Resources | Life Without Plastic

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I have been obsessed with plastic for more than five and a half years and it’s been my full time profession for more than half of that time, so I have spent my fair share of time reading/watching documentaries/listening to podcasts about plastic. Here are some resources below if you are interested to learn more about plastic:

Documentaries about plastic

A Plastic Ocean is a comprehensive documentary that follows the issue of plastic not only from an ocean pollution perspective but also from a human health perspective. I highly recommend it, but bear in mind it is quite long so you might want to break it up into a few viewing sessions
Bag It is a really charming documentary about an ordinary guy who makes it his mission to give up plastic. It becomes very personal and moving as the backdrop of the documentary shifts as Jeb’s wife gets pregnant and he starts to think more about the legacy of plastic for our children and future generations.
Plasticized” is a documentary that follows a 5 Gyres Institute crew who seek to measure the level of plastic waste in the ocean. They set out a trawling net every 60 nautical miles (rain or shine!) and examine the plastic fragments that they find. This documentary is great in showing just how real this problem is and showing the level of dedication of researchers in the field seeking to improve the state of our oceans. I am a huge fan of the 5 Gyres Institute and their work, so this is a great introduction to that!

Short videos about plastic

An overview of the plastic problem and how it comes back to us, featuring excellent graphics.

This short video gives an excellent overview of the microfibres issue in a way that is easy to understand for people who have never heard of this problem before!

What’s the deal with microbeads? This video was made before the microbeads issue got really big and governments all over the world started to ban them, but it is still a great way to introduce yourself to the problem if you are not familiar.

Papers and reports about plastic and waste

If you’re interested in the doing a deeper dive into plastic and waste, I highly recommend checking out the following reports and journal articles.

What a Waste 2.0: A Global Snapshot of Solid Waste Management to 2050 can be found here. This is a super interesting look at waste management all over the world. The original report (click here) was from 2012, the latest version was updated in 2018.

This is the famous paper on plastic waste inputs into the ocean by Jenna Jambeck et al 2015 to assess the amount of plastic entering the ocean each year, which they put at between 4 to 12 million metric tons. Click here for the article.

This is also a recent paper they just put out on the implications of the China ban on recycling, super interesting stuff, click here. I really just love everything that comes out of her research, not to mention she is a lovely person!

The Food Packaging Forum and they have a lot of rally interesting research about the human health implications of different food packaging materials. Check them out here .

I also put together a whole bunch of research for our infographic, and I’ve attached that here. This has been reviewed by the Food Packaging Forum and they’re giving further insight as we develop the infographic more.

The British Plastic Federation report is a long one, but this BBC article distills it quite well.

Stemming the Tide, the controversial report sponsored by Dow and Coca-Cola that prioritised ending leakage/promoting incineration. Interesting read but super important to keep in mind why it was commissioned and authored, find it here.

Bloggers and other websites

http://myplasticfreelife.com/ – the first ever plastic free blog I followed! Beth Terry has been plastic free for over 11 years and she’s AMAZING. Check out her site for tons of resources and inspiration!

https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/ for great, up to date information plastic and lots of resources on living plastic free.

https://treadingmyownpath.com/ – Lindsay does a great job of sharing practical tips and thoughts on waste.

https://www.5gyres.org/ for science-based recommendations and updates from expeditions.

Instagram accounts

There are a lot of people in the Zero Waste/Plastic free space now, a lot more than when I started back in 2013. I prioritise seeing diverse content with voices from different backgrounds as I think it adds a lot more value to the conversation than just middle class young white women who can fit their waste in a mason jar (sorry).

Check out:

@zerowastehabesha Freweyni has lots of resources on environmental racism and inequality. She also runs the #RepresentationMatters series to highlight young activist of colour in this space.

@sustainablesabs Sabs is a great follow for all things low waste fashion, vegan, and great tips!

@livingwastefree Samantha gives super useful tips in a non-judgemental way

@zerowastechica Heidi does her posts in both English and Spanish and talks a lot about DIY culture

@thewastedblog Florine and I had an awesome opportunity to meet last year – this chick is so cool. Highly recommend!

@she.is.awake Antónia is an amazing woman who recently ran a donation campaign to bring waste free kits to Angola (check out @lixo.zero.angola)

@zerowasteguy Jonathan is a Zero Waste Project Manager and has worked with companies like Buzzfeed to assess their waste footprint.

My work elsewhere

In a shameless bit of self-promotion, here are some of the other projects I am working on or have worked on, articles I have written, or videos I’ve appeared in. Enjoy!

I am currently a member of the Plastic Pollution Emissions Working Group, a group of researchers who are building a model to measure the flow of plastic in the ocean and measure the effectiveness of different intervention strategies to mitigate the problem. Check out our work here.

I worked for Gallifrey Foundation for a number of years and am super proud of what we achieved together. During my time there I was seconded to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Check out our website for our programmes that I helped set up!

Last year I worked with an amazing team from PCI Media Impact and the talented artist Marc Nadel to create a comic book for children about plastic pollution. The comic book “Poseidon Patrol” was translated into eight languages and launched at the UN on World Oceans Day last year. I had the great pleasure of giving a few copies to Her Deepness Sylvia Earle! You can find the comic here.

Earlier this year I wrote two pieces for Frank News. You can read my piece about the negotiations for an international convention on plastics here.

My second piece on human health impacts of plastic can be read here.

I was recently featured on Currently Wearing.com, a great website from Switzerland-based blogger Miriam Henderson. Check out the post and accompanying video here.

I was thrilled to be featured alongside five amazing women for an article on Eluxe Magazine. Check out the short profile here.

Just a little note: I’ll be updating the resource section constantly, so if you have anything that you think might be appropriate here just send me an email at noplasticplease123@gmail.com to suggest it! Thanks!