Our family has been trying to give up plastic. And I’m not just talking single-use straws or takeaway cups or bottled water. Like most people we did that years ago. I’m talking about all the other plastic that we ingest either directly or through chemical leaching. In the period of time since I was a child, to a child born now, the fossil fuel industry has become implicated in nearly every part of our daily routine.
Plastic is poison. When it enters our bodies, it doesn’t just pass through, or sit there, it breaks down into microplastics, releasing toxic chemicals that become endocrine disruptors that go directly into our bloodstream. An article in The Guardian last year reported that every day people breathe in as much as 68,000 tiny plastic particles daily. The main exposure route is through food and water. The substance can cross brain and placental barriers. We ingest six times more microplastics than in the 1990s. While plastic waste can take 20 to 1,000 years to completely decompose, microplastics exist in the atmosphere indefinitely. Yuck. What the fuck have we done?
So our family decided to de-plastic. It’s so much harder than I realised, and instead of going cold turkey, (which if we purchased would be wrapped in plastic) we’re just removing plastic from daily life. Like a gladwrap striptease.
Let’s start with brushing your teeth. Toothpaste manufacturers used to use microbeads as a cleansing agent. Because of the environmental damage they cause in our waterways, they’re now banned. But most conventional toothpaste still contains gel-like plastics used as binders or texture enhancer. And then there’s the tube itself. Generally they are plastic too.
Then there’s the toothbrush. We found the plastic-free toothbrush, got it home, and found the handle was wooden, but the bristles were still a plastic based silicone. It shouldn’t be this hard. I shouldn’t have to brush my teeth with my finger dipped in bi-carb paste, but that’s currently the most organic option. On the upside, I never forget my toothbrush.
Deodorant was easy. No Pong comes in a tin, and you apply it with your finger. Just make sure it’s not your toothbrush finger.
Next we threw away all the silicon or plastic cooking implements. The egg flip, the stirring spoon, the chopping board, the mixing bowl. We stuck with glass and metal. I was amazed how much plastic had snuck in.
Supermarket shopping is hard. Anything that’s been transported has generally been wrapped in plastic. Even most canned food now has a weird plastic lining. Obviously farmers’ markets are the best option for fruit and veg but there’s many other items that you have to get in a store, and they are the ones colluding with fossil fuels. Like milk.
When I was a kid, milk came in a glass bottle with a metal top. Now it’s almost impossible to find any sort of milk not in plastic; either a bottle, or a non-dairy milk in a Tetra Pak – which can be up to 25% plastic.
The old way encouraged a more careful mindset around consumption. You put out empty bottles to tell the milkman how many bottles you required. It was a simple analogue system. We were re-using without even being environmentalists. That was because we had a mindset of not wasting. We had one small metal garbage bin – now we have three large plastic bins. We put our plastic in plastic in plastic. As humans we are triple-bagged. We throw out more than what most people in the Third World own.
I have replaced my washing powders for clothes and dishwashing products with an eco-friendly non-polluting sheet that comes in a box. But I’m using soap in a bottle with a hand pump. In plastic bottles. When did we decide soap had to be packaged in plastic? I went back to old-fashioned soap. A crude rectangle of sticky soap with a pube stuck on it. Old school.
It’s overwhelming. But every week we try to change one behaviour, one convenience. No plastic lunchbox. No plastic wrappers. No food wrapped in plastic.
Plastic is the toxic footprint of our capitalist nightmare. Ninety-nine per cent of plastic is derived from fossil fuels. And plastic is fricking everywhere. As we push towards a renewable energy future, instead of filling up our cars, the fossil fuel industry has filled us up instead. It’s giving us cancer, and it’s choking our environment. It’s a very convenient death.
So as we transition to EV’s, let’s not forget to move away from plastic.
Not just renewables. But re-doables.
Mandy Nolan’s column has appeared in The Echo for almost 25 years. She is a writer, comedian and artist, and was the Greens candidate at the past two federal elections.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
