Happy Plastic Free July! Meet Rebecca Prince-Ruiz, the founder of the movement.

Happy Plastic Free July! PFJ is a grass roots movement that is all about encouraging us all to reduce our use of plastics and be part of the solution to plastic pollution.

So who better to talk to than the founder of this very movement, Rebecca Prince-Ruiz. I am honestly so excited to talk to Rebecca and hear all her wisdom, advice, tips and even a few kernels of optimism about the plastic pollution problem.

Find us online:
‍‍www.briannewest.com
‍‍https://www.instagram.com/briannemwest/
‍‍https://www.tiktok.com/@briannemwest
‍‍https://www.youtube.com/@briannemwest‍

‍Wanna know more about Incrediballs?
‍‍www.incrediballs.com‍
‍https://www.instagram.com/incrediballsdrinks/
‍‍https://www.tiktok.com/@incrediballsdrinks
‍
‍‍Business, but Better (the FREE education hub for founders & entrepreneurs):‍
‍www.businessbutbetter.com‍
‍https://www.tiktok.com/@businessbutbetter‍
https://www.facebook.com/groups/businessbutbetter
‍https://www.instagram.com/businessbutbetter

Transcript:

Brianne (intro): Kia ora kaitiaki and welcome to Now That's What I Call Green. I'm your host, Brianne West, an environmentalist and entrepreneur trying to get you as excited about our planet as I am. I'm all about creating a scientific approach to making the world a better place, without the judgment and making it fun. And of course, we will be chatting about some of the most amazing creatures we share our planet with. So if you are looking to navigate through everything green or not so green, you have come to the right place.

Brianne: Kia ora, welcome back. I am very excited about today's guest. Today is the first day of Plastic Free July and who better to talk to than Rebecca, the founder of Plastic Free July. Now Plastic Free July is of course a grassroots movement that was started about 14 years ago to encourage people to try and think about the single-use plastic they use. I'm going to let Rebecca talk about it so I won't talk about it too much, but it was a big deal at Ethique for us. It was a huge part of our comms and it will be a big part of Incrediballs too. So I'm really excited to talk to the founder of the movement and how she started.

Brianne: Welcome, Rebecca. It is so lovely to have you on the pod. Thank you for joining us. I think it's about 7 o'clock in the morning there.

Rebecca: Yes, it is. And the sun is out.

Brianne: Yeah, well, you're in Broome, so what sort of temperature are you expecting?

Rebecca: I think mid-twenties today, very mild. Not the cold weather I'm used to at this time of year.

Brianne: No, no. Okay, easy question to start with. Tell us a bit about yourself, your background, and where plastic free July came from. Was there some sort of horrific story that kicked it all off? Or was it an accumulation of things? Where did it come from?

Rebecca: Probably a bit of both. I grew up in the country on a farm amongst the Australian bush. I feel like I've always been connected to nature. I studied environmental science and ended up by a strange happenstance, as these things go, ended up working for local government in sustainability education. And look, I thought I was pretty sustainable. I was trying to reduce my overall footprint and I thought it was pretty good. And for me, like many of these kind of stories, I did have an aha moment. And it was when I visited a recycling facility back in 2011. Look, I'd been to waste facilities, landfill sites before. My dad always made us go to the tip to drop off rubbish, so I kind of knew what those big holes in the ground looked like. But for me, visiting a recycling facility was really confronting. Firstly, just the volume. Look, you know, we could talk a whole hour about recycling. You know, there's so many myths out there, but, you know, it is important. For me, it was seeing the volume and seeing... like I knew what my recycling looked like, but when I saw that combined with everyone in my street and my suburb, and it was so much. And then just really understanding the complex processes to sort it into the different material types and to ship it and the question is can it be recycled? Will it be recycled? And understanding it's a commodity market and the particular challenges with plastic which you know, we didn't know so much then but we're all becoming aware of more now, and when I went to actually put out my recycling that night I think it was a yogurt container and I looked at it. I knew where it was going to go.

Rebecca: I could picture that facility in my mind. It was a great facility, but I think I'd felt that if I just filled my recycling bin I was helping the planet. I was being a good environmental citizen and I suddenly in that moment knew that the less that I put in there and the less that I consumed, the more I could make a difference. So I'm renowned for being a bit spontaneous and so when I went to work the next day I said I'm going to try and go plastic-free next month and who wants to join me? And as they say, you know, the rest is history.

Brianne: And so you found that month doable, challenging and you wanted to share it as a sort of a shortened history?

Rebecca: I found it a lot harder than I was expecting. I didn't realise how much plastic there was. And it wasn't all plastic, it was single-use plastic. And at that time, single-use wasn't even a term. So I invited my two colleagues, Amy and Nabila, and we had a small group of volunteers. And there was about 40 of us that gave it a try. And I thought, you know, I always took my bags and I was too stingy to buy a bottle of water. It wasn't really a principled thing. But I suddenly realised, well, you know, it's good about my shopping bags, but, you know, I was using all these produce bags for my fruit and veggies. So, you know, first I started using, you know, brown paper mushroom bags.

Rebecca: You know, it was hard, but what we found by doing it together, we could share ideas. It was just emails and chats over in the office kitchen and someone would say, what do you do about pasta? And someone would say, well, this brand comes in a cardboard box, or you can buy it here loose, or here's my Nonna’s secret recipe….don't share it any further. And we found by doing it together, we could share ideas. Here's some way you can get milk in a glass bottle that can be refilled. And so it was great. And it was also supportive. I remember the first time I asked for a drink with no plastic straw and I'm pretty shy and it felt a bit awkward.

Brianne: It does, doesn't it, weirdly?

Rebecca: And then I got two plastic straws in my drink and I felt so disillusioned. But then we talked about ways we could have conversations with people and someone made a little badge saying I'm on a plastic-free diet and it just really spread. We never set out to start a campaign or an environmental movement. It was just a group of people that were concerned about something. We decided to do something together and it didn't even have a name, right? It's just somehow people started calling it that. So there was about 40 people in 2011 and then the next year we started using social media and people had conversations and it just spread by word of mouth. We had 400 people and the following year we made a free website using some free software in an afternoon, and then we had 4,000 people. And it's really a grassroots campaign that grew, not because we were talking about the problem. We don't talk about the problem. We're motivated by the problem, of course, of plastic waste and plastic pollution in our environment. But it's about actions, and it's about sharing ideas, sharing stories and making change together.

Brianne: Yeah, and that's really the way to frame it because if you do consistently talk about a problem, people kind of get switched off, right? And it's testament to the fact that you've obviously got your comms right, or comms probably make you sound a bit structured, but you've got the messaging right, the fact that so many people want to join with a really low-key, and that you haven't put, you know, marketing dollars behind it, campaign. That's very cool.

Rebecca: Yeah, and it's interesting now. I work very closely with a behavioural scientist and he said that's the reason that it's been successful. It was also of its time, right? If I was just deciding that now, I'd be one of many people, but at that time, no one was – people were starting to become aware of the problem but it wasn't certainly not the subject of conversation that it is now. But the fact, you know, it was a fact that it was, and it's still is real, it's of the people, for the people, by the people. There's something really special about it.

Brianne; Yeah, 100%. That's why grassroots organisations often punch well above their weight. So you've been around since 2011, so that's what? You'll be 13 years old, give or take this year? Is that my math right?

Rebecca: Well, because we only decided the week before, it's actually the 14th Plastic Free July.

Brianne: Oh cool. Well, love, love some spontaneity. That's pretty cool because it has become a global phrase now. So when I was a CEO of Ethique, Plastic Free July was our biggest month, year on year. I don't know if that's still the case, but it was huge for us because everyone was amplifying the message. What has been some of the most significant impacts you've seen in those 14, well nearly 14, plastic free Julys?

Rebecca: Yeah, that's a really good question and I think it's important because whilst we've achieved much, there's so far to go, but I think we do need to look back and acknowledge what we've been able to change. Firstly, I'd say that it is on the agenda. It's on the agenda at a community level. It's on the agenda at a business level. It's on the agenda globally as governments are negotiating the Global Plastics Treaty through the UN. That would not have happened without community change, firstly change in our own lives and then this groundswell of community change has put pressure on businesses, it's helped create businesses. You know, there was no such thing as buying shampoo bars or beeswax wraps or bamboo toothbrushes in supermarkets then, you know, you had to find them from a We've seen change at different levels from...at all those levels that I've just mentioned. And importantly, what that's led to. I mean, behaviour change is really important.

Rebecca: We actually need to take responsibility for our consumption and our single-use habits, but it's the real...in order to change the system, we need to change legislation and we need to have policies that are tackling it. So for me the biggest change that we've seen is that seeing the plastic bags banned, the straws and other problematic single-use items banned, the container deposit legislation being introduced in states, territories, countries to return and recycle beverage containers that are common. These are items that are paid for through product stewardship schemes by the beverage industry themselves, all the way up to circular economy legislation, plastics, taxes, requirements of producers and manufacturers to use recycled content. But it's those big systemic changes that are really having an impact on this problem at scale leading to what is kind of now the holy grail on this issue which is a Global Plastics Treaty.

Brianne: Yeah, so tell me about the Global Plastics Treaty because I mean following it in the news and you've obviously had some involvement in it. Tell me what it is, what it's for and where it's at in the process.

Rebecca: Yes, so the Global Plastics Treaty is a treaty to end plastic pollution that was agreed to by UN member states in Nairobi at the beginning of 2022 and where ACT NOW is the last round negotiations in November that will be announced early next year. So the treaty when it was, obviously it's still being negotiated, but the idea behind it is to tackle not just plastic pollution, but plastics across their life cycle from production of fossil fuels through their manufacture, use and disposal. There's been a lot of progress made. It's certainly challenging. There's a growing divide between the majority of countries which have high ambition, who want it to be legally binding (not voluntary) and the countries that have low ambition, which are typically countries that are plastic producers. So I feel like this July is the most important one ever because when our governments are negotiating the treaty, and we hope that it's a strong treaty, that's a treaty with teeth that's really going to make a difference. Making these decisions about it early next year, that we're sending this really strong message to them that this isn't okay. We don't want plastic harming human health. We don't want it harming communities. We don't want it harming wildlife and we want governments to act and the time to act is now. We can participate in things like Plastic Free July and to make choices and to ask businesses and our governments to make choices, the more likely that this is going to be a success.

Brianne: I wasn't planning on asking you this question because it can be a wee bit sort of controversial and you will probably have to watch what you say because you work with government. How disappointed are you in politicians? And I ask that because you are dead right, we need legislative change. I'm big on changing business because business exerts force on government, but we do absolutely need governments to step up. And historically, particularly for the climate crisis, they haven't, and we desperately need them to. How do you find working with government? Is it soul destroying or is there more good going on that we don't see?

Rebecca: So I'm mostly working with governments that, on the plastics issue, are pretty progressive and I wouldn't say that if I was working on other issues. At a global level with the plastics treaty. I find the plastics issue has become an issue of great concern, of high-level understanding, of high ambition for the governments that I tend to work with. And they do get it, and they are making action. I'm going to speak mostly to Australia and New Zealand here, though obviously we're very small in a global perspective. But in terms of the single-use plastic bans, in terms of product stewardship, and I sure hope you get that container deposit scheme in New Zealand before too long because it makes such a difference. I think we're doing really well in terms of tackling particularly the problematic litter items. I think the packaging and the food packaging is difficult. We know voluntary targets aren't getting us places.

Rebecca: I think one of the things about the plastics issue, right, is it's visible, it's visual. There's no denying when you see those images of pollution or wildlife harmed by plastics. It's our plastic and it's the stuff we're using every day. So it's very direct, it's very tangible. I think that because of that, that's been part of the reason that we've made so much progress. And I'm really delighted to see the number of countries that have joined this high ambition plastic pollution. And, you know, that's definitely not the case for all issues. But on this plastics issue, we're doing well. You know, if you think about the countries, I think it was Norway and Rwanda that had put forward this high ambition coalition. So there's a lot of progressive countries across Africa, across South America. It's those big fossil fuel companies, the countries that have got the fossil fuel companies and the plastic production that are being so progressive on this issue.

Brianne: Yeah, that's a good sort of segue because the recycling industry, I mean, they knew they being sort of plastic companies, they knew back in sort of the 80s and 90s, very early on in the piece that plastic would not be typically recyclable at all. So do you get a lot of pushback? Do you get, this might sound a little bit, I don't know, conspiracy theorist, but do you get companies and lobbyists causing sort of issues and muddying the waters? Do you see that a lot?

Rebecca: Again, I think this that really is different from country to country. US where there is legislation to ban a plastic bag ban. In some US states, it is illegal to ban plastic bags. I think that the plastics industry has a much stronger voice there. There is a bigger plastics industry there. So having worked in local government, I'm much more familiar with working with the recycling industry. What we're about is reducing. We're about not switching from one single-use item to another that's more recyclable. We're about actually reducing our footprint in the first place. So we kind of sit in this space that there's support for that. But in terms of pushback, really where I see at the moment some of the biggest challenges and pushback is around single use and the switching from single use plastic to single use other material types such as biodegradable, bioplastic or compostable, that maybe they do break down in an organic composting facility, but the fact is we don't have those collection and waste management facilities to process them, so you're just switching one single-use item issue for another. So I think that's where there's genuine confusion, but also greenwashing happening.

Rebecca: You know, in terms of recycling, look, you know, plastics is challenging, you know. It's still cheaper and easier for manufacturers to use virgin plastics than it is to use recycled content. And the irony of this transition to renewable energy is a lot more of the fossil fuel production is going to be going to plastics. So plastic production has been increasing exponentially ever since it was starting to be manufactured wide-scale during the Second World War. It's projected to double by 2040. Unless we have, which is what we think should be in the Global Treaty of Caps and Reduction of Virgin Plastic Production, we're just going to see, we might be banning plastic bags and plastic straws, but now we're getting to the point where we've even got the camping chairs and tents we might buy for a music festival that even single use almost because they're so cheaply made and they're made of plastics and it's increasing clothing made of plastics. And yes, some form of plastics like the PET bottles are highly recyclable, but we're just producing more and more of it and we're still recycling less than 10%. So it's not like we're getting pushback from the recyclers, we're just creating a growing problem that we're always playing catch up and we're never going to be able to recycle our way out.

Brianne: No, it's all seemed baffling to me. I think it's really obvious and therefore it's probably something wrong with the solution. But surely we should be leveraging a tax on virgin plastic for manufacturers and brands using that virgin plastic. If it's as little as one cent and that tax goes straight into recycling infrastructure. Isn't that a steep ahead of where we are now?

Rebecca: Absolutely. Look, the UK has done it. I think it's 30% and if there's not 30% recycled content in, I think it's in most packaging, then there's a plastic tax. So that's the North star, that's what we really need to turn around this situation at scale. That's the big issue in the global treaty of which there is a lot of pushback on. But we know it works. So I'm here in the beautiful Kimberley region of Northwest Australia looking at the container deposit scheme which is on beverage containers. That is paid for by the beverage industry. So there's a deposit in all states and territories in Australia now bar one.

Rebecca: So when you're buying a beverage container, it's typically not wine bottles, it's not milk bottles, it's aluminium cans, glass bottles, plastic bottles. Typically the beverages that people are buying when they're out and about at cafes, bars, et cetera, or drinking at home. When you're paying it, you're paying for your deposit and then you take it back to a refund point and get 10 cents or you put it in your recycling scheme. Now, we're recycling billions of containers through that. It's increased our recycling rates exponentially. We're recycling in our state about 65% of all beverage containers. Most of the material is being recycled bottle to bottle. We've gone from beverage containers being 90-something percent of our litter to less than 4%, we've created over 800 jobs. And the beverage industry is paying for that. They pay for not deposit, but they're also paying another few cents per container for the collection, sorting, processing, and recycling. It's a very highly valued product and it can go bottle to bottle because it's been separated at source.

Brianne: It's a no-brainer really, isn't it?

Rebecca: It can be done. It's fantastic and that's what we need. It's getting the economics right. Recycling is always going to be more expensive than landfill. One of the challenges is with plastic and all of these products is that the responsibility of the manufacturers and the producers stops after they've sold it, right?

Brianne: Yep. And it definitely shouldn't.

Rebecca: Whereas this extended producer responsibility means they're responsible for that item over its lifetime. And having things like container deposit legislation has meant we've seen the big beverage companies making commitments to use recycled content in their packaging. You know, for myself and many people, my choice is to go reusable and not to use single-use items. But the fact that they're using 100%, in many cases, recycled content is so much better than what it was before. And that's happening because we're recycling so many through these schemes. So this is the game changer because there is a cost. There's a cost to litter. There's a cost to cleanups. There's a cost for our local government authorities to be collecting and managing waste. And if no one wants to buy this material, it's even more expensive. That's what we've got to change. The costs are externalised. Single use is so cheap because the cost ends there and the environment, our health, our wildlife is actually paying the cost and that's what we've got to change.

Brianne: 100%. Without question, a company that profits off polluting should simply not be allowed to. And I find it baffling that that is the system we continue to exist in. But, man. Okay, if we go a little bit less deep, because I know people listening will want some ideas from the source as it were, what are some obvious and less obvious ways to lessen your plastic use? Everyone knows about reusable cups and reusable bottles, what else can they do?

Rebecca: We can do so much else but I just start by saying yeah everyone knows about reusable cups and bottles but do they take them? You know that's the great thing about Plastic Free July because it is this month and you know we know how long it takes to make new habits. It's just a great opportunity to say I'm just going to try it for a week or try it for the month and get in those good habits because people always think, well, what difference can I make? Whereas what we know is when lots of people are making small changes at the same time, that adds up to a big impact. So we'll talk about those other things, but let's start with those easy things like the bottles, like those reusable cups. And remember to keep them somewhere handy. Wash out that cup and put it in your bag for work or the gym or school. Put it by the door or in the boot of your car so we've got them with us. The top three items that we're focusing on this year are cups, reusable drink bottles and plastic food wrap because they're three common items that most people have alternatives to. With the plastic wrap and the plastic packaging, we can't avoid everything but by taking our own reusable produce bags or just, if it's something like a bunch of bananas, don't use them. Storing leftovers in containers or using wax wraps or a simple plate over a bowl. Those are still things that often I just think many of us know, but then we forget or we're not thinking about it at the time.

Rebecca: I always encourage people to just not try and start with everything, to start with one or two things and make good habits and go from there. And one of the easiest ways to do that is just have a look in your bin. You know, you don't need to do a full forensic waste audit and measure away everything, but just open the lid and have a look. Have a look in your fridge, in your pantry, in your bathroom, in your laundry, and choose one or two items. And by taking part in Plastic Free July, we share lots of ideas and solutions of what people can do. And everyone's different, right? So some people, it might be, I'm going to stop using that plastic wrap for the month. For other people, might be switching from liquid soaps and liquid shampoos to solid bars. For some, you've been doing it for a while. Women might decide to try reusable menstrual products. There's so many solutions out there now that certainly weren't around when I was first trying at 14 July's ago and whether that's being intentional and on the reusables or thinking, you know, I'm going to choose one product that I'm going to try and buy unpackaged. Maybe it's detergent. Maybe it's trying to find a local source that you can buy your rice and flour and fruit and nuts that's not packaged.

Rebecca: But not everyone has that available in their area or sometimes it's more expensive and unaffordable. So there's so many solutions. And look on that note, I think it's really important…..this is a shared problem that so many people want to be part of the solution. When we've done research, we know that 90% of people are concerned about the amount of plastics ending up in landfill and the environment, but there's so many pressures on people. There's cost of living. This isn't about going out and buying the latest reusable cup in this season's colours. This is about reducing and this is just about doing what we can.

Rebecca: And so a lot of people say by being part of Plastic Free July and suddenly trying to reduce their plastic, they're actually being more intentional about what they buy. starting by like doing a menu plan, looking what you've got in your fridge and your pantry, using up those leftover veggies that might be a bit wilted from last week to make a stock or a soup, for example, because we're throwing away 30% or 40% of the food in this country. And so by being less wasteful, we can actually start to not only create less waste that's ending up in our landfills and our environment, but we're also saving money as well by using what we have and looking for opportunities to reduce. Maybe we just, instead of buying that half a pumpkin with this plastic wrap on it. We're going to buy the whole pumpkin and we're going to make and we're going to freeze a meal in some pumpkin soup and freeze half of it for a meal another time, which is, you know, cheaper and then we've got more time to do the things that we love and spend time with people.

Brianne: Absolutely. It is progress not perfection. It is everybody doing something right. It is not a couple of people doing everything perfectly. And I do find, and I get this feedback all the time, that you do one thing and you're like, oh, okay, actually that wasn't so difficult. And you start edging your way into other areas and it becomes, Ethique bars used to be called gateway bars, for example, because it would show you one aspect of living that life a little bit lighter and you'd move on to another. And I think that's the key with this sort of messaging is that you don't do everything at once because that's completely overwhelming and totally unnecessary because we can all do something better. So this is my final question for you, but also my favourite question for you, and it is something I ask everybody. I suspect I know what the theme of your answer is going to be, but if you were the global supreme overlord, what would be the very first thing you would do to make the world a better place?

Rebecca: On this plastics issue, I would say it would be a plastics tax. It would be to cap it and reduce it because I just know how much it's harming people and it's harming community. But on the positive side, right, I feel like I just feel so lucky because I get to see what the solutions look like, and the solutions are so much better, not just for our environment, but so much better for people. Like this single-use, plastic-packaged society that we've become. You know, most of the food we consume and drinks we buy, we're talking about a handful of companies, right?

Rebecca: And once we start to be less plastic packaged, or that those companies are paying the proper price, we stop transporting food around the world just so we can eat rapes year round, we start eating locally, we start supporting local food production, we start recycling locally, We're creating more jobs when we switch from single-use coffee cups and all this single-use food packaging. We're dining in or we've got reuse schemes that are employing people to collect those containers, to wash those containers.

Rebecca: We're not buying milk from big companies where... I've just spent a lot of my summer in southern New Zealand, and there's a great little company there, a dairy farm that's family-owned, and they're doing milk in reusable bottles, and it's giving them a better price. It's providing employment. They're collecting the bottles, they're washing them. You know, there's so many stories like that where the benefits of reuse, of buying locally, of recycling locally, of not being wasteful, of using the materials that we've used again, of repairing rather than throwing away.

Rebecca: It's not just our packaging that's single use. It's our kettles. It's our toasters. It's all our household appliances. I was talking recently to a lawyer that's advocating the right to repair movement and she was saying in many European countries where there's a right to repair, you'll have your big box stores but then you have also stores where you can purchase all of those appliances secondhand. Businesses have to supply parts and for them to be repairable by anyone for 10 years so you can buy things affordably secondhand. So I feel like we've lost by shifting, you know, and it's not just plastic but I'm going to use that as an example, by shifting to a more plastic throwaway society, we haven't just got a waste problem but we've lost so much and I think by turning that around, there is so many opportunities and there's so many benefits that are going to be good for people as well as our environment.

Rebecca: And that's what excites me and I think that's something that people often say, doesn't this plastic issue get you down? And I just see the hope and I just see all of these people around the world that I get to speak to and read their stories every day, like big corporate offices that are going to introduce next Monday on the 1st of July, that they're switching from single-use to purely reusable for takeaway in their business. We know communities that are running workshops and teaching skills for people to make produce bags and wax wraps or milk from almonds and oat milk and cooking things from scratch. There's just so many positive social benefits that I reckon that's what I'd do if you gave me that position of power because I think it'd be better for all of us and it's going to be better for future generations. And I don't have that power, but I think I do have that power in my own life. And we know last year that 90 million people took part in Plastic Free July and like me, they're not perfect, but it's about people doing what they can with what they have, where they are, and we know that together we can make a big difference.

Brianne: And that is such a cool statistic to end on. So just when you think you're alone out there and you're a lone voice and no one else cares about the environment and what's the point, just remember that 90 million people did Plastic Free July, which by your own admission, Rebecca, is a relatively small grassroots movement. I mean, that's pretty freaking epic. I do think you should be applauded for all you have achieved and continue to do. And a massive thank you for your advocacy. I imagine I can get a little bit mind-numbing at times, but it is so important, and I love your perspective on things. So thank you so much for joining me on the pod. It has been a real pleasure.

Rebecca: Oh, thanks for having me, and thanks for all you've done to make a difference too.

Brianne: Thank you so much for joining us, Rebecca. That was really interesting, and it is nice to have a chat with an expert who is working the other side of things because I am very, very sceptical about how well we are doing in our fight against single-use plastics. So it is nice to have a bit of optimism in the room. Rebecca is talking most specifically about Australia and even more specifically about Western Australia where they have definitely improved recycling rates and the egg beverage container scheme is a good solution from all sides. The question I have is it's not so much that we can't collect recycling, it's what we're doing with the stuff we've collected, right?

Brianne: We don't have the infrastructure or the resources to recycle everything that is actually getting to recycling plants. And that's why it ends up in storage, that's why sometimes it's shipped offshore. And I think that is the heart of the problem. And that's what I'd like to see resolved with the plastic tax I was talking about. So it's interesting, it is good to hear those stats about that container scheme. I was a little cynical about it. That has improved my day.

Brianne: And I do like what Rebecca said about it's not just about plastic. You know, it's everything else. We have this totally, this take, make, throw away, ideal, if you like, or thought process about so many things. She used kettles as an example, and she's absolutely right. We don't repair things anymore. And the fact that we have to have legislation around the right of repair rather than just going as part of the course to get something repaired, it's ridiculous. My tumble dryer has broken and I rang up the service team and they said, oh, well, it's this and it will be more expensive to repair. And I thought that's really part of the problem, isn't it? And actually, I wasn't sure why it is more expensive to repair, but basically it's more of a hassle. And that's the thing, right? We have sacrificed everything for convenience. And I understand why. And we're all busy.

Brianne: And the cost of living crisis, as Rebecca pointed out, is taking a toll in more ways than one, and in a horrific level that it was brought home to me when I was in the States, actually. But yeah, convenience is only convenient in the moment. The other thing I really wanted to talk about or comment on, Rebecca said is, some of these reusables, I really think they're drinking their own Kool-Aid. I'm not gonna flag any brands here, but there's brands that have gone viral for their reusable cups, but they're encouraging you through very clever marketing to buy more than one. And doesn't that defeat the fricking point, right? So you have to buy the latest, greatest, seasonal colour. Almost all reusable brands do this. And this is actually why I will not make bottles or cups for Incredibles, because it is completely antithetical to what it is we're trying to do, right? Stop trying to make stuff. The average American has seven reusable bottles. You really only need one, maybe two, if you're going to be diligent with your washing of them and you use them every day. I think the reusable trend is doing a lot of harm and I don't think we know how to quantify it yet. And as I said to someone yesterday, I'd love to understand the net benefit of the plastic bag ban, because I absolutely am not pro single use bags, but I also know that 67% of people who go to the supermarket forget they're reusable bags and buy more. And I have done that too. None of us are perfect all the time, as I keep saying.

Brianne: And as reusable stuff uses so much more resource and we don't typically reuse it, you know. So it's not so much about switching one buying habit for another. It's about changing behaviour. It is about legislation. It is about changing business. It's all very complicated. And recycling, well, that isn't the solution because, as I said to Rebecca, recycling is not commercially viable a lot of the time. And also a lot of the stuff we make can't be recycled.

Brianne: But it was nice to see some optimism. And she is a wonderful person to follow, to learn from and I do recommend you go and have a look at Plastic Free July across social media. Today is of course the first day of Plastic Free July and yeah, I do encourage you to get involved even if you just skip one form of plastic you use and just see that actually, you know, it hasn't made your life too difficult. Next week we are back with another This or That and I know how polarising the last one is about plastic stores which is very topical. So I will see you next week. Have a wonderful plastic free July. Kia ora.

Brianne (outro): And there you go. I hope you learned something and realised that being green isn't about everything in your pantry matching with those silly glass jars or living in a commune. If that's your jam, fabulous. But sustainability at its part is just using what you need. If you enjoyed this episode, please don't keep it to yourself and feel free to drop me a rating and hit the subscribe button. Kia ora and I'll see you next week.

‍