Jess from Plastic Freo tells her story

So, we had a chat to the inspiring Jess from Plastic Freo who has been on a quest to consume no virgin plastic. If you haven’t really thought about how much plastic you use in your day to day I seriously recommend that you do – you will be amazed.  To add insult to injury – the vast majority are single-use.

You can follow Jess and Nathan’s journey on their Facebook blog page here. But for now here is Jess chatting about the reasons she ‘quit plastic’ and her dreams for the future. We will also be uploading her fantastic Top Tips for getting plastic out of your life. 

The journey leading up to this challange has been a long one, but the last year living in Fremantle has changed my life forever. I guess I had always been conscious of what was happenning in the world around me and that most of the things we do as humans on a day to day basis even the simple things we might do could be destorying this beautiful earth we live on.

Jess grinding her own coffee beans to reduce plastic packaging use!

So if i really break it down it was the Living Smart course facilitated by Shani Graham and Tim Darby that made me believe I could change my own world which would then have a positive knock on effect on the world no matter how small. Myself and my partner then participated in the 2011 Plastic Free July campaign held by Earth Carers, which was a little mind boggling, it really got you thinking how much of your waste is plastic.

I then was given the opportunity, I call it an opportunity (many people would’nt) because it changed my life, to participate in a Waste Audit for the Fremantle council. We sorted and rummaged through one tonne of Green top bin waste. After a few hours of maggots and smells you didn’t think existed none of that seemed to faze me as i came to terms with how much of the waste was plastic. I felt heartbroken, on the road home I said to my friend and inspirational Earth Carer

“I am thinking of doing a one year plastic free challenge”

She thought it was great but as the words came out I was crapping myself! Why would I do that to myself?  Put myself under that much pressure? To tell you the truth I’m not sure what I was doing at the time but now I know why.

The knock on effect has so much more power when it is done through practice. For me its also about inspiring others to make one or two simple changes in day to day life. If you think about it, it wasn’t long ago we encouraged thrift and frugality, how far from that have we come? We are in a society where we see a product go from raw material/or byproduct on a factory line (many in China) into a box, then shipped or air-freighted to trains and trucks, to a middle man then on the move again to the place where it will finally be used ONCE only to be thrown away after one single use!

This madness has to stop.

Bag It Screening at City of Fremantle! Tuesday February 7th

Bag It Screening at City of Fremantle! Come show your support!! Tuesday February 7th.

Plastic Free Freo needs you this Tuesday night, February 7th at the City of Fremantle for a screening of the award winning documentary ‘Bag It’ – Is your life too plastic?

The City of Fremantle  invites  Fremantle Retailers   and the Community to a free documentary screening.

 

Where: Reception Room, City of Fremantle Town Hall

When:   Tues, Feb 7       Time:    6pm – 8pm

Doors Open at   5.30pm

 Light Refreshments Provided

Please RSVP your  attendance to

maryjw@fremantle.wa.gov.au

At your earliest convenience

Proudly Supported by the City of   Fremantle, Plastic Free Freo, and Ecoburbia

 

 

 

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The Latest

In a presentation to the Fremantle Council,  banning plastic bags was presented by Plastic Free Freo’s ‘Yours Truly’ as an opportunity to reduce our plastic footprint and take a step for sustainability in a direction that many have already gone. There was much support from the council and the following article was recently written by Councillor Jon Strachan, in efforts to push the issue further instead of letting it fizzle out like the last time back in 2005….

Plastic is not so Fantastic

By Jon Strachan (Fremantle Councillor)

At Fremantle Council’s last meeting of 2011 an articulate young lady gave a very compelling speech about her hopes for Fremantle to become a plastic bag free city.  Which took me back a few years to when Council tried this and alas failed.  The hitch was those doggy bags Council provide at the beach, the non-plastic alternative was too expensive for the Council of the day.  Frankly I think it was a cop-out and its way past time to revisit this environmental ambition.  It transpired the young lady was Lisa Griffin, she turned up again at Hulbert Street Film Night in January when Plasticized was shown and film maker Michael J Lutman gave a short talk and answered questions.  Lisa is the driving force behind plasticfreefreo.

It is crucially important we reduce our use of plastic; it comes from oil, a finite resource, and it ends up in our oceans killing and maiming millions of mammals and birds.  Australian marine scientists performing autopsies on dead marine creatures have found up to 317 pieces of plastic in one turtle and 276 in a single mutton bird, and we have all seen gruesome pictures off marine creatures entangled in our discarded plastic products.

It won’t surprise Herald readers that 80% of plastic in the ocean comes from land-based uses and 20% from boats and ships.  Once in the ocean plastic is carried by currents to the 5 Ocean Gyres, these are areas that are thousands of kilometres away from land, yet as a result of ocean currents accumulate huge amounts of plastic waste.  Whilst plastic breaks down in size it does not biodegrade, it remains with us forever.  Plastic recycling is not closed loop recycling, meaning plastic products we put in our yellow topped bin can only be recycled into another product once.  That is why we need to stop buying plastic products and bottles to simply throw away, it’s a ludicrous waste of resources and a threat to our wildlife.  When considering a single use disposable plastic spoon, artist Max Temkin produced a poster which read: It’s pretty amazing that our society has reached a point where the effort necessary to extract oil from the ground ship it to a refinery turn it into plastic shape it appropriately truck it to a store buy it and bring it home is considered to be less effort than what it takes to just wash the spoon when you’ve done with it.

New South Welshman and surfer Tim Silverwood has started an organisation called Take 3, they use the simple message that when you leave a beach take 3 pieces of rubbish with you, not your own rubbish but someone else’s, not only will it start to reduce rubbish in the ocean it is also an empowering act that encourages people to respect our beaches.  Try it, remember 80% of plastic in the ocean came from the land, either washed in by rivers or discarded by people close to the shore.

Back to Lisa’s campaign to make Fremantle plastic bag free, is it really practicable?  The answer is a resounding yes, The Australian Capital Territory, Northern Territory and South Australia are plastic bag free states and territories.  WA should join that list and for Fremantle to become plastic bag free would be a great first step.  Our supermarkets seem to have a culture of pushing plastic bags onto customers, I take my own bags to the supermarket, but need to be ever vigilant to stop checkout workers slipping things into plastic before putting them into my shopping bag.  On the other hand Bunnings do not offer plastic bags to customers who must pay if they choose to get one, but they do sell 99cent plastic buckets which also proliferates plastic waste.

Let me finish with the mystery of bottled water.  Perth has some of the best water in the world on tap at around 1cent per litre, why would anyone choose to buy water in a bottle at anything over $2 a litre when there are also health risks with water stored in PET bottles?   Globally 200 billion litres of bottled water are sold annually, while here in Australia we use over 400,000 barrels of oil to make plastic for water bottles.  In the driest continent this next statistic is mindboggling, it takes 7 litres of water to supply one litre of bottled water.  When shopping choose the product that reduces plastic waste and support shops that have signed up to the plasticfreefreo campaign.