By Isabella Mortimer, age 12

“This is a precious world and each of us can use our actions and our voice to save our planet.” - David Attenborough

On 1st October, plastic straws, cotton buds and drinks mixers were officially banned in the UK. That’s amazing! We still see lots of packaging though including non-recyclable plastic, packaging the non-plastic cotton buds!

Here are some easy swaps, perhaps one a week... it will really make a difference:

Plastic packaged toilet rolls SWAP for Bamboo, paper packaged at Cloughs
Paper napkins SWAP for Cloth ones
Kitchen paper/roll SWAP for Old cloths
Cling film SWAP for Reusable wax wraps
Throw away/recyclable coffee cups SWAP for Reusable coffee cup/mug
Plastic shampoo bottles SWAP for Shampoo bars
Plastic handwash bottles SWAP for Soap bars and wood scrubbing brush
Coffee jars/foil wrapped SWAP for Freshly ground in Lindfield
Cotton pads/facial wipes SWAP for Cotton washable cloths at Cloughs
Bought plastic packaged tortillas SWAP for Home-made tortillas (easy recipe), freezable.

Lots of the swaps are available at Cloughs, who also offer paper bags to buy quantities you want for your weekly shop of grains, nuts, pulses and much more.

IDEAS:
• Use a reusable bag to pick up take away food.
• Keep empty pasta sauce or mayonnaise jars to store food.
• Start a compost heap to make your own soil and avoid the plastic bags they come in.
• Grow herbs in a jam jar of water (mint, oregano, sage, basic, thyme and rosemary)
• Blend wilted greens, freeze in an ice cube tray for smoothies or cool drinks.

There are lots of us making changes, helped all the more by local Lindfield shops offering plastic free options, Cloughs and Pauls to mention just two. On a larger scale, there are lots of initiatives to sign up to to help big organisations make changes too for a brighter future. Small steps, big changes. We can do this together!