I have to be away from home for a night, so I pack a water bottle, and put a few pieces of fruit in my bag so that I can avoid the plastic packaging of snacks and drinks. I am staying in the Holiday Inn Express. The low budget chain has initiated a number of changes to the hotel experience, I am sure that cost control is the primary motive, but if they also reduce plastic waste, then I’m OK with that. There is only a shower, no bath, there is also a dispenser in the shower containing shampoo and shower gel, I’m disappointed for a moment, it means I can’t have that little pleasure of taking the little bottles away with me when I leave, but that is a small price to pay. The bathroom also has plastic glasses, that are in plastic bags, presumably to show that they are hygienic, and not used. So Holiday Inn you lose all the brownie points you won with the soap dispensers.
As I look around the room, I notice the bins, more specifically the bin liners, I’ve never thought too much about bin liners before. The bin in my room has one tea bag in it at the end of my stay. That plastic bin liner will be collected by the cleaner, put into another bigger plastic bin liner, then sent off to landfill. Surely there must be a better way of dealing with the rubbish? The Tea bag came in a paper wrapper, and I put that in my bag instead of the bin, for later deposit into a recycling bin.
This was an eye opener, I use bin liners, I am questioning why, and if I can deal with my rubbish at home without using them, or is this a step too far. Surely there was a time before they were invented, what did people do? I realise the plastic problem goes beyond the shopping bag, and its going to be really hard for me to reduce a lot of the other plastic that is embedded into society, the vegetables and bread that come bagged, the plastic wrapped magazine in the Sunday newspaper and all the rest.
Even if I recycle all the plastic bags that come into my home, there is still everything else that I have no control over. It starts to feel overwhelming.
A middle aged woman's attempts at a low carbon life 