful it is to devote so many resources and so much energy to making things that are used so briefly before being thrown away.

Change occurs with the right trigger, and sometimes it happens quickly when a critical mass of people finds they’re connected by a desire to do something differently. Improvements in the internet make connecting and sharing information and strategies easier than ever. And that’s when herds start turning.

There is still, however, a time lag between getting started and confidently saying we’ve changed the way we do things. There are many, many pop psychology and pseudoscience books and articles purporting to help us break bad habits that propose various time frames for locking in the new you. Real science is far less clear; a major European study4 concluded that we establish new habits anywhere between eighteen and 254 days! You probably won’t notice it, but if you do something new over and over again it sticks. The day will come when you no longer feel comfortable ordering a coffee in a take-away cup or accepting a plastic bag.


I never expected to see the Queen of England (and, yes, I know, Queen of Australia and New Zealand) on the quitting plastic frontline. But I was very pleased when I did.

HRH Queen Elizabeth II did not, of course, use a word like ‘quit’, but announced with appropriate decorum, through her Buckingham Palace spokesperson, that there was a ‘strong desire to tackle the [waste plastic] issue’ in the royal household.

Apparently inspired by the globally renowned British naturalist and conservationist David Attenborough—who has been known to stroll through the palace gardens with the Queen—the palace announced in early 2018 the phasing out of plastic straws in the public cafes of its various properties and a ban in staff cafes. Internal caterers at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Holyrood Palace would only be permitted to use china plates and glasses, or recyclable paper cups.5 The royal rejection of disposable plastics came in time for the wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry,6 who, in lieu of gifts, provided guests with a list of charities they might like to donate to, including one tackling marine plastic pollution. Princess Eugenie upped the ante by announcing her October 2018 wedding to Jack Brooksbank—and their marital home—would be plastic-free.7

Does the royal family’s stance on plastic matter? Although it’s not making the cover of the tabloid mags, I think it does.

The Anglican Church (of which the Queen is Supreme Governor) has since used its church network to appeal to followers to quit plastic for Lent. Churches provided practical tips and advice and the Lent plastic-fast inspired scores of media columns and blogs.

Theresa May, the UK prime minister, then announced plans to ban the sale of various single-use plastics, including plastic straws and cotton swabs. A consortium of 40 major business followed with a pledge to eradicate single-use plastic packaging. This includes major food and non-food brands—such as Sainsbury’s, Nestlé and Coca-Cola—that are collectively responsible for more than 80 per cent of the UK’s supermarket plastic packaging.

There has been plenty of criticism of these aspirational plans as too weak. Action, too, seems far off in the future. But the plastics issue is on the public and political agenda. And as far as figureheads go, the Queen is definitely not too shabby.

A creative approach to driving change

When KeepCup was launched back in 2009, its goal was to reduce cafe waste by initiating behavioural change. The cup was designed to replicate a take-away cup, so it would fit seamlessly into the existing service flow, just without the rubbish. It was an interesting product because it was specifically designed to make change easy, just as disposable coffee cups seemed easy a couple of decades ago. It had to be easy to unlearn old habits and replace them with new.

Even so, it was dismissed by one designer at the time as ‘the stupidest idea ever’.8 KeepCup is now operating in 65 countries and estimates the five million or so cups it’s sold globally have prevented ten billion or so disposable cups going into landfill. Many copycat products, too, are emerging on the market.9

‘We had to work with cafes so that customers would feel it was okay to bring in reusable cups. People don’t like making a fuss, they were worried they would interrupt the barista, or were embarrassed,’ Ms Forsyth says.

What has driven that turnaround in some sections of our cafe culture? KeepCup originally targeted the people who could influence others by signalling it was okay to reuse a cup.

‘If people see someone they respect with a reusable cup, that influences their behaviour. Primarily this was baristas and independent cafes, but equally if the boss is carrying a reusable cup around it sets the tone,’ she says.

Sociology and behavioural psychology back this up. We are, indeed, more likely to behave in a particular way if we think someone important to us expects this behaviour. Marketers also know that if we believe most people are doing something, we are gripped by FOMO and want to be included.

I am not entirely sure how to make quitting plastic cool, but if you are going to do it, a bit of swagger won’t hurt. I am optimistic that reducing plastic is catching on—just look at the uptake of reusable coffee cups and metal water bottles, for example. This might seem naive, but I am happy to keep chipping away. And, when lots of people start to behave differently, then the herd instinct becomes very useful, sweeping up lots of people along the way.

Just do it? Well, sort of.

If you want to succeed, you need to think about how it’s going to work for you, personally. Currently, the path of least resistance is, certainly, the one that runs alongside all those groaning supermarket shelves packed with a dazzling array of convenient, functional and familiar plastic-wrapped goods. Forging a new path may seem like a challenging and lonely slog. This sounds a bit melodramatic but it’s not. Often the most difficult things to change are those we do every day. It’s much easier if you are in a warm fuzzy crowd of peers swapping tips than if you are heading off in a new direction on your own. So, step one might even be to find a like-minded friend.

Think about your own character

Are you an all-or-nothing type? Is plasticised convenience an addiction you need to quit cold turkey? Or are you the type of person who can gradually cut down, one plastic bag or bottle at a time? Could you pick one item, or a couple of items, and start with them, or even one room in the house? What happens when it all gets too hard? Are you someone who just gives up? I’m thinking eating ice cream straight out of the tub or a whole block of chocolate here. In my family there are multiple personality types, so we know failure at pretty much every level. Which has also taught us how to regroup and start again.

Think about making an impact

The most common single-use plastics found in the environment worldwide are, in order of scale, cigarette butts, drinking bottles and caps, food wrappers, grocery bags, lids, straws and stirrers, other thicker bags, and polystyrene foam take-away containers.1 Maybe start by picking from this list.

What about the cost?

Isn’t plastic-free more expensive? Sometimes it can be. If you swap synthetic clothes for wool, cotton or bamboo, you’ll probably pay more if you compare single item costs, but not necessarily if you compare quality. And if you swap disposable nappies for fitted cloth nappies you’ll pay a lot less. But price is a valid issue, which is why we’ve considered costs for every category we’ve looked at.

Amy Kirk, store manager at the plastic-free family business Scoop Wholefoods, suggests backing up practical action by rethinking our attitudes to shopping.

‘With huge supermarkets we seem to have developed a siege mentality—as though we have to stock up on absolutely everything when what we really need to do is to buy just as much as we need at the time.’

At Scoop’s six stores across New South Wales, ingredients are sold by weight into paper bags or your own containers. Amy says customers often come into the store with their own recipes and buy only what they need, instead of buying big plastic packets that end up at the back of the pantry until they are stale or out of date and then must be thrown out. This saves money, even if some ingredients are more expensive by weight than jumbo supermarket specials. This, she says, is a very practical solution to the ‘War on Waste’, totally eliminating single-use plastics.

‘Sometimes people apologise for spending so little—they might only buy 25 cents’ worth of something like cinnamon or a dried herb. But I really like it—you never need to apologise for buying just enough that you won’t end up with any waste!’

Does what I do really matter?

Angus Harris ‘believes 100 per cent’ in the power of consumers. As the co-CEO of Harris Farm Markets—which removed all single-use plastic bags from the check-outs of their 26 Australian stores at the beginning of 2018—he’s been watching the plastic debate closely.

‘People pushed us over time to address single-use plastic bags—we weren’t at the forefront of the movement, we were responding to feedback,’ he says. Notwithstanding, the company’s decision to remove plastic bags ahead of other large competitors had an immediate impact.

‘We went from 24–25 million plastic bags a year down to zero overnight—and we were humbled by the overwhelming positive response of our customers for the #BanTheBag movement.’

Harris Farm initially offered free paper bags to customers, then shifted to passing on the cost of 20 cents per bag. It quickly went from 2.5 plastic bags per customer to 0.7 paper bags, then down to 0.4, as shoppers brought their own bags or took cardboard boxes.

Right across the business, Angus has been working out ways to remove more plastics, like introducing a filtered water station for bottles to be refilled at one store, to making some stock—like pulses, beans, nuts, dried fruit and snacks—available to scoop directly into paper bags, and using plant-based bioplastic containers and glass jars.

‘Although I know convenience will win every time with some customers, I am cautiously optimistic,’ he says of the changes coming through.

Strategies for getting started

The good news is that you’ve already taken the first steps. Many of the people we spoke to said just starting to think about plastic was the key to seeing opportunities to use less. It’s also useful to turn to some tried and true strategies. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

You might recall the sage advice of the US activist and commentator Michael Pollan, who advised that the key to healthy eating was simple: ‘Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.’2 To which he added, ‘Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.’ In one fell swoop, Pollan eliminates all those overpackaged, overprocessed, additive- and preservative-laden foods that are simultaneously ruining our health and expanding our waistlines. Just the kind of foods that currently come swathed in plastic.

So, if you’re thinking about quitting plastic, you’ll find you’ll also be quitting lots of processed snack foods that are only available in plastic. Instead, you’ll be buying a lot more ‘wholefood’ ingredients and, like your grandmother and great-grandmother, you’ll have a chance to enjoy the taste and health benefits of cooking from scratch.

When it comes to plastic-free shopping, your grandmother’s life experience is just as useful. Think of your grandparents, or other older members of the community, as invaluable fountains of information; they’ve shopped pre-plastic and lived to tell the tale. They’re the time travellers who live among us and, like the trope of the fictional time travellers, they are here to help us navigate the future. Just as long as we take the time to ask them how they did it. You’ll come up with a long list of great ideas to help you waste not and want not, like keeping a cardboard box in the back of the car, investing in a shopping trolley, or jeep, or some string bags or asking the butcher to go back to butchers’ paper. They shopped locally and seasonally, so they didn’t waste a thing. They planned meals ahead and cooked from scratch—and pickled and preserved surplus. The curse of the overabundance of today is waste. Our grandparents valued food because they knew what it was to have too little. We should be a generation who understand the risks of having too much.


When Natalie Warren arrived in Sydney from grimy central London in 2011, she was initially stunned by the beauty of the city’s beaches and the joy of commuting to work by ferry. But, as the months wore on, she began to notice something less appealing, especially on the northern beaches where she and her husband had settled.

Everywhere she looked, says the 37-year-old actuary, there was rubbish.

‘In London everything is so grey and grubby, you don’t notice as much—but seeing plastic waste, coffee cups, take-away containers and straws lying around in such a naturally beautiful environment is so incongruous. I realised things weren’t perfect.’

Her first reaction was to try to do something to help. She joined ‘Responsible Runners’ and spent endless weekends running with rubbish bags up and down Manly Beach, but the litter—and the plastic washing up along the tideline—was always back the next day. Sometimes, Nat and her group saw people eating on the sand, then just walking away without even bothering to take their rubbish to the bins.

‘At times it was exhausting, even soul destroying. I realised it was useless to just clean up after other people if you didn’t try to do something about reducing plastic pollution at the source.’

In her own life, she’d cut out lots of plastics, especially the big four—single-use plastic bags, water bottles, straws and take-away coffee cups. Then she took another more unusual step.

Nat stood for election on the large council that manages Sydney’s northern beaches region of some 250,000 people—and was elected on an environmental ticket.

Then she joined forces with other volunteers who, like her, devoted lots of their energy and time to removing plastics from the marine environment, especially plastic straws. She realised the council could do something with long-term impact. Her first motion as a councillor was carried—formalising council support for the phasing out of plastic straws in a region of scores of beaches, and a ban on the use of plastic straws in new leases for council properties, including surf clubs.

‘You have to believe in your individual impact,’ she says.

‘You can be someone who makes other people feel differently about an issue, and if they see you doing something like reducing plastic they might think “that’s something I should be doing too”.’

Now with a young baby, Nat and her family are still keen to reduce their own plastic footprint.

But, she says, ‘I’m not a saint, it’s not always possible to avoid plastic entirely. I just do all the things that are easy—if everyone did them it would make a huge difference.’

The environmental three ‘Rs’ of waste management are also useful—Reduce what you consume, then Re-use rather than throw away, and only then Recycle. We’ve thrown a couple more Rs in.

This is simple. Just say no to plastic bags, bottled water and all those easy things to avoid.

Can’t we just buy less stuff?

Today, we humans consume eight times more resources worldwide than a century ago. And while we used to consume mostly renewable biomass, like wood and other plant materials such as cotton, we’ve shifted to mostly fossil fuels—that are used to make plastics and synthetic fabrics—and minerals and ores.3 We’re on track to double the amount of plastic we use over the next twenty years.4 And in just ten years, we’ve doubled how much we throw away, to 1.2 kilograms per person per day in our cities.5 Can’t we just buy less plastic stuff and avoid plastic packaging?

Look for alternatives to plastic goods and packaging.

There are lots of swaps out there that make reducing plastic easy, like swapping plastic-wrapped for ‘naked’ or paper-wrapped food or goods. What about buying a ceramic or china butter dish and using paper-wrapped butter instead of a plastic tub of spreadable? What about using a wooden spoon instead of a plastic one? And keep an eye out for compostable bioplastics made from renewable feedstocks like agricultural waste. There are lots of opportunities to replace plastics with something kinder to the environment.

What can we do with all that stuff we already have?

Look around your home. Can you re-use all those old containers by finding stores that are willing to refill them? More and more shops are encouraging you to bring in your own containers—and may even reduce the price if you do. And what about using clothes for longer than the fashion cycle might dictate? It might not seem obvious but most of us dress in synthetic fabrics—which are plastics—and so are just as problematic as much of the packaging we throw away. You don’t have to buy new for variety, you can swap clothes with friends.

Not a magic bullet, but a part of the solution.

China’s decision to stop importing waste from other nations in 2018 has left growing stockpiles of waste across Australia and New Zealand and elsewhere. Of the main waste categories—paper, plastics, glass and metals—plastics are the most problematic. In 2016–17, Australia recycled a total of just 11.8 per cent of its plastic waste (more than half of which was previously sent to China6). New Zealand doesn’t publish national recycling statistics, but media reports point to similarly low plastic recycling rates.7 In the long term, pressure from consumers—and pledges by big businesses to increase recycling—should bolster local recycling. In the meantime, the only real solution to plastic pollution is using less.

Food glorious food, (almost) all wrapped in plastic! We live in a world in which plastic wrapping and fresh food have become virtually synonymous. So, what do we do without its fabulous properties that enable us to extend the shelf life and maintain the freshness of all sorts of things, from meat to snacks and ready-meals?

When it comes to the kitchen, start with what’s easy. Then build up to the more complicated challenges. You’d be surprised at how much plastic you can avoid with a few simple changes.

Easy kitchen solutions

Sometimes when I am slogging away at the gym, my mind wanders. I imagine what aliens looking down on us would make of my inexpert attempts at bizarrely named exercises like ‘burpees’, ‘kettle-bell swings’ or ‘hammer woodchops’. The same goes for how we shop. What on earth (aliens, ha ha) are we doing sorting each type of fruit and veg into a separate plastic bag or picking them up on trays covered in cling wrap—when we are only going to dump them, wantonly intermingled, into fruit bowls and crispers? Bagging and packaging can make the check-out process easier, especially now that we’re often serving ourselves. But what about bunches of bananas, single avocados or truss tomatoes, all naturally designed (skin and stems) for easy handling?

There’s a simple solution—don’t pull off handfuls of flimsy plastic fruit and veg bags every shop. Let your fruit and veggies go naked in the trolley. Alternatively, it’s easy to bring your own reusable net or mesh bags (look online, or in some stores) for those purchases too difficult to juggle (think brussels sprouts, salad leaves, peas). In one fell swoop you could avoid hundreds or even thousands of plastic bags a year, with no impact on the convenience of your shop or the quality of your purchases. In 2016–17 Australians used 5.66 billion single-use plastic bags, for an average of about twenty minutes each, before throwing them out. Which does make you wonder—how did people manage pre-plastics? This might just offer us a few tips.

What history can tell us

The first recorded use of packaging for food was in 1035; a Persian traveller visiting markets in Cairo saw that vegetables and spices were sold to customers wrapped in paper.1 This rather ordinary observation must have seemed very interesting at the time. We didn’t need food packaging when food was grown and sourced locally and either traded within communities or sold at local markets, and put straight into baskets or wrapped in leaves.

Early travellers too, those pioneers of globalisation, could mostly get by on local food. Not so, however, when they were separated from food sources over any extended period of time or found themselves in hostile territory far from home. Think of all those lengthy voyages on sailing ships—and of those poor Galápagos tortoises boarded alive to be used at sea for the potable fluid held in their ‘neck bags’ and their meat. Like so many other technological innovations, humankind’s long history of warfare also ushered in various new ways to survive, including keeping ourselves fed. At the end of the eighteenth century, Napoleon Bonaparte’s French government famously admitted they were losing more troops to hunger and scurvy than to battlefield clashes. So, in 1795, they offered a fantastic reward to anyone who could invent a method of preserving food for the French army and navy. Nicolas Appert, a former candy maker, brewer and pickle maker, came up with a solution in 1809. Appert successfully preserved food by partially cooking it, sealing it in bottles with cork stoppers and placing the containers in boiling water.2 His first ‘partridges, vegetables and gravy’ meals in glass containers were used successfully to feed Napoleon’s navy for four months, and his preservation method paved the way for the development of a more robust food container, the tin can.

We didn’t even think about individual packaging until the end of the nineteenth century. Like all generic products of the time, biscuits came in large barrels and were scooped out by grocers and sold by weight. But in 1890 when the US National Biscuit Company developed a lighter, flakier biscuit they realised their product needed more protection—so they introduced a paper package with an inner liner that would preserve it. With it came a new opportunity to ‘brand’ goods using their wrapping, to distinguish them in the marketplace.

The arrival of plastics

World War II rapidly accelerated the development of plastics, and so ushered in their mass peace-time application from the late 1940s. Polyethylene food wrap (better known by its trade name Saran wrap or cling wrap), for example, was initially sprayed on US fighter planes to protect them from the elements. In 1949 it went on the market as the clingy, plastic wrap we know today. Plastic packaging and food seemed like they were made for each other—especially as refrigerators simultaneously became standard household items. And as supermarkets replaced open markets, corner stores and small grocers, packaging became increasingly important commercially. With no friendly grocer to help us choose our products, it was packaging that attracted browsing buyers—and shouted out to entice them—as they made their way along anonymous supermarket aisles.

I am hoping this somewhat breathless race through how we got to where we are today reveals more than my googling skills. Can history help us with the contemporary challenge of decoupling shopping from plastic packaging? How might we now get on with our (busy) lives with less plastic? Can we go back to using farmers’ markets and smaller shops, where we engage personally with sales people who offer us alternatives like paper bags? Should we go back to some of those earlier packaging options—paper, glass jars and metal cans? Can we better plan meals so we buy less and shop more often—to avoid wasting food and using plastic packaging? (Over-purchasing and poor planning mean Australians waste $20 billion worth of food a year.) Or can we pressure supermarkets, other retailers and food processors to solve the problem for us with new compostable bioplastics made from plants and other renewables?

Yes, to all of the above. Do these options also demand some level of compromise on your part? Yes, again.

Reducing the plastics in your kitchen will likely turn out to be your own personal mix of old practices, new discoveries and compromises. The unexpected pleasures and benefits of filling the pantry and fridge without bringing home mountains of plastic packaging are, in my opinion, part of the fun.

Filling the pantry and fridge—a food packaging hierarchy

Go naked—Bring your own bags, jars, containers and string bags for fruit, veggies, meat, fish and other staples and snacks. Accepting no disposable packaging wins every time—no resources or energy are wasted, plus you know exactly what you are buying and how fresh it really is.

Metal packaging—Choosing metal cans, tubes or containers over plastic has some benefits—and some potential drawbacks. Metals are both valuable and perfectly recyclable; their properties don’t degrade with reprocessing. In Australia, 88 per cent of metal waste is recovered for recycling or re-use—the highest recovery rate of any material.3 And almost all aluminium is recovered. Other countries have similarly high metal recycling rates. But metal packaging can be heavy, so more energy is needed for transport. And metal recycling is a high-energy, high-temperature process. Cans are also usually lined with a thin film of plastic, which may contain BPA, a known health risk. However, Food Standards Australia and New Zealand says4 the latest scientific evidence suggests concentrations of BPA in can linings are too low to impact our health.

Glass jars and bottles—These are great for preserving and storing food. But they are heavy to transport and are fragile. The many different types of glass can make recycling challenging and waste glass stockpiles are building up worldwide. Look for suppliers who will refill a glass jar—instead of buying a new one every time—and re-use jars at home.

Paper and cardboard packaging—This is renewable and easy to recycle or compost. But big increases in demand for paper products could drive further land clearing for forestry plantations.

Compostable plant-based bioplastics—Bioplastics are a rapidly growing sector (see Chapter 11, The End of Single-use Plastic?) but challenges remain, including consumer confusion and the need for industrial composters to ensure they break down. If bioplastics end up in landfill, they generate emissions like other waste.

Recycled plastic—Much better than virgin plastic, but read labels carefully. It is very easy to be confused by a friendly looking ‘Recyclable’ symbol, which just means the packaging could be recycled, not that it will be recycled.

Degradable and biodegradable plastics—These labels can be misleading. Degradable or oxo-degradable just means the plastic will break up into very small pieces of plastic. Biodegradable means it will break down, probably as bacteria consume it—but this may take years.

Where can I shop plastic-free?

Bulk stores

These are popping up everywhere under the banner of plastic-free or waste-free shopping. They’re an interesting hybrid of old and new. On the one hand, they hark back to the traditional grocer who scooped basic dry foodstuffs—like flour, sugar, rice, oats—out of large bins into paper bags or paper wrapping. But today’s versions are self-serve and there’s a lot more on offer than the old-time staples: from muesli and breakfast cereals to chocolates, snack foods and ground nut butters, as well as loads of varieties of rice, pasta, grains, sugars and flour. It’s a good way to cut out plastic packaging altogether. Bulk produce is sold from clear closed bins with hinged lids marked with the country of origin and other product details. You can bring in your own jars or containers and (after they are weighed) scoop produce directly into them. Or you can use the paper bags provided. Some bulk stores also refill bottles with cleaning products and personal care products, like shampoo and conditioner.

Both Australia and New Zealand have online bulk stores that ship goods to you in brown paper boxes and bags.

Verdict With some careful planning you can fill a couple of shopping bags with jars of your weekly staples and snacks without any packaging at all, or with just a handful of compostable or recyclable brown paper bags. You can also buy exactly what you need, avoiding the waste that is inevitable when you go for jumbo packs on special at the supermarket.

The potential downside is less choice—and even, perhaps, an uneasy feeling as you move away from the familiarity of trusted brands. Shopping also can take longer (although the shops are small and unpacking directly into the pantry is fast and satisfying). A lot of products are more expensive than supermarkets by weight. But I love bulk stores because I waste virtually nothing and I eat better because I’m cooking more of my food from scratch. To find your nearest bulk store anywhere in the world, go to www.zerowastehome.com and click on Bulk Finder.

SEARCH TERMS bulk food stores bulk wholefoods wholefoods in bulk bins.


Just over a decade ago Paul Medeiros and his wife, Emma Smith, fled high-pressure city jobs to start a new life in the country. Today, they are leading an international rollout of a disruptive retail model that enables consumers to shop entirely without plastic—all from their rural base. In the process, they’ve avoided the use of some 50 million plastic bags.

Paul and Emma are the founders of The Source Bulk Foods, which is currently adding a new store every six weeks to its 43 stores across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

The retail model goes back to the couple’s first foray into food retailing in 2007 when they left inner-city Sydney for Mullumbimby in the green hinterland of northern New South Wales, a region long favoured by sustainability-minded communities.

Unsurprisingly, Mullumbimby locals embraced the opportunity to buy hundreds of products without packaging, by scooping them from bulk bins into their own containers or paper bags and paying by weight. And, as Paul and Emma also wanted to offer healthier alternatives to processed supermarket products, northern New South Wales was just the right demographic for their largely natural and organic range.

When the couple trialled the model in the city, initially in Sydney, it also worked.

‘We both previously worked in city jobs for big retailers—in my case for a company that was putting small local shops out of business. We had an epiphany, we’d come to a fork in the road,’ says Paul of their decision to leave the city behind.

‘We gave up well-paid jobs, we simplified our lives. We bought a fruit shop in Mullumbimby, which we gradually transformed into the first Source Bulk Foods store,’ he says.

Bulk food stores, themselves, are not new; in the pre-supermarket era, grocers scooped bulk goods into brown paper bags and sold them by weight, and some local food co-ops and health-food stores maintained that tradition.

The rapid expansion of The Source and similar bulk food stores into modern retail districts reveals a pent-up demand for an alternative to grab-and-go packaged food.

A new generation of bulk stores is, says Paul, ‘drawing people out of the woodwork’. They are consumers interested in waste reduction and sustainability who have long been starved of choices in the way they shop.

‘After decades of supermarket dominance, a growing plastic-free, waste-free consumer market is now pushing back. The supermarkets are paying attention. Bulk stores are no longer just a niche market and waste is no longer a niche concern,’ he says of the growing awareness of plastic pollution.

It is unsurprising, then, that an increasing number of supermarkets and other food retailers are offering a small number of their products unpackaged, and from bulk bins. A recent industry report found that the environmental consumer, once largely overlooked as a vocal minority, is more influential than retailers had long thought. Fifty percent of Australians believe food and drinks products are overpackaged and 69 per cent say they would consider boycotting a product that didn’t meet their environmental criteria.5

That said, Paul concedes that removing plastic at the point of sale is the easiest part. Working out how much plastic is in the grocery supply chain and what to do about it is much trickier. Virtually every pallet transported any distance is wrapped in cling film, and many bulk foods arrive at the store in large plastic containers or plastic-lined boxes.

That’s the next challenge, he says. One solution is working with suppliers to replace plastic linings with bioplastics made from corn—but it’s still a work in progress.

Local and farmers’ markets

Yay! Markets are back pretty much everywhere. If you haven’t already stumbled across local bakers, cooks and producers setting up their wares, search online for a market near you. Most suburbs and towns have markets at least once a week where you can buy a cardboard box of fruit and veg and lots of other fare without packaging. One near us has great take-away food—and no disposable containers. Instead, there is a crockery and cutlery booth that lends you a plate or bowl and spoon and fork, which are then washed up on their return. Given that our charity shops are overflowing with good-quality china, crockery and cutlery, it’s a great way to give it another outing.

On the north island of New Zealand in Whangarei there’s an innovative food co-op that brings online shopping and local food production together. The region is packed with small-scale producers and hobby farmers who offer their crops and farm products like eggs and honey on the co-op website. You can browse and shop online in much the same way as you would on a supermarket website, but choice depends on what’s in season. The co-op boxes up orders for local collection or delivery. This is about the easiest way I know to buy seasonal, local, fresh produce. So, look for co-ops near you.

If you can, grow your own; there’s no packaging involved. (Get any soil, soil conditioners or mulch delivered in bulk, rather than buying them in plastic bags.) Anyone can grow something. I now live in a tiny inner-city apartment with no balcony, but I grow herbs on the windowsills, which is much cheaper than buying them and means I don’t have herbs wilting in the fridge. You can also try crop swap—there are groups everywhere—as a free way to swap the excess from your own garden for something different, while making new social connections.

Verdict Loads of enjoyable plastic-free and personalised shopping options are available at markets everywhere. Prices are often higher by weight than supermarkets but keep the budget under control by buying only exactly what you need.

SEARCH TERMS Australian Farmers’ Markets local markets food co-ops local harvest crop swap food swap.

Butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers, bakeries, delis etc.

I could fill the rest of the book with stories about being the first person to offer a container over the counter at the butcher or the fishmonger. But I think the gold medal for awkward experiences goes to my mum. She took a container into a major supermarket and handed it in at the butchery section and asked for some chicken wings (she would like me to clarify here that they weren’t for her, as she has been a vegetarian for 40 years—they were for the cat). The young guy was so confused he asked her if she was planning to shoplift. After some discussion he conceded the wings were so cheap they weren’t worth stealing, but he remained unconvinced by this change in routine. The next hurdle was the self-serve check-out; the weight of the container froze the machine and drew the attention of the assistant.

Many others have experienced the disappointment of their purchases being put into a plastic bag first to be weighed, then that brand-new bag (only in use for a few seconds) blithely chucked into the bin. So, you may have to work on your spiel: mention that you’re avoiding plastic, then explain that scales can be zeroed to avoid adding the weight of the container to your bill, and smile!

You may also find a business that refuses your container outright on ‘hygiene grounds’. This is a bit of a grey area as the Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) code requires only that a container ‘is fit for its intended use’ and is unlikely to cause contamination before or during the packaging process. Which really means that bringing your own clean, dry container doesn’t breach any food safety standards. However, stores that don’t like the perceived hassle can, of course, just say no to your business.6

Do persist, as lots of small stores are happy to oblige and, if you do strike up a conversation, shopping become much more personal. As well as butchers and fishmongers, local providores can help. They often offer cheese cut from a waxed wheel that can be wrapped in paper. Ditto lots of salads, charcuterie, dips, soups and meals that can be spooned directly into your own containers. By weight, they are more expensive than supermarkets, but allow you to buy only what you need.

For bread, shop at your local bakery. Most bakers are happy to put your loaf, sliced or not, into a paper bag. Otherwise, bring a reusable bread bag that keeps bread fresher for longer, and can also go into the fridge or freezer.

Verdict Don’t give up too easily on bringing your own containers! It gets easier and you can establish good relationships with your local stores once they get to know you. Many will support what you are doing. If they don’t, there are plenty of other places to shop.

SEARCH TERMS your local butchers bakers fishmongers and providores food containers food storage reusable food containers.


Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to pick up a healthy ready meal without the plastic packaging.

At The Butcher and the Chef in Sydney’s north, family dishes like meatloaf, stuffed chicken and homemade chicken nuggets are ready to go in compostable ovenproof trays that can go straight into the oven. If you want to cook a steak, they also offer scalloped potatoes and red wine jus on the side, similarly plastic-free.

‘It is all about trying to find those easy solutions for customers to grab and go,’ says co-owner Kristy Barbara of their range. At the same time, however, she and her husband Tom are committed to running a plastic-free food business. Since they made the switch about three years ago they’ve avoided handing out almost a million single-use plastic bags and tens of thousands of plastic sheets, previously used for ham and other sliced smallgoods. Instead, they wrap their meat in recycled brown paper and use returnable glass jars for their other products like pesto, bone broths, tapenade, lima beans, nuts and sweet biscuits. Even the gloves they use for food handling are natural latex (rubber), not plastic.

‘I have been in the meat industry for 25 years. As a business owner with three young children, I want to take what I do at home and bring it into the business. That means helping my customers and my community introduce more plastic-free products into their life,’ she says.

At first, The Butcher and the Chef only removed the plastic sheets used for smallgoods and started up conversations with customers about paper versus plastic. The overwhelming majority of customers said they preferred paper wrapping. That was enough encouragement to announce all plastic was out.

However, quitting plastic comes at a cost. Instead of a plastic bag for 1 cent, the business is using recycled baking paper from Norway at 17 cents a sheet, as no suitable paper wrapping is yet available in Australia. In the competitive retail meat business, meat prices can’t be hiked to match, so other high-value products, like homemade pesto, currently cross-subsidise the paper packaging.

Ultimately, Kristy’s goal is to do away with single-use packaging altogether. In the long term, importing paper is not sustainable, she says. The business offers customers a ten per cent discount if they bring in their own container that can go into a reusable shopping bag, then straight into the fridge. Likewise, the jars used for packaging sauces and accompaniments can be returned for a small refund.

It doesn’t make sense to just replace plastic containers with glass, she says, unless those containers are re-used. With sterilising facilities in the shop, bringing a jar back is easy, especially when compared to shipping it overseas after one use to be recycled, as much of Australia’s waste cannot be recycled locally.

‘Businesses are worried about the extra cost of going plastic-free—but you need to create your own tribe of people who support you by doing whatever it is that will bring them back to your store.

‘As businesses we can be leaders, it would be great for the planet.’

Sticking with the big supermarkets

Supermarket shopping can be disheartening if all you can see is plastic packaging. But if you shop carefully, there are still lots of plastic-free choices. Major supermarkets have publicly committed to reducing single-use plastic—which is great news. Meanwhile, use your own string bags or go naked for fruit and veggies, buy in cans and glass jars (and make sure you re-use or recycle them) or buy in paper. Take a close look at some high-volume products like teabags—they may, in fact, be made with synthetic mesh or with paper with plastic additives that don’t break down. Most tea brands have this information available online, but it may not be prominent so dig around. Or try searching for plastic-free teabags. Better still, go back to what our grandmas did and use loose leaf tea! On the plus side, it’s easy to get some basics in paper or cardboard packages, including flour, eggs, milk, butter, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, cat and dog biscuits, and Epsom salts.

Verdict You don’t need to give up on supermarkets and you can communicate with them via email or social media to encourage changes.

SEARCH TERMS single-use plastics and supermarkets plastic bag ban.

What’s in your too-hard basket?

There will always be some things you’d like to buy that can only be found in plastic packaging. You can still make a big difference even if you do buy some of them and recycle the packaging. We’ve met many people making a huge difference who still haven’t entirely broken the plastic habit. It might be those salt and vinegar chips, a favourite cheese, yoghurt or brand of ice cream, or a meal base like tofu. Try to make sure it’s a small handbasket, not a shopping trolley.

Safe food storage

Food packaging is a sophisticated and exact science. When you buy perishables like meat, fresh pasta, ready-made meals or fresh vegetables sealed in plastic, suppliers can confidently offer precise use-by dates that extend well beyond the usual shelf life of the products. Why? Because sealed plastic packaging enables storage conditions to be customised based on the best way to delay the spoilage of different kinds of food.

Food goes off because it decays via oxidation (which, for example, turns bananas brown) or the growth of microbes like bacteria, yeast and moulds. To keep food safe and fresh for longer, the challenge is to slow down these processes. Refrigeration works for a few days and freezing can preserve food for months.

But commercial food suppliers can do much more than that with plastic packaging. They can vacuum seal foods, like meat, by sucking out the air, which starves microbes of oxygen and slows oxidation. Or they can use Modified Atmosphere Packaging—this replaces the air inside a sealed pack with precisely calibrated mixes of gases.7 The best way to keep meat fresh and looking appetising (that is, red) for longer is to use a mix of 70 per cent oxygen (O2) and 30 per cent carbon dioxide (CO2). Raw chicken needs 30 per cent CO2 and 70 per cent nitrogen (N2) and bread is best with low oxygen to inhibit mould. Even the freshness of fruit and veggies can be extended in a mix of 90 per cent N2 and five per cent each of O2 and CO2.8

Packaging is further tweaked using various perforations in the plastic that allow certain gases to be released. This kind of packaging is useful if you want to shop ahead and have food ready in the fridge. (Once the package is open, treat it like fresh food.)

You might recognise some of these:9

• Cucumbers—shrink wrap extends shelf life from nine to fifteen days.

• Capsicums—Modified Atmosphere Packaging with perforated plastic film (PP) extends shelf life from four to twenty days.

• Beef—vacuum packaging in oxygen barrier film extends the shelf life from four to 30 days.

• Bananas—in perforated polyethylene (PE) bags shelf life is extended from fifteen to 36 days.

If you are going plastic-free you’ll be eating fresh—which is great—but you might also need to think about how you’ll manage without extended shelf lives. The easiest option, of course, is shopping regularly and cooking fresh produce within a day or two of purchasing.

You can wrap fruit and veggies in damp tea towels in the crisper and store food in the main body of the fridge using airtight containers. For bread, try wrapping it in a tea towel and storing it in a bread bin or use a reusable bread bag, available online, that’s also useful for freezing.

Wrap meat in baking paper before putting it in a container. You could also try preserving meat for longer by marinating it or coating it with cooking oil (cutting off the oxygen to its surface). This method is useful for lots of products—if you have a half-used jar of pesto or tomato paste, for example, cover with a thin film of olive oil. You’ll notice any residue above the oil goes mouldy, but what’s beneath it stays good. Freezing most foodstuffs is also useful—but always thaw them inside the fridge rather than leaving them on the bench.

Verdict Lots of alternatives to single-use plastic packaging are coming onto the market. These include beeswax wraps, washable reusable silicone (food-grade) cling film and zip-lock bags, metal food storage containers and reusable food-grade plastic containers.

A useful CSIRO guide to safely storing perishable foods can be found on the CSIRO website.10

SEARCH TERMS plastic-free home/house plastic-free storage eco food storage green food storage reusable bread bag.

It costs just a few dollars, comes in a (cardboard) box, contains no petrochemicals and can be used to wash or clean just about anything. But most of my generation have never used, or even heard of, Sunlight soap. I only know of its apparent wonders thanks to my grandmothers.

In fact, one grandma, who lives in a modest-sized town in New Zealand, became quite nervous last year during a family visit that coincided with a local shortage of Sunlight soap. With the shelves of all the major stores empty, we eventually snapped up the last box at a convenience store. The shopkeeper immediately regretted letting it go. His own family, too, he said, ‘uses it for everything’. Unmoved, we clung like panic-buyers to our purchase. My grandma was relieved; she uses it in the shower, at the basin, at the kitchen sink, to rub on stains before putting clothes into the washing machine—and she swears it keeps her hair baby soft! (My mum, under duress, did give it a go—and says she was surprised to find it is actually pretty good as a shampoo.) Other uses include washing the dog, polishing taps, sinks and shower heads, washing pots and pans and as the base for laundry detergent.1

Can we clean without plastic-packaged products?

Yes! It is easy to do without many of those plastic bottles lined up in our laundries and stashed under our sinks. Solid soap is a good place to start. Sunlight, introduced in 1884, was the world’s first branded commercial laundry soap. There have, of course, been lots of good soaps released since then that have something wonderful in common—they can be purchased wrapped in paper. You might like Castile soap—made only with vegetable oil, lye (a caustic alkali) and water, plus essential oils for fragrance. Or you might have other personal preferences for soaps that are sulphate- or palm-oil free (Sunlight contains palm oil).

The not too distant past also suggests some other fantastic plastic-free cleaning options. Bicarbonate of soda, also known as bicarb or baking soda (not baking powder), is a cheap, readily available (in cardboard) cleaning base that is useful for just about anything. Lemon juice and white vinegar are also great. And, what about that entirely natural asset, sunshine? The ultraviolent radiation in sunlight works as a natural disinfectant and is powerful enough to kill microbiological pathogens in drinking water (put a clear bottle in sunlight for at least six hours), so drying your laundry in direct sunlight is a very effective, free way of sanitising your wash.2 (I have not included borax in this list, as it can be very toxic if ingested, especially by children.) And if you look to other cultures you might come across entirely natural soap nuts.

If you prefer to stick with what you know, wander around your local supermarket and shops with a keen eye. You will find some plastic-free gems among the mountains of plastic bottles. Look for things like latex gloves, kitchen wipes made of cellulose, or your favourite commercial washing powder in a cardboard box. You can also look for 100 per cent recycled plastic packaging (and recycle it again) or plant-based plastics. Or buy big, so you have fewer individual containers to dispose of.


If you are worrying around germs, stop! Chances are you don’t need costly, plastic-packaged antibacterial products—unless you’re a surgeon scrubbing up or a hospital visitor or patient. Numerous studies have found soap and warm water are good enough to kill off about 99 per cent of bacteria.3 White vinegar, too, is a powerful disinfectant, as are some essential oils. If you still find yourself mesmerised (advertising does work!) by products promising to kill 99.9 per cent of household germs, consider the bigger picture. In much the same way as antibiotics indiscriminately kill off both the good and bad bacteria in our bodies—often leaving only the most virulent, nasty bacteria standing—antibacterial products can also have unintended consequences.

In 2014, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned triclosan,4 the key active ingredient in many antibacterial soaps and cleaners and personal-care products like toothpaste. Triclosan was found to be no more effective than soap and water, and there were two more compelling reasons for phasing it out. First, it doesn’t kill common viruses, so consumers mistakenly expected protection from colds and flu; and second, the overuse of such agents contributes to antibiotic resistance. According to a 2018 University of Queensland (UQ) study, about 2000 consumer products contain triclosan, many of which are available in Australia and New Zealand. The UQ study warned that its presence in waste water is ‘accelerating the spread of antibiotic resistance’.5 The bottom line: hospital-grade products are great—for hospitals.

NOTE: We do not suggest avoiding products in plastic that are formulated specifically for hospitals and other medical uses and settings.

Here’s what we’ve found works for washing and cleaning. As your store-bought products run out, save spray bottles and other containers to refill.

Washing your clothes

Some commercial washing powder brands are available in cardboard boxes, as is flaked soap for delicates. If you prefer liquid detergents, look for a store that stocks bulk cleaning products and will refill a bottle for you.

Or you can try homemade by grating any soap and mixing it with bicarb soda. I use a ratio of 700 grams of grated soap (five bars or so) to 1 cup of bicarb soda:6 you can adjust quantities up or down depending on how much you need (or how much grating your arm can cope with). Store the mix in an airtight container. When you have your wash loaded, dissolve a scoop (no precise measuring required) in ½ cup or so of hot water, then add a drop or two of eucalyptus oil and it’s ready for use. If you want to make wool wash,7 save up all those annoying little pieces of soap (about a handful’s worth) and simmer them in 1½ cups of water, until about 1 cup of liquid is left, then add a drop or two of essential oil. Cool before pouring into a glass jar to store (to be honest, mine solidifies—but I reheat it in the microwave briefly before I use it—or you can dissolve a bit in hot water).

For the ultimate no-plastic environmental wash, you might want to try soap nuts (also known as soapberries). These are derived from the plentiful fruit of the Sapindus genus of trees, relatives of the lychee, and traditionally are used right across the Indian subcontinent. Once the ‘nuts’ have been dried, they go into a fabric bag and then in with your wash. The nuts contain saponin which is a surfactant, so they act like soap in your machine. However, in my experience, they work better with hot water than cold. Instead of using a hot cycle, you can soak the bag of soap nuts in boiling water and then pour the liquid into your machine’s detergent input. Alternatively, start on a hot cycle to maximise the release of surfactants, then turn your temperature dial to cold after the first few minutes. You can also make a general cleaner by simmering a handful of soap nuts in about 1 litre of water for twenty minutes, then let it cool—handy for everything, including washing the dog and your hair.

Stain removers—These don’t only come in plastic bottles! At least one major brand is available in a solid bar. Buy a dish to store your soap, and rub the soap on stains before washing; a little more effort than a spray-on, but a big saving on plastic waste. Otherwise, soaking in bicarb soda works too, or white vinegar for whites.

Pegs and baskets—It’s easy to find bamboo, wood and metal pegs, and laundry and washing baskets made of wicker, rattan or other natural materials.

Verdict There are lots of plastic-free choices for clothes-washing that are cost neutral or even cheaper than their plastic-packaged counterparts and do the job well. It’s hard to beat chemical whiteners and stain removers like bleach but there are plenty of good reasons—in addition to plastic packaging—to avoid adding these to our waterways.

SEARCH TERMS soap nuts plastic-free home plastic-free cleaning plastic-free July cleaning.

NOTE: Synthetic materials shed tiny microplastic fibres when washed, now the single largest source of microplastic pollution. See Chapter 8, The Wardrobe, for further information.

Washing the dishes

I was thrilled when the bulk store near us introduced refills for dishwashing liquid—problem solved. But if this isn’t an option, you can try grated soap or bicarb soda in hot water. For pots and pans, make a paste of bicarb soda and white vinegar. Look for natural bristle dish brushes, they last much longer and do a much better job than plastic ones. Natural latex (rubber) gloves can be found in any supermarket.

For dishwashers, some powders are available in cardboard packaging or you can make your own. The easiest option is to use bicarb soda in place of dishwasher powder or tablets and white vinegar as the rinsing agent. Alternatively, a heavier duty recipe combines 1 cup of bicarb soda with 1 cup of borax and ½ cup of salt.8 (As my curious and agile nephew is going on two, I don’t use borax and I haven’t tested this one.) You can also try soap nuts in the dishwasher.

To clean your dishwasher naturally, Choice suggests pouring 2 cups of white vinegar into a bowl and putting it on the bottom shelf of your otherwise empty machine (upright, so it doesn’t drain out)—run a full cycle but push pause for about 30 minutes mid-cycle to increase soaking time.9 You can also throw a handful of bicarb soda into an empty dishwasher and run a cycle.

Verdict With a bit of effort and ingenuity you can enjoy the benefits of dishwashers without plastic. It’s cost neutral or even cheaper if you go for natural alternatives.

SEARCH TERMS dishwasher powder recipes eco cleaning natural bristle brushes.


It’s easy to make your own multipurpose surface cleaner. The base mix is 1 part white vinegar to 3 parts water. One way of improving its cleaning power and bouquet is to add lemon or orange rinds (and let them soak before using) or a few drops of eucalyptus or lavender oil. You can also use dishwashing liquid on a sponge for just about any clean-up. Online stores sell various all-purpose cleaning products in glass jars but think about whether you want to buy and ship heavy containers.

For baths and basins, try mixing bicarb soda with a few drops of eucalyptus or tea tree oil to make a paste. You could also turn back time and use one of the cheap powdered cleansers like Ajax or Bon Ami. These are still on the market and come in a cardboard tube.

What about the toilet? Elbow grease is a good start. Use a natural bristle brush, made of something like coconut fibre—a renewable by-product of coconut processing that would otherwise be wasted. You can try adding your bicarb soda paste to the brush. Once that’s done, add some white vinegar to the bowl so it fizzes. Your toilet will look and smell very clean. There are also natural toilet bombs (dissolving cubes with a scented bicarb-soda base) on the market that are quick and easy or use, or install.

For mould, white vinegar is also a good bet. A ratio of approximately 80 per cent vinegar to twenty per cent water is strong enough to kill spores, then follow with a bicarb-soda cleaning paste.

Verdict Simplifying cleaning products declutters your cupboards without compromising on cleanliness. Costs vary but there are plenty of affordable options.

SEARCH TERMS green cleaning eco cleaning toilet bombs natural spray cleaner natural spray and wipe.


Powerful disinfectants like bleach and ammonia-based products come in plastic, can cause respiratory and skin irritations10 and are just as harsh on the environment. I grew up without them and lived to tell the tale.

It is hard to go wrong with white vinegar and the science backs this up; it kills about 80 per cent of germs and is also a great deodoriser and grease cutter. And it can combat salmonella, E. coli and other resistant ‘gram negative’ bacteria that cause illnesses like pneumonia, meningitis and other infections.11 But with far fewer scientific evaluations to date of natural alternatives, it’s difficult to compare them.

We all use different ratios of ingredients in homemade products. And while many natural products have useful cleaning and disinfecting properties, that doesn’t tell us exactly how to use them. One 2018 study evaluating the microbial properties of nine essential oils found that lemon came out on top and was an effective disinfectant for food preparation surfaces.12 In 2017 another study concluded citrus (lemon) essential oils were ‘natural antimicrobial and antioxidant agents’ with potential uses in food systems and the pharmaceutical industry’.13 Essential oils of orange, thyme, oregano and cinnamon have demonstrated similar antimicrobial properties, as have others such as tea tree and eucalyptus oil.

It’s worth learning something about essentials oils and why they work. They’ve been around for at least 2000 years and are either produced by living organisms or obtained by pressing or distilling plant materials like flowers, buds, seeds, leaves, fruits, roots and barks. To date, we’ve isolated about 3000 different oils. It’s easy to see they are hydrophobic—which just means they repel water, like many other oils. What isn’t visible to the human eye—and was only relatively recently described—is that this hydrophobicity means they can also damage the cell membranes of bacteria—a process that triggers leakage from inside the bacteria and then cell death. Yes, it is a bit more complicated than this, but the key point is that essential oils aren’t just for hopeful hippies, they are scientifically proven to be effective against many germs.14 But even though they are entirely natural they are highly concentrated and, like commercial cleaning products, we need to understand how to use them safely. The biggest risk is that young children will taste or drink them—they usually smell great. Also check before using them undiluted on skin; they may cause irritations. If a recipe says to use a few drops, that is all you need! For safety information see: http://healthywa.wa.gov.au/Articles/A_E/Essential-oils.

Lots of research is currently underway, so we’ll likely see more and more natural ingredients in scientifically developed products in the future. In the meantime, various useful essential oils come in small glass bottles and a few drops really do go a long way.

NOTE: Many recipes for homemade cleaning products use borax, but personally I don’t because of the risk to small children.

Verdict It’s yo