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Refill With LESS is the latest addition to LESS's portfolio. It's an e-commerce site that offers customers the chance to buy stylish non-plastic bottles (glass, stainless-steel) to use time and time again, avoiding the need to keep buying single-use plastic bottles. It also sells the liquid to refill the bottles, from several brands across a range of personal and household care categories. If you're looking to move away from plastic, take a look how we can help you do that, and save you money at the same time.

It's available nationally, with free shipping for orders over £50.

And to help you save even more money, during the month of May we're offering a 15% discount on your first order - just use the the code SAVE15 at checkout.

Come in and look around.

Human reliance on plastic at current levels is unsustainable; the prospect that it could worsen and fast is horrific but likely, unless we do something about it now. As in now!

Non-profit Plastic Oceans has put out some deeply worrying facts on plastic pollution.

We all know about the problem, but that doesn’t mean we should hide from being reminded constantly of its true scale, so we make no apologies for doing so.

• We produce more than 380 million metric tons of plastic, each year, and that’s not slowing down. We produced more in the last decade than during the whole of the 20th century
• Up to 50 percent of is used once. It holds the thing we bought, and then it’s discarded, and much of it will stick around on earth for hundreds of years
• Over 10 million metric tons each year ends up in oceans
• All discarded plastic is a problem, but it’s probably bottles that you see more than anything else. One source said over 100 billion bottles were sold in 2014, just in the U.S. That’s 315 per person
• 57 percent of the bottles sold in the U.S. in 2014 were plastic water bottles, amounting to 57.3 billion, up from 3.8 billion in 1996 (that’s a 14-fold increase in 18 years)
• The U.S. accounts for less than 5 percent of the world’s population, and 2021 is likely to have seen even more bottles sold than in 2014, and 2022 will be higher still

Anyone out there still think it’s not a major problem?

[Image Credit: © Plastic Oceans]

We know our obsession with using plastic is bad news for the planet, but there is increasing evidence of its adverse effects on our own health.

It was well known that we ingest tiny plastic particles in food and water, and inhale them, but researchers have for the first time detected microplastic in human blood.

The study conducted in Amsterdam study looked for just four “high production volume” polymers and found that blood samples from 17 out of 22 healthy adults contained microplastics such as polyethylene, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polymers of styrene (such as polystyrene).

The scientists admit larger studies are needed both in the breadth of plastics investigated and the sample size. We also need to know what happens to the plastic once it enters the blood. They might enter and disrupt organs or trigger diseases.

The paper (“Discovery and quantification of plastic particle pollution in human blood”, March 24, 2022) was published in Environment International.

[Image Credit: © Environment International]

The OECD (Global Plastics Outlook) has produced some shocking data on how the world is producing and wasting plastic.

Some of the key insights include:

• We are producing twice as much plastic waste as we were two decades ago, and plastic consumption has quadrupled in the last 30 years
• But, just 9% is “successfully recycled”
• 19% is incinerated, 50% goes to landfill and 22% ends up in “uncontrolled dumpsites, is burned in open pits or ends up in terrestrial or aquatic environments, especially in poorer countries”

In 2019, 6.1 million tonnes leaked into aquatic environments, of which 1.7 million tonnes went into our oceans, so now there is some 30 million tonnes of it in seas and oceans, and 109 million tonnes in rivers.

Although the use of recycled plastic has quadrupled since 2000, it still only represents 6% of all plastic, and total plastic consumption has quadrupled over the last 30 years.

Plastics account for 3.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Each American generates 221 kg a year, with Europeans creating 114 kg. The Japanese and Koreans produce 69 kg.

The COVID-19 crisis in 2020 saw a mere 2.2% drop in plastics but littering grew from discarded takeaway packaging and plastic medical equipment; plastic consumption rebounded in 2021.

OECD's data come ahead of UN talks on international action against plastic waste. The OECD calls for more use of Extended Producer Responsibility schemes, landfill taxes, deposit schemes and the like.

You can read more and access the report here.

[Image credit: © OECD]

Keep an eye out for our electric vans around Brighton.

We are delivering to households in the city without the emissions petrol or diesel vans would generate.

If you see the drivers, feel free to stop and ask them about what we're doing.

Several reports over recent months have highlighted the less than stellar headway companies are making in pushing back against the ongoing use of single-use plastic and continuing build up of plastic waste.

In the autumn, a report from not-for-profit As You Sow produced its Corporate Plastic Pollution Scorecard, 2021 report. This showed that whilst companies are starting to take steps to deal with plastic pollution, only one company earned the highest grade and all companies must do significantly more to reduce, if not eliminate, the environmental and financial impact of plastic pollution. The report also noted a large increase in calls for plastic reduction goals and support for expanded manufacturer responsibility.  

In November, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation released its latest annual Global Commitment 2021 Progress Report. The study found that brands and retailers are reducing the use of virgin plastic packaging but says that this has been achieved by replacing it with recycled plastic rather than any progress in reducing the volume of plastic packaging. The authors noted there was very little evidence of “ambitious efforts to reduce the need for single-use packaging in the first place”, with under 2% of signatories’ plastic packaging reusable. For most, the figure is zero.

Dame Ellen MacArthur was quoted saying:

“We won't recycle our way out of plastic pollution, eliminating single-use packaging is a vital part of the solution. Alarmingly, our report shows little investment in this…Shifting just 20% of plastic packaging from single-use to reuse is an opportunity estimated to be worth USD 10 billion.”

You can read more and access the report here.  

In December last year, industry analyst and market research company Gartner, Inc. predicted that nine in 10 companies will fail to meet their 2025 sustainable packaging commitments and said that dependence on plastic and single-use packaging is the main factor preventing enterprises from meeting their public sustainability pledges. Gartner also called for companies to take action to address the raft of Extended Producer Responsibility legislation that has been or will be enacted in countries around the world.

You can read more here. 

[Image Credit: © As You Sow]

Several reports and studies highlighted the problems linked to the plastic industry and plastic pollution in 2021.

Google released a report showing that a “status quo” plastic industry would result in 7.7 gigatons of plastic waste ending up in landfills, incinerated, or polluting the environment by year 2040. Read the Google report here.

Beyond Plastics published a study predicting that greenhouse gas emissions from plastic production will overtake those from coal powerplants by 2030. You can read more, and access the report here.

The American Chemical Society said that about 24% of the 10,400 chemicals identified in plastics are potentially toxic.

[Image Credit: © Google]

Amazon generated a total of 599 million pounds of plastic packaging waste in 2020, a 29% increase from 2019.

Data from Oceana estimates the amount of plastic waste, in the form of air pillows, can circle Earth more than 600 times.

Also, Oceana estimates that as much as 23.5 million pounds of the total waste entered the world’s waterways and seas, and adds that the online retailer’s recycling pledges and claims do not add up and do not lessen Amazon’s huge plastic packaging waste footprint.

In India, however, Amazon’s recycling programs and efforts to remove single-use plastic packaging are helping the company reduce its plastic pollution problem.

You can read the report here.

[Image Credit: © Amazon]

Our plastics newsletter covered a number of stories in Autumn 2021 that raise doubts about how committed Unilever really is to abating plastic:

• It is helping finance a project that aims to recycle plastic waste by burning it to provide power to a cement manufacturing facility in Indonesia. The project is part of a trend involving multinational corporations and their efforts to burn more plastic waste in cement kilns. Environmentalists and other critics have asserted that burning plastic waste is harmful to the planet and sustainability efforts. Supporters claim, however, that burning plastic waste is environment-friendly and helps the cement industry reduce harmful impacts on the environment. Read the article here.

• For the fourth consecutive year, Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo are the world’s top sources of plastic pollution, according to the environmentalist group Break Free From Plastic. Details of the organization’s global Brand Audit report revealed Coca-Cola accounted for more plastic pollution than the next top 2 polluters combined. Also, for the first time since the annual audits began in 2018, Unilever is ranked as the number 3 top polluter, trading places with Nestlé, which moved to fourth. Results of the study also highlighted the shortcomings of the companies’ plastic recycling efforts and other sustainability initiatives, and Unilever’s position is a significant source of embarrassment as a principal partner for COP26. Read the report here.

• Greenpeace USA said consumer goods companies, including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever and Nestlé, are pushing the growth of plastic production and endangering the global climate and communities worldwide. The group’s report, The Climate Emergency Unpacked: How Consumer Goods Companies are Fueling Big Oil’s Plastic Expansion, highlights the business relationships between giant consumer goods companies and fossil fuel companies. The report highlights industry estimates that plastic production could triple by 2050. It also looks at the general absence of transparency regarding emissions from plastic packaging. Read the more here.

[Image Credit: © Greenpeace USA]

Boris Johnson told a group of eight to 12-year-olds that recycling ‘doesn’t work’, and that has angered some, including The Recycling Association and even members of his own Government. His comments have been described as "strangely timed" and in conflict with Government messaging. The CEO of the Local Authority Recycling Association Committee said that the work of local authority communications officers has been put back five years.

His comments, however, did receive support from anti-plastic campaigners, who highlight the poor rate of recycling in the UK - less than 10%, according to some sources - and how recycling justifies the overproduction of plastic.

[Image Credit: © Wiki Commons]