A ban on single-use plastics is coming…
As reported by the ABC “Hobart City Council has voted 8-4 in favour of a by-law that could see the city become the nation's first to ban single-use plastics by 2020”. Here’s some excellent titles to help you through the change. If you’d like more inspiration, you can find our section on Sustainability on the lower floor.
If you are hoping to start with simple, basic changes to your everyday life without drastically shaking your hard-earned home-comforts to the core, we suggest some reading by one of the leading Dutch speakers on the movement:
this is a good guide – Marieke Eyskoot
It’s filled with practical and positive tips on fashion, beauty, food, home, work, travel and leisure, and shows that stylish and sustainable go very well together. And especially that’s about good, not perfect: about smart choices, doing what you can and what suits you. With this modern handbook, sustainable fashion and lifestyle expert Marieke Eyskoot makes green living fun and doable. The right addresses, beautiful labels, great places, surprising facts and handy solutions – exactly what you need. Because doing good and feeling good at the same time: this is what everyone is looking for.
Or alternatively, from an American perspective where Shia Su has a more creative, fun-friendly, not high on effort, way in her book:
Zero Waste
the average American disposes of 4.4 pounds of garbage per day, and our landfills hold 254 million tons of waste.
(that’s roughly 2 kilos of waste per day)
What if there were a simple—and fun—way for you to make a difference? What if you could take charge of your own waste, reduce your carbon footprint, and make an individual impact on an already fragile environment?
A zero waste lifestyle is the answer—and Shia Su is living it. Every single piece of unrecyclable garbage Shia has produced in one year fits into a mason jar—and if it seems overwhelming, it isn’t! In Zero Waste, Shia demystifies and simplifies the zero waste lifestyle for the beginner, sharing practical advice, quick solutions, and tips and tricks that will make trash-free living fun and meaningful.
We love her steps for building a zero waste beginners kit and “prepare food — the lazy way”!
Other titles like these…
“Enough plastic is thrown away every year to circle the world 4 times. More than 8 million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans each year. An estimated 5 trillion pieces of plastic now litter the world’s oceans. A million plastic bottles are used per minute around the world. 500 million plastic straws are used per year ”
Turning the Tide on Plastic Lucy Siegle
This title starts by giving us some fairly frightening facts. To combat the numbers, Siegle brings this powerful (and ironically covered) call to arms on the plastic issue.
Journalist, broadcaster and eco lifestyle expert Lucy Siegle provides a powerful call to arms to end the plastic pandemic along with the tools we need to make decisive change. It is a clear-eyed, authoritative and accessible guide to help us to take decisive and effective personal action.
Because this matters. When it comes to single-use plastics, we are habitual users, reaching out for plastic water bottles, disposable coffee cups, plastic straws and carrier bags multiple times a day. If only 12 of us adopt Lucy's 'reduce, rethink, refill, refuse' approach, we could potentially ditch 3K-15K single items of plastic in a year. When we consider our power as influencers - whether at school, the hairdressers, at work or on the bus - we suddenly become part of something significant.
Other titles like this…
