Wyn Drabble: It's not easy being green

There's a war on plastic going on in our household. Photo / File

It's not easy being green but because Mrs D has put her foot down it's now all-out war on plastics.

I'm right behind such thinking. Who wouldn't be, knowing that humans have created about 9 billion tons of plastic in the 70-odd years it has existed and most of it is still on the planet.

But it's certainly not going to be easy. There have to be sacrifices. In our household, milk is one of them.

I know that you can get milk in glass if you know where to go but the milk you can buy as part of your weekly supermarket shop is all in plastic. So, in our household, it's a goner.

In its stead we are using soy milk though I can't begin to imagine how they milk soy beans! Tiny milking stools?

But milk them they do and the resultant liquid is packed in cardboard (though the little spouts and screwcaps are clearly plastic).

I said it wasn't going to be easy but I suppose it's a matter of scale – a tiny screwcap versus a two-litre plastic bottle plus bigger screwcap that has to be crushed if you want the recyclers to pick it up.

I've just noticed too that the brand of soy milk we are using is made in Australia. I wonder what sort of fuel is used to transport it to us. See. It really isn't easy, is it? Maybe soy milk is not as green as we thought.

Perhaps we should get our own cow. But aren't we supposed to be reducing bovine pollution? Another tough one!

Wyn Drabble

On reading this, Mrs D has reminded me that the real reason for the change to soy milk was to save a calf – so more confusion. And the cardboard is plasticised anyway!

I'm also missing my yoghurt which is off the menu because it comes in plastic.

Yes, I've tried making my own and the results have been mediocre and runny. I'm for the thick stand-your-spoon-up-in-it stuff.

We have, however, made headway in the produce department of the supermarket. When buying fresh produce, we would always use the paper bags intended for mushrooms even though it clearly annoyed some staff.

The number of like-minded people meant that they tended to run out of paper bags quickly. The supermarket management has taken this on board and there are now plenty. On this issue the people have spoken.

Earlier this year when flood waters tore open a Fox Glacier landfill, another culprit was revealed. Volunteers who painstakingly cleaned up the neighbouring beaches were rightly shocked by the number of plastic butter and jam containers they found – all, of course, single-serve size.

One Christchurch hotel estimated 12,000 of these were used annually at their breakfast buffet. In what is an environmentally-responsible move, they now offer their breakfast butter and jam in ceramic dishes.

Then there's the toiletry packaging. A hospitality spokesperson estimated the accommodation sector uses about 76 million bottles of shampoo, conditioner and bath gel each year.

What is perhaps more alarming is that many of us haven't the faintest idea what bath gel actually is. Or body foam.

Our household is far from perfect. We have plenty of plastic items though most have been with us since before the plastic awareness age.

We interrupt this column to bring you an anguished cry.

Eek, a mouse!

Yes, it has just occurred to me that even the mouse I'm using to type this is made of plastic. Next week I'll do my best to source a bamboo one.

I told you that none of this was going to be easy. But we are certainly trying to do our (very little) bit.

• Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.