The Plastic Problem

My company has resolved a lot of plastic packaging problems in the cleaning industry and annihilated its need as containers for our products. This was a pretty straightforward process of logical problem solving born from a deep desire to protect and respect our planet.

My family and I try to live a plastic free life but of course we are not perfect and what with having 13 year old twins, who have the freedom to make their own consumer choices (I don’t preach to them about plastic, but they have been well informed of the consequences of buying it), we still have single use crisps, sweets, biscuits and instant noodle packets to shamefully stuff into our kitchen bin and thus landfill.

There is a company called Two Farmers who make crisps from their own Herefordshire farmed potato crops and I’m gradually weaning my kids onto their crisps, as all their packaging is compostable. Their products are delicious and they have a lovely business ethos. The two farmers, Mark and Sean wanted to start making crisps (even though it’s a saturated market) but they didn’t want to harm the planet in the process. So they developed this wonderful plastic free packaging which has given them a USP with integrity and provides the crisp loving UK with an alternative to the single use plastic mountain perpetuated by the big well known brands.

So why can’t the big brands do the same? Why don’t Walkers, who produce an incredible 11 million bags per day in their Leicester factories, take responsibility for this abominable amount of single use plastic? 11 million bags a day! I just did the maths on my calculator to find the yearly sum and the answer came up as 4.015e9 I’ve got no idea what that number is but I guess it’s so big it has to include a letter over a numeral. I conclude that Walkers produce a mind blowing amount of single use plastic crisp packets in one year. That’s so depressing…

So if small artisan crisp makers can manufacture an excellent product without destroying the planet, why can’t the big guns? It doesn’t need a lot of thought, we know the answer to that question and that answer is “greed”. Simple as that. Money, money, money. It’s not their own product they are hungrily craving and addicted to, it’s the desperately desired inclusion of the “e-number” into their salary that drives them blithely on.

There are alternatives, there is choice out there but it’s very difficult breaking through the plastic ceiling to get the message to the masses, when our government turns a blind eye and pretends that the problem doesn’t exist. I suppose ignoring the issue and enabling climate change, habitat destruction and species extinction is good for business and fast tracks the coffers of ministers and CEOs to the much lusted for and ultimate goal of the e-number salary.