00:02
I’m Hayley Pearce and, like most people, I rely a lot on plastic.
00:05
I’m guilty.
00:06
Most of my day-to-day items like shampoo and shower gel, make-up
00:09
and even the takeaways I order contains some form of plastic.
00:13
It can’t be recycled.
00:14
That’s mad. No!
00:16
Now I’m on a mission to make my social life a bit more eco-friendly.
00:21
Plastic in cigarettes?
00:27
So I’m just finishing off, now,
00:29
my final touches before I go out to Swansea!
00:33
I love a night out, I bloody do.
00:36
But plastic on a night out is just not something
00:39
me and my friends think about.
00:42
Welcome to Swansea, everybody!
00:45
For the first time ever,
00:47
I’m going to try having a zero-waste night out.
00:51
So I’m off to meet Ella, an eco-friendly Swansea student.
00:54
How much plastic do you think we all use on a night out?
00:57
I think it’s probably more than we realise.
01:01
I brought some examples, these guys. Yeah.
01:03
The disposable shot glass.
01:05
I mean, they just go straight in the bin.
01:08
Some places do still serve in plastic cups.
01:10
I mean, how wasteful is that?
01:12
So, in place of plastic cups,
01:14
we’re going to be taking our own along
01:16
and asking bars if they’ll put our drinks in these for us.
01:19
And then metal straws.
01:21
Seeing as we’re here, we might as well ask the student union
01:24
to be the first one to try it out. Let’s see if they’ll say yes.
01:26
Could you pour us a drink with our own glasses, please? Yeah.
01:29
What would you like to drink? Two vodka Diet Cokes, please.
01:33
OK, cool. Have you ever had anyone come here before with their own cup?
01:36
No.
01:38
This is the first time.
01:40
Cheers!
01:42
Let’s hope we get the same response
01:43
in some other bars we go to now, then, eh? Mm-hmm.
01:56
We brought our own cup,
01:57
so if we could have it in that, that’d be great. What?
02:00
I’ve left it in the last pub.
02:01
Your cup? Oh, my God, guys,
02:03
I’ve left it in the last pub. I’m sorry.
02:07
Oh, my God!
02:08
Cheers. Failed!
02:10
THEY LAUGH
02:12
Having found that most of the bars that are on board with us
02:16
using our own metal cups,
02:17
Ella and I tackle a less well known plastic culprit, cigarettes.
02:22
And to help the Swansea partygoers dispose of their butts properly,
02:25
we’ve brought along our own bin.
02:26
So sorry, this is so random, I know,
02:28
but what are you going to do when you finish that cigarette?
02:30
To be truthful, I’d probably flick it.
02:33
Where are you going to throw your cigarette tonight?
02:35
Hopefully in the bin.
02:37
Down the drain, probably, yeah. Down the drain? OK.
02:39
Globally, more than 4.5 trillion cigarette butts make their way
02:43
into the environment every year.
02:47
Where would you put it out? On the floor.
02:49
Why would you put it out on the floor?
02:50
Where else are you going to put it?
02:52
But only 38% of UK smokers know there’s plastic in cigarettes.
02:56
Did you know there’s plastic in the filters? I didn’t. I didn’t, no.
02:59
I didn’t know it contained plastic.
03:00
Not going to lie, I did not know that.
03:02
I knew exactly that it was plastic. I don’t care.
03:05
Cheers, buddy! Nice one. Have a good night. And you, bye-bye.
03:08
When you think about it, it’s mad.
03:11
So many people throw them on the streets and pavements, on the road.
03:13
I mean, come on.
03:18
So I’m on my way to London with my big ciggy.
03:22
I’m going to see a company called TerraCycle.
03:26
Apparently, they’re going to recycle my used fag butts.
03:32
These guys specialise in things that are hard to recycle,
03:35
and were the first company in the world
03:37
to find a way to make new products out of old cigarette butts.
03:42
So this is a type of plastic.
03:44
It’s the same material that you’ll find in my glasses frames,
03:47
in playing cards and also in things like camera film.
03:49
What we do, we separate them out and then we shred them.
03:53
I mean, we get a flake like this and then that can be turned
03:58
into weather-resistant board material. So if you smell that,
04:02
you’ll see it still smells a little bit of cigarette waste.
04:05
Oh, yeah.
04:06
The other thing that we can do as well is
04:08
we can kind of mix that material with other recycled plastics
04:12
and it turns it into this little kind of pellet
04:15
that we can use that to injection mould into new products.
04:18
So that, for example, has been used to make these cigarette ashtrays.
04:21
I didn’t know you could recycle cigarettes,
04:23
so I’m baffled by it all.
04:24
We always say to people, you know,
04:26
if you’re recycling something with us,
04:28
tell other people that you can recycle it.
04:29
You know, you need to start with yourself
04:31
rather than expect someone else to do it. Yeah.
04:33
Show other people that it’s something you’re taking seriously.
04:38
But it’s not just smoking
04:39
and drinking that contributes to plastic waste on a night out.
04:43
Takeaways have also become
04:44
an integral part of our social lives.
04:46
So Ella and are gate-crashing a friend’s night in to find out
04:49
how much plastic our favourite fast foods come in.
04:52
I want you to order something
04:54
that you think will come in the least amount of plastic.
04:57
Yeah. Let’s get ordering.
04:58
The problem is, as soon as you say, Hayley, “takeaway”,
05:02
I don’t really care about the packaging cos I just want the food!
05:06
So none of you actually think
05:07
about what your food comes in when you order it? No.
05:10
I can’t blame you.
05:11
When you’re hungry, you’re hungry.
05:13
That’s all you care about, is the actual food.
05:16
Time for Ella to rate our takeaway packaging.
05:21
So the first thing is obviously the plastic bag.
05:24
It’s a very pretty plastic bag.
05:26
Lovely, but they aren’t recyclable.
05:28
One, two, three, four plastic pots and then two smaller ones.
05:32
Is that a bit excessive?
05:33
We’ll have them later. Exactly!
05:35
Well, you know, they’re handy to have round the house.
05:39
And if they are reused, there’s really nothing wrong with them.
05:43
So cardboard is recyclable.
05:46
However, when it’s been contaminated with food oils,
05:51
it can’t be recycled.
05:52
That’s mad. No! Yeah, I know.
05:55
These are actually so bad because if you put this in a bin
05:59
with other paper that wasn’t contaminated with that,
06:02
the oil can then go through all the other paper and ruin all of that.
06:05
What do they expect people to do, then?
06:06
I was going to say. It’s like a hidden nightmare.
06:10
People don’t know this stuff, you know what I mean?
06:12
No, I would not have known that.
06:14
Chopsticks and a plastic fork.
06:16
Who doesn’t like options?
06:18
Not everyone can eat with chopsticks, though.
06:20
And then these two, they look like cardboard,
06:23
but anything that’s designed to carry food
06:25
will have to have been waterproofed in some way.
06:28
Which means you can’t recycle it. No.
06:31
What you and me ordered, Hayley,
06:33
just look at the state of this.
06:35
So everything is individually wrapped in cellophane,
06:39
which is completely non-recyclable.
06:42
Polystyrene pot, completely non-recyclable.
06:45
So we really did atrociously.
06:46
OK, Ella, you’ve told us some interesting facts,
06:50
but I think it’s time to tuck in. Yes!
06:53
I am going for it.
06:56
While a lot of our takeaway packaging
06:59
isn’t as recyclable as we think,
07:02
some businesses are trying to minimise their plastic footprint.
07:08
Hello! Hi, how are you doing? You must be Matthew.
07:10
I am, pleased to meet you. Nice to meet you.
07:12
I can’t wait to try your famous chips.
07:14
First of all, you have to get changed and do some work. All right!
07:19
That’s it, down and then throw it away from you.
07:21
There we are. That looks pretty good to me.
07:24
Why am I so excited about battering a fish, like?
07:29
Matthew, tell me why you started to eliminate plastic
07:32
from your chip shop.
07:34
This year, we made a mission statement.
07:36
We were working towards 0% plastic
07:38
and I believe if everybody does a little bit,
07:40
the world will become a better place.
07:42
Grab the tongs, very gently. Don’t snap it.
07:46
Nice and gentle, now. Hiya, buddy, how can I help you?
07:49
Could I please have a small chips? Yeah. Small chips, please!
07:54
Fish, chips and a pea fritter.
07:56
Where’s the pea fritter?
08:00
We used to use polystyrene,
08:02
but we moved into the biodegradable packaging.
08:04
It’s a lot firmer.
08:05
And what we do as well,
08:07
we put stickers on our packaging to educate our customers.
08:11
We put on these, “Please put me in the food waste”. Right.
08:15
We use this greaseproof to stop any grease from touching the box.
08:19
This then can go into the recycling
08:21
rather than going into normal general waste.
08:25
So what do you think about the packaging in here, then?
08:28
I think it’s good for the environment.
08:30
Very good for the environment.
08:31
Probably get sacked for eating on the job.
08:34
Sit the fish in very gently, now, be careful. Look at that.
08:37
That’s what you call a fish supper. Fair play.
08:40
So, never ever gone to a fish shop
08:43
and come out with packaging like that.
08:46
I know. It’s fantastic. We try our best. It’s amazing.
08:50
I walk out of my door at the end of my day,
08:53
I press my shutters down
08:54
and I know I’ve done the best I possibly could
08:57
for my environment, for my community and for my future.
09:03
My look into the plastics we use in our social lives
09:06
has been a real eye-opener.
09:08
I would never have thought to take my own cup on a night out.
09:11
As for the cigarettes, it’s blown my mind that they can be recycled.
09:15
But there does need to be a change in attitude,
09:18
as we can’t keep throwing them on the floor.
09:21
The amount of plastics in our takeaways
09:23
was never going to shock me,
09:24
but I thought I was clued up on recycling until I met Ella.
09:29
Cheers!
09:30
I think what it comes down to is businesses need to sort it out
09:33
and provide the correct packaging and just stop all the confusion.
09:38
She got the job!
—
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The post Is a Zero Waste Night Out Possible? appeared first on The Good Men Project.