The ubiquity of plastic in our houses and why we need to cut down

Avoiding single use plastic is now accepted as common sense (though it is still not mandatory), but it is just the tip of the ‘plastic iceberg’ when it comes to our plastic addiction. So much of the plastic we buy now is unavoidable. Often this is because it makes up the packaging used to wrap and transport the goods we buy, and just as often it IS the goods we buy.

We did not really see this happening as the change has crept up in the way we do things that we have been doing for millennia. When it comes to packaging, we have been transporting things for a very long time, but whereas we used to wrap with paper, leaves, wood or cloth we now use plastics. The word ‘plastic’ literally means mouldable, and for centuries we have moulded materials like clay or added water, oil or resin to minerals like lime to make them mouldable.

All this changed with the onset of the fossil fuel age. The by-product of refining fuel was a greater amount of residue. With steam cracking scientists discovered ways to reduce this waste to monomers that could then be rebuilt as chains of polymers that we now know as plastics – literally because they can be moulded or extruded – that are used in a wide range of modern products, including many used or created by designers.

Plastic has allowed a step shift in our technological development. From industrial applications to furnishings, we could not imagine life without it. However, we have never sought to establish what we agree is the appropriate use of plastic. Did we ask to have it used to wrap our food? Did we ask to have it in our food? Did we require it in our clothes or our furnishing fabrics or our paint?! On the whole not, but we have all bought into the perceived advantages, from wipeability to affordability, without considering the disadvantages.

The synthetic materials we use in the name of plastic are fundamentally alien to the natural world. This means that there are not organisms ready to break down our plastic waste and turn it into a food source. Erosion by air or water can make plastic particles smaller and smaller, but they cannot be harmlessly absorbed into the earth.

It is time to get ‘plastic responsible’

There are so many ways to cut out single use plastic in our daily lives – we are all familiar with them, from using a tote bag or a keep cup, to buying loose veg or using shops with a refill service. Often just a little more thought and effort on our part is all that is required, but when we need the supermarkets or even the government to help then we should ask them, or make our views known – there is nothing wrong with consumer boycotts or ‘clicktivism’.

Let’s face it: our own government has not comprehensively banned single use plastics, it has not outlawed the use of non-recyclable plastic, it has not even made it mandatory for anyone selling us goods in plastic wrappers to guide us as to how to dispose of or recycle them. Even if they did, many of us would find that our local recycling facilities could not process the wide range of plastics now in use.

Personal responsibility is now key to the urgent defeat of plastic pollution as it permeates the entire globe and the guts of all living things, including ourselves! As a designer, I have not always found it easy to avoid plastic. Some suppliers wrap their pieces in extraordinary quantities of it, some fabric makers add plastic fibres into natural-sounding materials and the use of resins has become ubiquitous and is the mainstay of the product we all use most frequently in decorating – paint.

The vast majority of paint is based on acrylic or vinyl binders, but is it sold to us as potentially harmful plastic paint? – no it is not of course – it is presented to us as water-based. From this we are to deduce that its materials are ‘safe’ as we are never presented with a full declaration of the ingredients. Out of all the everyday products we buy, this is really now quite unusual and is betraying any home owner, painter or designer who is trying to make responsible choices when it comes to the health of the planet, the building and even the occupant.

Let’s all demand to know when plastic is used in the products that we buy, so that we can consider if it is an appropriate use of plastic or what alternatives we have. Plastic pollution is a scourge that we are all responsible for and we will never solve it by believing that its being recyclable is enough – that just gives licence to companies to make more and more of it using more and more fossil fuel. The only answer is to stop using it where it can be replaced by natural materials like cardboard or corn starch for packaging, or plant-based polymers for paint.

If we can make paint from plant-based polymers – think of all the other uses of liquid plastics we could replace if we acted responsibly to demand suppliers upped their game!

-Words by Edward Bulmer