Leading the movement to go plastic free
It’s an estimated 8 million tonnes of plastic waste being dumped in the world’s oceans each year, and we are all responsible.
Rethinking plastic packaging has been our main priority @CleverBotanics, and we are delighted that from 1st of June we are using 100% recyclable packaging with less than 1% plastic content. There must be something else also causing the seeming avalanche of announcements from all sections of society to combat this level of waste.
Here in the UK there has been a big effort by most companies since the Blue Planet II nature series, released last year, which documented to such large audiences the damaging impacts of single-use plastics and why we should act now.
We want to help and build a circular economy in which we not only use less plastic but also ensure the plastic we do use can be reused, recycled or composted. This also needs significant efforts from our suppliers. For example, to buy Tin boxes for dispatch they come from China, and they put each of the tin boxes in plastic bags. This was not acceptable, and we asked them to change their methods and now we receive them in paper separators helping us to recycle.
To appreciate the scale of the problem, we know that every minute the equivalent of one rubbish truck of plastic leaks into streams and rivers, ultimately ending up in the ocean. An estimated 100 million marine animals die each year due to discarded plastic. And the problem is set to get worse. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation report on the New Plastics Economy (PDF - 1.3MB) estimates that by 2050, there could be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans and that cannot go on and we must do our best in every sector of the economy.
In order to achieve the desired circular economy which is restorative and regenerative by design, hat we need to ensure that materials continuously flow around a ‘closed loop’ system, rather than being used once and then discarded. As a result, the value of materials, including plastics, is not lost by being thrown away.
@CleverBotanics is now one of a growing number of brands, retailers and packaging companies to make plastic packaging commitments. But more needs to be done to ensure that reusable, recyclable and compostable plastic becomes normal. We are now when technically possible; all our plastic packaging are now replaced with other environmentally friendly and biodegradable packaging materials. This exercise was commercially more expensive to disregard cheap plastic packaging and instead use Green Postal Bags as well as using Tin Boxes to hold herbs, flowers and other CBD products we stock and ship.
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