Earth Day 2024: Planet V Plastic

Earth Day is a reminder of how important it is to care for the natural world, because everything we have and do relies on it. Plastics pose a particular problem because making, using and disposing of them all pollute the environment. Our events focused on celebrating the world around us, thinking about plastic in our lives, and finding practical ways we can all reduce our plastic use.

Our Earth Day Celebration included a clothes and book swap. Making new items always uses much more energy and materials than simply reusing existing ones. Even new items made from paper, like books, are often shipped wrapped in plastic and some have plastic coatings. Taking your clothes or books to a swap also means you and others get something new-to-you for free!

Most of us have got lots of plastic bottles in the bathroom and under the sink. Almost all cleaning products – whether for ourselves or our homes – come in plastic. But there are plastic-free options! Most of them are solid bars, similar to good old fashioned soap, but formulated for washing dishes, or hair, or bathrooms… They come in carboard boxes, which are fully recyclable or compostable. We had little chips and samples of a variety of toiletries and cleaning products for people to take home and try. Initial reports are that people are loving them.

We discussed plastics in our regular Women’s Wellbeing group, offering a few more samples to try. We talked about how hard it is to avoid plastic, but there are ways to reduce how much plastic we use. To round off our events, we held a poetry workshop for local families. With crafts using materials form our stocks, and creativity with words, they made some lovely collages, pictures and poems to take home.