Q&A with Non Plastic Beach
Discover Gareth and Nicola’s five top tips for reducing the use of plastic in your everyday life!
Discover Gareth and Nicola’s five top tips for reducing the use of plastic in your everyday life!
As July was plastic free month, we wanted to highlight our friends Gareth and Nicola from Non Plastic Beach. We thought we’d let them tell you, in their own words, a bit more about what they do and what you can do to help!
“We sell alternatives to plastic. Basically, if it’s made of plastic, comes wrapped in plastic or contains plastic we provide an alternative that removes or reduces the plastic aiming to stop it ending up on the beach.
We make effective, affordable and sustainable alternatives to plastic, which we want to be at least as good as the plastic version, but usually better!”
“We sell alternatives to plastic. Basically, if it’s made of plastic, comes wrapped in plastic or contains plastic we provide an alternative that removes or reduces the plastic aiming to stop it ending up on the beach.
We make effective, affordable and sustainable alternatives to plastic, which we want to be at least as good as the plastic version, but usually better!”
“We had both seen the impact of plastic while we were scuba diving in various parts of the world and decided we needed to cut our plastic consumption personally.
We started to replace items in the house and found that they were often poor quality, dishonestly described or arrived wrapped in plastic, so we decided we could do it better. It started off as a “side hustle” after too many glasses of Sauvignon Blanc, but became our full-time job as it grew and thrived.”
Could you give us five top tips on how we can all begin to use less plastic in our everyday lives?
“Replace one item at a time, it can be too overwhelming to try and do too much at once”
“Look at your recycling bin, what plastic item is most common in there, changing the biggest one will cut your plastic consumption measurably”
“Use up your existing plastic products, if it is going to landfill, it may at least be used first”
“If someone won’t tell you much about the product then it may not be as it first appears”
“Plastic-free products can be better than plastic versions, our shampoo bars have amazing customer loyalty and are ideal for travel too (hand luggage friendly)”
“Less than 10% of plastic is recycled in the UK and much of what we use is impossible, difficult or expensive to recycle. In reality, much of what is “recycled” is actually downcycled as many plastics cannot create a product of the same quality (unlike glass or metal). Much of what goes in recycling bins actually ends up in landfill or burned as it is too dirty, contaminated or mixed up with other plastic types, this is sometimes known as wishcycling!
Some big manufacturers are launching genuine efforts to cut plastic, but many are rather cynical and actually not necessarily all they appear. Bottles of cleaning product that you can refill with a flexible pouch might have lower grams of plastic, but that plastic is flexible and difficult to wash out before recycling, so it is much less likely to be recycled than the bottle it came in.
By cutting plastic down or out of a product, you can make a contribution to reducing this recycling burden and use something that is easy to compost or recycle instead. This eliminates the “hope this gets recycled” as it goes in whatever coloured bin your council use.”
“Less than 10% of plastic is recycled in the UK and much of what we use is impossible, difficult or expensive to recycle. In reality, much of what is “recycled” is actually downcycled as many plastics cannot create a product of the same quality (unlike glass or metal). Much of what goes in recycling bins actually ends up in landfill or burned as it is too dirty, contaminated or mixed up with other plastic types, this is sometimes known as wishcycling!
Some big manufacturers are launching genuine efforts to cut plastic, but many are rather cynical and actually not necessarily all they appear. Bottles of cleaning product that you can refill with a flexible pouch might have lower grams of plastic, but that plastic is flexible and difficult to wash out before recycling, so it is much less likely to be recycled than the bottle it came in.
By cutting plastic down or out of a product, you can make a contribution to reducing this recycling burden and use something that is easy to compost or recycle instead. This eliminates the “hope this gets recycled” as it goes in whatever coloured bin your council use.”
“We wouldn’t go back to bottled shampoo and conditioner now, I mean Gareth doesn’t have that much hair, but I do and I want it to look good. I have spent serious money on bottled shampoos that have not stood up to the performance of our bars and that is with somewhat highlighted and long hair.”
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