excess packaging

[Flummery]

I make bags from left-overs from my quilting fabrics. I'm sure there are issues with dyes and production etc but once this bag is made - it's strong and lined with plain calico - it will go on forever. Just thinking of the number of poly bags I don't use makes me think it's worth doing. I've got loads of them - I give them as presents.

[pigletwillie]

Quality Flum, it looks great. Do you do commisions?

[Salina]

I can't stand all the unnecessary packaging that is put on stuff.....
luckily here since they brought in a levy on using plastic bags for your shopping (they used to be free) people have stopped using them because the have to pay! and you also hardly ever see them stuck in the trees etc out here in the country where people just used to chuck them out of the car or whatever and I'm sure there must be much less of them being sent to the landfill site. most people (including us) take our reusable bags etc instead. They are easier to handly and don't break either which is nice lol.
I think that they are much more Eco-Friendly in the states with their paper sacks.

[muckdiva]

I make bags from left-overs from my quilting fabrics. I'm sure there are issues with dyes and production etc but once this bag is made - it's strong and lined with plain calico - it will go on forever. Just thinking of the number of poly bags I don't use makes me think it's worth doing. I've got loads of them - I give them as presents.

Cool bag Flummery, time to get the sewing machine out methinks (treadle to save 'leccy of course )

[SimonCole]

As for campaigning...do you think that works? you can't change someone else's behaviour, but you can change your own. Lead by example.

I don't think that simply saving on a few grams of plastic each year (which you could also recycle) will do nearly as much difference as a letter to your MP.

The point I make is that it is fashionable to care about the environment and make green gestures like returning plastic to the supermarkets. But people haven’t the foggiest idea of the real problems faced in the environment. I think it’s just a face to hide the fact that they drive to the supermarket, with know one else in the car, half filling the boot with products. You talk to any one about the ecological damage done by the farming of palm oil and they laugh at you, it’s as if they think that logging is causing more rainforest devastation. Yet it is one of the world’s largest food crops and finds it’s way into much of what we eat and consume.

I think that our efforts to use the same bag will make no difference in comparison to the ecological devastation we could resolve by dealing with bigger issues.

[Flummery]

Quality Flum, it looks great. Do you do commisions?

Not in the summer! Too much to do in the garden. Apart from my niece's wedding quilt (still to finish ) I don't do much in the summer. It's a winter hobby really. However, when the cold weather returns, for a friend, I might be persuaded!

[pigletwillie]

Come November consider your arm very much twisted up your back

[Headfry]

Well put Simon, I think much the same way. It's almost as if 'whoever' is just trying to distract us from the very large scale issues as above! getting us so confused as to what can and cant be recycled, doing the best we can, and we wont look at the deeper issues.
I recycle all that I can but they will not make me think that this will cure the problems! yes its a start and a good one as people are now asking more questions on a larger scale as these postings prove.
Does that make any sense? I hope you can understand what I am trying (v.badly ) to say.

[SimonCole]

You've said it as well as I could have put it. Just glad we have the Grapevine to bounce our ideas around on