Life Without Plastic Blog

Canada to Introduce Plastic Money (Plastic Bills)

In its latest budget just introduced a few days ago, the Canadian Government announced it will introduce plastic dollar bills starting next year.  These dollar bills will be replacing the current cotton-based money. 

According to the Canadian Government, this is a "green" step because the new plastic bills are reportedly ore durable as they last 4 times longer than the current biodegradable money. This will represent savings for the Canadian Governments as this new money is cheaper and harder to counterfeit.

Unfortunately there is no mention as to whether recycled plastic will be used.  This initiative will contribute to the creation of tons and tons of new plastic.  It is a bit discouraging as one would be hoping the "environmental" trend would be in favour of creating less plastic, not more.

Since Australia introduced the plastic money in 1988, many other countries have followed suit including New Zealand, Mexico and Vietnam.

Chantal Plamondon, co-owner
LifeWithoutPlastic.com

The Age of Stupid - Crap Plastic Toys

A few days ago I watched the excellent documentary on climate change The Age of Stupid directed by British filmmaker Franny Armstrong. It starts with the state of our devastated world in 2055 when a world archivist goes back to the world video archives with the question: "Why did humanity not do anything about climate change when there was still time to avert disaster?"... Greed. It is a thought provoking movie that you must see. You should try and get your local movie theater to screen it: http://www.ageofstupid.net/.

Plastic has a special role in this documentary as a contributor to climate change: Huge amounts of energy are consumed manufacturing "crap plastic toys" which are shipped overseas from China, wrapped in plastic and sold in a plastic bag. The toy breaks after two days and ends up in a landfill for thousands of years... and the cycle continues on and on again.

Have you ever shopped at our real life version of "Crap Is Us". It gives me a nausea every time I go. There is sooooo much plastic in there... most destined to landfill in less than a year.

Chantal Plamondon, Co-Owner
LifeWithoutPlastic.com

Plastic -- A Key Ingredient to Product Obsolescence

Have you seen The Story of Stuff? It is a powerful website with a very simple message about reducing our consumption. One part that struck me the most is when Annie Leonard talks about how obsolescence is purposely inserted into the design of products so that they break quickly and you have to buy a new one within a few years. Remember your grand-mother's blender that would not break, or that heavy fridge that lasted forever? Soon corporations realized that it was not a good long term strategy to build products to last, they needed their customers to keep buying. There needed to be some weaker parts inserted into the design to make the product break after a set number of years, thereby re-starting the consumption wheel.  Plastic plays that role... The part that breaks first is almost always plastic. Cars used to be made of steel. You could fix the bumper with a hammer if you got into an accident. Not anymore. Now most car parts are made of plastic, so you have to replace the whole part with a new one. Can't fix it with a hammer anymore.  We recently bought a little metal pedal tractor for our son.  We thought that because it is made of metal  it would last a long time. Not so... there was just two tiny pieces of the whole tractor that were made of plastic and they arrived already broken.  We had to call the company for a replacement. There, right in front of our eyes, the proof that obsolescence had been planted into this toy. So discouraging.

- Chantal