5 incredibly easy ways to
reduce waste
by Hannah Parry This time last year, I was spellbound by Sir David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II series on the BBC. My heart broke during the last episode when national treasure Sir David explained and demonstrated the devastating impact that plastic waste is having on the world’s oceans. The scale of the problem often feels overwhelming what good is one less straw when all the turtles are eating plastic bags which are already in the sea? Whilst I believe big corporations need to do their bit by changing their packaging (I strongly recommending joining in activism with organisations such as Greenpeace), there are small and easy changes we can all make. If we all make small changes every day, they soon add up and can have a big impact.
1 . Reuse single-use plastics My utopian dream is to fill my reusable glass jars with dried chickpeas and pick fresh green lettuces from my garden. Back to reality supermarkets still use a lot of singleuse plastic, and most of us have to buy food from supermarkets. How about finding more uses for each item? I wash up houmous tubs and use them for storing leftovers in the fridge (they’re the perfect size for half a can of beans or sweetcorn), and plastic mushroom trays make excellent containers for pot plants or for keeping vegetable peelings in before they go in the compost. Those big, sealable plastic bags that deliveries come in I use those as bin liners. Get creative. What else can you do with that plastic bag before you put it in recycling?
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