Hi! You’ve landed on the activity page for our Educate Yourself – Zero Waste series part 7. If you’ve not yet gone through the topic, we encourage you do so before trying out this task. Just click on the link above to get there.

Take a look at the ads and products below (click or tap to enlarge). Can you explain why they are greenwashing and false solutions?

Try with at least 3 different images and feel free to share your answers in the comments below. If you get stuck, our False Solutions Tool can give you some tips.

Why do you think people fall for these type of ads? And what can we do to stop this happening?

Before we start, how are you doing with your zero waste lifestyle? Hopefully you’re not too overwhelmed! One thing we found when we started to cut out single-use plastic is that you have to decide between so many alternative options – paper, bioplastic, compostable plastic. It can get confusing! Take a look at this:

Alternatives to single-use plastic

With alternatives to single-use plastic, there’s just one question you need to ask to see if they are worth using: does this help reduce waste overall? If the answer is no, there’s likely a better option out there.

This is because replacing one throwaway item with another doesn’t really fix the bigger problem. We are still using valuable natural resources to make things we use for a few seconds and ending up with the same quantity of trash to deal with.

Some of these “plastic alternatives” also have other issues that might make you think twice about using them: bioplastics for instance still contain chemicals and sometimes even fossil fuel plastic as major ingredients. And of course, they still create microplastics. Any paper that’s in contact with food usually has a thin coating of plastic on it so it doesn’t fall apart. There’s more about these different materials in the watch list below.

In general, the best alternatives for single-use plastic are things that are reusable. Think real (metal) cutlery that can be washed and used thousands of times instead of trendy disposable bamboo versions. Or a glass, porcelain or thermos cup for tea, instead of a paper cup. Because we use these items over and over again, we help reduce waste overall. It means fewer new things need to be made and thrown away.

Alternative ways to deal with discarded plastic

But what if we can do something useful with all that trash? That would mean disposables are not so bad after all. You may have heard of waste being turned into electricity, heat or fuel. That sounds much better than putting it into a landfill or letting it get into nature, right?

Let’s think this through. What exactly do we put into those machines to produce the energy? In most cases, it’s mixed (not separated) waste. This means piles of food, glass, metal, paper and of course plastic. Why mixed? Because it’s much easier for local governments this way – there’s just one set of trash to collect and then burn.

Burning mixed waste is pretty inefficient though (all that wet food!) and lots of good things that could have been recycled or composted go up in smoke.

If the waste is sorted first, and organics and recyclables removed, we’re usually left with a bunch of plastics. As these are made from fossil fuels + chemicals, when they get burned they cause climate breakdown in exactly the same way as oil, gas or coal. But with plastic, there’s also a lot of seriously toxic stuff in the ash and smoke – things like dioxins, furans and heavy metals. This is especially dangerous when plastic is turned into fuel briquettes that get used for making cement or cooking food.

Now let’s think about where all that waste comes from in the first place. Plastic trash – the main source of heat – is not a renewable source of energy, like wind or solar power. It’s a finite fossil resource. Waste-to-energy facilities cost a lot of money and, to work properly, their fires need be kept burning 24/7 at a very high temperature. This means we need a steady supply of new plastic waste to feed the machines and get the money back – so more oil and gas being extracted from the Earth.

Zero waste means keeping materials in use, over and over again, for as long as possible and then disposing of them safely. But when we burn plastic, all that remains after the heat, fuel or electricity has been used, are toxic by-products. Nothing useful can be done with these, though some companies attempt to mix the ash into building materials. In any form, the leftover ash and smoke cause serious health problems for people and  ecosystems nearby.

The bottom line is, if we separate our waste and compost and recycle what we can, we’re mainly left with a pile of plastics. By reducing this pile – for example by designing durable and reusable products – we can conserve finite resources and have very little left to burn. So there’s no need to produce heat or electricity from waste at all: we already have real solutions and many climate-friendly sources of energy we can use instead. Why risk our health and our environment if it’s not even necessary?

Introducing… false solutions and greenwashing

False solutions are any ideas or actions that claim to solve the plastic crisis in some way, but in fact do not. They usually focus on switching one single-use material with another, that is supposedly better for the environment, or on using technology to “manage” plastic better at the end of its life.

By this definition, bioplastics and any kind of waste-to-energy or fuel technology could be considered to be “false solutions”. There are many others, like saying we can turn used plastic into new clothes or shoes, or that plastic-eating worms or bacteria will save us. They never try to solve the problem at the source – to reduce the plastic we produce in the first place. In fact, they can even make the problem worse, by distracting or delaying us from working on the real solutions that will lead us to zero waste.

Companies who promote these types of solutions are often said to be “greenwashing”. This means – intentionally or not – they trick people into thinking that the problem is being dealt with and that they are part of the solution. They might use misleading labels or marketing to try and boost their image or sales. Meanwhile, they are supporting the same overproduction and overuse that caused this crisis in the first place.

As we know from the previous parts of this guide, after plastic has been produced and used in any form, the damage has already been done. The climate has already been impacted, pollution has been created and our health damaged by the release of microplastics. So these false solutions aren’t solving the problem – to do that we need to change the system that produces the waste in the first place.

Greenwashing is a big topic and covers a lot of false environmental claims and promises made by companies in all sorts of industries – fashion, cars, energy to name just a few. If you want to know more, check out the links at the bottom of this page.

In summary, we might say that false solutions try to fix the plastic crisis with alternative materials or ways to deal with the waste. These might seem to be helping but in reality, they still deplete natural resources, create new waste and cause harm to the planet and our health. They don’t address the root of the problem: our throwaway culture. As zero wasters, we need to be able to recognise false solutions and reject them – but they are often hard to spot, especially if they are marketed as “eco-friendly”.

To find out more about false solutions to plastic pollution, check out our reading and watch lists below. Take your time to explore whatever appeals to you. You can also apply your new knowledge in an activity, or test it out in the quiz. If you have any thoughts on false solutions, or want to answer the question below, leave us a comment!

If you’ve been following the earlier parts of this guide, you’ll already have a good sense of the scale and complexity of the plastic problem. And you’re probably starting to wonder how we will ever solve it!

Real solutions can’t come from changing how we manage plastic trash. We need to change the way we live too.

As the twins say, there are hundreds of accounts on social media all sharing tips about how to reduce plastic and other waste in our daily lives. This is called a “zero waste lifestyle”. Note! A zero waste lifestyle is nothing new – it was not invented by influencers, nor does it need a perfect white kitchen and lots of cool zero waste products. In fact, most people in human history up until the mid 20th century lived zero waste lifestyles and millions still do today.

This kind of lifestyle just means that the things we use are made to last, materials are reused and repaired – not thrown away – and we are more connected to nature and our local community.

So what happened in the mid 20th century to change this? The dawn of mass production and advertising, fuelled by plastic — the new “wonder material” — started a consumerist, throwaway culture. This transformed people’s lives and even their values.

Once we start looking, we can see that a lot of what is now being sold to us is overpackaged and quite often not even needed at all. So a zero waste lifestyle really just starts with observing our buying habits and thinking of ways to avoid any unnecessary purchases and waste.

Start small with simple swaps

The key is not to feel pressured to change everything at once. Start by making small, manageable changes and gradually build from there. A great first step is a reusable water bottle. Choose one made from plain stainless steel to avoid issues with microplastics. Fill it from the tap (if you can) or another reusable source like a tank or public refill point. That will already start saving a lot of plastic bottles.

Next you could try a reusable shopping bag – again choose one that is small enough to fold up and keep in your main bag or pocket so you always have it with you. Or, carry a reusable cup. Both of these swaps mean you might have to ask the seller if you can use your item instead of the disposable one they provide. It can feel awkward the first time you do this. But if you can explain the reason – that you are trying to avoid single-use plastic – most people are quite happy to help.

The more you practice, the easier and more normal it feels. And, as well as saving plastic, you’re also being a great role model for people you know – and even those you don’t! – who see you making those choices.

Plan ahead to make more impact

Once you get the hang of carrying a few reusables with you, you’re ready to go a step further. For more ideas, look at what you and your family use and throw away each week. Is there anything you can do to avoid plastic packaging? For example, could you choose loose fruit and vegetables instead of wrapped? Could you buy any other products (e.g. sugar, rice, nuts) at a local market or refill store instead of at the supermarket?

If you pack your own lunch, could you make it zero waste – without packaging and in a reusable container? Could you swap from disposable period products to reusable ones? Or from liquid shampoo and soap to a solid bar? If there are some things you can’t or don’t want to give up, that’s okay. We all like salty snacks 🙂

Become a hardcore zero waster?

There is actually a lot more you can do to reduce waste, from composting to repairing things to making your own cleaning products. You can go room by room in your house, giving them zero waste makeovers. This sometimes does require special equipment, as well as a bit more time and effort. Some people will enjoy exploring these options, others will find they get overwhelmed and demotivated.

Our advice is to do what you can, and stick to what is working for you. A little every day is better than trying to do too much and ending up doing nothing at all!  And in the next parts of this guide, we’ll be looking at more ways to support zero waste lifestyles for everyone, even those who are reluctant to try.

In summary, a zero waste lifestyle means being aware of the waste you produce in your daily life and taking steps to reduce it. By buying only what we need, choosing unpackaged or second-hand goods when possible and switching disposable items for reusable ones, we can prevent a huge amount of waste. Separating any remaining waste by composting organics and recycling will leave even less that needs to go to landfill.

To find out more about zero waste lifestyles, check out our reading and watch lists below. Take your time to explore whatever appeals to you and don’t forget to try some swaps out for yourself. If you do try any of the suggestions, or want to answer the question below, leave us a comment!

Yes, you read that right: unfortunately, recycling more is not going to solve the problem of plastic pollution. Here are the twins with why:

Quite a few different points were mentioned in that conversation. Let’s break them down.

Plastic is difficult and expensive to recycle

Recycling plastic is tough because there are thousands of different types, colours, and additives – just think of the average supermarket shelf! All the different plastics usually get collected together and sorting them out at the factory is expensive and not always effective.

Inaccurate sorting leads to contamination, where a whole batch of plastic might need to be thrown away. It also means any recycled products are lower quality and need new plastic (from fossil fuels) mixed in to make them work.

The sorting and treatments needed to make recycled plastic also make it expensive to sell – it usually costs more than brand new or virgin plastic. This means it is often not cost-effective for companies to switch to using recycled plastic.

Recycling arrows are meaningless

Those little symbols with arrows on plastic packaging might make us feel good, but they’re not a guarantee that the plastic can be or will be recycled.

If the arrows you see have a number inside, this is the symbol to show the general type of plastic it’s made from. There are 6 basic types:

1. PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate)
2. HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene)
3. PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride)
4. LDPE (Low-Density Polyethylene)
5. PP (Polypropylene)
6. PS (Polystyrene)

The seventh type is “Other”, which means “everything else” – thousands of varieties! Only 2 of these types, #1 (PET) and #2 (HDPE) can be effectively recycled, yet all the numbers are shown with arrows around them. How misleading is that?

Plastic recycling is not infinite

Unlike some materials like glass or metal, plastic can only be recycled once or twice before it degrades too much to be useful. So, it’s not a never-ending cycle like we might hope.

Nope, that’s still not going around…

The way plastics behave and the high risk of contamination mean – if it can be recycled at all – it usually gets downcycled. In other words, it gets turned into a different kind of product from its original use. For example, plastic bottles (made from PET) are often downcycled into clothing or carpets. Plastic bags (made from LDPE) can get downcycled into waste bins or garden furniture. These new products can’t be recycled further so they eventually end up in landfill, incinerated or in nature.

Around 2% of plastic is effectively recycled, which means it gets turned into something similar to its original use, so a plastic bottle to a plastic bottle. But this only adds 1 or 2 extra “loops” to its life – after that this plastic too will degrade and get thrown away.

Plastic recycling is not safe

As we know, plastic contains a lot of chemical additives – sometimes half or more of the material weight. Around 16,000 different substances have been identified in plastics but very little is known about any of them, let alone what happens when we mix them up with others in the recycling process.

Scientists are worried because they have found dangerous chemicals such as flame retardants in recycled plastic cooking utensils This is a problem because they are in contact with our food.

Recycling plastic also means grinding, shredding, and heating the materials, which exposes workers to more of these harmful chemicals through skin contact and breathing in fumes and microplastics. In many countries, they don’t get proper protection to keep them safe, nor healthcare to help deal with the impacts.

There’s way too much plastic to recycle

Let’s not forget the original problem with plastic: we’re churning it out at an alarming rate, far faster than we can actually recycle it. And most of the time, we don’t even want to recycle it because recycling is difficult and expensive.

This means a lot of it ends up being shipped to poorer countries to deal with. This is called the waste trade. But why would they want other people’s trash? Well, sometimes they are promised money for it, or sometimes it is (falsely) labelled as useful items.

Either way, when it arrives, the companies who got the money for it usually end up dumping or burning it, even if they promised to recycle it. It’s an unfair system that puts an unfair burden on developing countries, who often don’t have the facilities to deal with their domestic waste, let alone more from abroad.

In summary, when we say plastic recycling is broken, we mean that there is both too much plastic and too many different types to handle with recycling. The material itself is not designed to be recycled, so it’s expensive to do, not safe and the quality deteriorates each time. This means more new plastic needs to be made to replace it, which defeats the purpose of recycling.

To find out more about plastic recycling and how it works, check out our reading and watch lists below. Take your time to explore whatever appeals to you. You can also apply your new knowledge in an activity, or test it out in the quiz. If you have any thoughts on plastic and our health, or want to answer the question below, leave us a comment!

Plastic isn’t just a pollution and public health problem; it’s the fastest growing industrial source of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet!

Yikes. It’s true: the production, use and disposal of plastics are now estimated to contribute up to 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions each year, compared with the whole aviation industry (estimated at around 3.5% of emissions). This doesn’t mean it’s okay to take the plane when there’s an alternative option! It’s just to give you an idea of the scale of the problem.

But how is that amount of emissions even possible? By now, we know plastic is made of fossil fuels + chemicals. In the 1950s, when it first came into wider use, plastic accounted for less than 1% of global oil consumption. These days it uses around 7% and this is projected to increase to 20% by 2050. This is because big oil companies believe making more plastic will save their profits as the world moves away from fossil fuels to towards renewable sources of energy.

To understand the climate impacts of plastic though, we don’t just look at its ingredients. We need to consider its whole journey, from how it’s made to what happens after it’s thrown away – a.k.a. its lifecycle. This gives us a much fuller picture.

Let’s break down the hidden emissions during the lifecycle of plastic.

EMISSIONS FROM EXTRACTION & PRODUCTION

Plastic’s journey begins with the extraction of fossil fuels from the Earth, which emits greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. The refining and manufacturing processes (the cracking and polymerisation we learned about in Part 1) then release more CO2 and other pollutants into the atmosphere. Around 90% of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with plastic are created at this production stage.

Plastic is also transported at every stage of its life and this uses more fossil fuels.

EMISSIONS FROM DISPOSAL

The endless stream of plastic packages and products we deal with every day will usually end up either in a landfill or incinerated. A small amount gets recycled. And a lot of plastic also gets into the environment – there’s more about that below.

Landfilling plastic, especially when mixed up with food waste and other organic material, creates conditions where methane is produced. Methane – which you may know from cow farts – is a greenhouse gas that’s way better than CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere. It makes climate change happen at a much faster rate.

Landfills are the world’s third largest source of methane emissions (cows and other agriculture come in – appropriately – at no. 2, with energy production taking the top spot). Making sure food waste doesn’t end up with plastic and other non-organic material in the landfill would reduce this a lot.

Incinerating plastic is a big problem. As it’s made from fossil fuels, it has the same climate impacts as burning oil and gas, with added toxic chemicals being released – often near where people live.

A small amount of plastic gets recycled and this process generates some greenhouse gas emissions, but far less than when new plastic is produced. In theory, that makes recycling more plastic a good option to slow climate change. But there are other issues with plastic recycling, which we’ll see later, that mean it’s not as helpful as we might think.

EMISSIONS FROM PLASTIC IN THE ENVIRONMENT

Scientists have found that plastic in the environment reacts with sunlight to release methane and other greenhouse gases. Microplastics are also a climate problem in the atmosphere and in the ocean. In the atmosphere, microplastics can trap heat, just like other types of air pollution.

In the ocean, there’s a different effect. Marine ecosystems help to absorb and store around half of the carbon dioxide on our planet, making them the world’s biggest “carbon sink”.

A lot of this CO2 is captured by plankton and other microorganisms in the water and then transported to the deep ocean in their poo. But the increase of microplastics in their diet is interfering with this process. As the water becomes more contaminated, less carbon dioxide can be absorbed. This threatens not only the climate, but the balance and even the survival of these beautiful and important ecosystems.

In summary, we might say that plastic has important and often unexpected negative effects on the climate at every stage of its life. The largest part of its impact comes when new plastic is produced, but it continues to create emissions after it is thrown away. It can even interfere with the planet’s natural processes to capture CO2 in the ocean.

To find out more about plastic’s impacts on climate change, check out our reading and watch lists below. Take your time to explore whatever appeals to you. You can also apply your new knowledge in an activity, or test it out in the quiz. If you have any thoughts on plastic and our climate, or want to answer the question below, leave us a comment!