The cleaning product company Ecover said Wednesday they needed to “totally rethink plastic” after issuing a warning to UK shoppers about the environmental impact of buying washing-up liquid in plastic bottles.
Washing up liquid, however, is certainly not the only household item using up single-use plastic – and it is not just packaging we should be concerned about when doing our weekly shop.
Here are five common supermarket items with unexpected environmental costs.
Ecover stressed less than half of plastic bottles made for household items were collected for recycling and just seven per cent of those collected were recycled.
Urging households to stop their consumption of single-use plastic washing-up bottles, the firm recommends shoppers buy refillable washing-up products, sold in recyclable packaging.
The company’s Long Term Innovation Manager, Tom Domen, said Ecover was making a “long-term ambition to stop using virgin plastic”.
Other companies, such as Fairy, offer refill cartons for its plastic bottles, allowing customers to refill bottles more than twice, saving up to 85 per cent of the plastic.
Crisps
Friends of the Earth lists crisp packets as one of the top worst household items for plastic waste alongside less surprising products such as water bottles, wet wipes and clothes.
Almost all crisp packets, with shiny-lined packaging, cannot be recycled and have often been reported ending up on our beaches and seas decades after their production.
About six billion packets of crisps are bought every year in the UK (Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images)And yet, around six billion packets of crisps are bought every year, in the UK alone, the BBC reports.
The industry is becoming increasingly aware of the issue, however, with new, smaller brands such as The British Crisp Co. claiming to have released the first fully recyclable paper crisp packet in the UK last March.
Palm oil – present in cooking items including chocolate, margarine, ice cream and bread – has led to widespread deforestation due to its overconsumption in recent decades.
One product in which you may not expect palm oil to be used is shampoo, where it is used to help maintain your hair’s natural oils.
The World Wide Fund for Nature found the conversion of forests into palm oil plantations was releasing “massive quantities of carbon dioxide, fuelling climate change, and destroying the habitat of species like orangutans”.
The natural vegetable oil is also found in other products you might find in your bathroom such as lipstick, toothpaste and hand soap.
Suncream
Like shampoo, suncream is generally bought in a single-use plastic container which may not always be recycled.
What is more, the UV-blocking chemicals in suncream, such as oxybenzone and octinoxate, are believed to disrupt a coral’s ability to reproduce and grow.
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Read MoreAccording to Green Peace, research has shown sunscreen harms wildlife and is a significant contributor to coral bleaching.
Sunscreen cannot only wash into the sea when we are visiting the beach, but traditional wastewater treatment processes cannot remove most chemical-based UV filters, so scientists believe these compounds are being released into rivers and oceans in and around the UK.
In total, 14,000 tons of suncream washes into the ocean every year, a 2016 study found.
To minimise damage, Green Peace recommends avoiding suncream with oxybenzone, octinoxate, avobenzone, homosalate, octocrylene, and octisalate.
Skincare
While tiny plastic particles in rinse-off products like soap and shampoo are now banned, cosmetic producers in the UK can still add the plastics to skincare products.
A 2022 study from the Plastic Soup Foundation found nine out of 10 cosmetic products from leading brands contained microplastic particles.
Meanwhile, the University of Birmingham found in September there was “a significant oversight in… global regulatory frameworks that predominantly concentrate on rinse-off products”.
After an in-depth analysis of the “leave-on” skin care industry, which is estimated to be worth around £27bn, Dr Anna Kukkola said: “These [microplastics] will eventually end up in wastewater treatment plants or landfills, from which they can reach aquatic environments.”
She added: “Despite the likely extensive skin exposure to microplastics through such products, there is a surprising lack of research to investigate the associated health effects, with no studies found on microplastic exposure identified in this review.”
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