​If you're a tea drinker, this one is for you. Standard square tea bags – used for teas such as Earl Grey, English breakfast and green tea – are "heat sealed", meaning that a thin film of polypropylene is applied to seal the two sides together. Their "string and tag with sachet" range also contains polypropylene and a small amount of acrylic co-polymer emulsion, a plastic-based glue that bonds the bags together.
The way tea bags are manufactured varies depending on the brand but about 70 to 80 per cent of bags are made from compostable paper while the remaining 20 to 30 per cent contains heat-resistant polypropylene. This is to prevent the bag breaking mid-dunk, but it does mean that small pieces of plastic mesh are left behind in the soil when you compost the bags.
#northernbeachescleanupcrew #plasticfree

Okay, let’s talk about what’s best for the kitchen bin.
Veronica Maree took this pic at Woolworths, and she's a little frustrated because of how deceiving and confusing this is for the regular shopper just trying their best to make a good decision at the checkout. Here is her great explanation:
Multix have come out with a ‘greener’ bin liner option. Looks great on the outside, but let’s break this down.
The top bag she's holding is labeled ‘plant based’. Okay, sounds positive right? Well, yeh that’s a positive, it also states that it’s “made from 60% plant-based material, a renewable resource from the sugarcane industry” which is indeed a great move, but if you look closely, it is also labelled as ‘degradable’. Now, degradable is not to be confused with ‘biodegradable’ because anything that is degradable will not fully break down into the soil when it ends up in landfill. Instead, it turns into tiny pieces of plastic that will never break down, continuing the micro plastics issue we currently face in our oceans. Probably not a great option.
Okay the second option, same brand, being Multix, same ‘greener’ bold labelling, but here are the differences.
Firstly, instead of ‘plant based’ labelling, they have it labelled as ‘compostable’. It also states that it’s ‘biodegradable’. This is where it makes ALL the difference. So compostable and biodegradable are sort of the same, but sort of not. To the average person, it would seem the same, but here are the slight differences. They both aim to break down safely into the earth, however, biodegradable is made for breaking down in landfills, and compostable is made with a specific set of requirements to break down safely in a compost. Usually the compostable bags are quicker to break down too. So if you were after a bag safe to put into your compost bin, we can understand how this could be confusing. We look closer on the back of the label and it is marked as “home compostable AS 5810 ABAP 20006” and “compostable AS 4736 ABAP 10060”. These numbers refer to the certification from the Australian Bioplastics Association. This is a good option to purchase, and they have different sizes to choose from, plus it is labelled as safe for composts too, so double great.
Lastly, Veronica wanted to shed light on another brand called ‘compost-a-pak”. These were so clearly marked compostable, with zero confusing labels. This is also certified and marked on the back of the label “compostable certification number AS 4736-2006 ABAP 10019” and “home compostable certification number ABAP 20001”. It also states under the headline “made from vegetable material and plastic free. Australian certified compostable”. This is so crystal clear and easy to understand, and Veronica wants to show the stark difference in the marketing and labelling. We have seen many people putting the first option on the conveyor belt at the checkout and we know those people are just trying to make the best decision, but it’s not fair that they’re being misled. She couldn’t find other sizes in this brand besides the one, but it’s still a very good option.
We hope this helps you make your decision a little easier when you go shopping next. Thank you Veronica for your great explanation!
#northernbeachescleanupcrew #plastic

Beer and soft drinks could soon be sipped from “all-plant” bottles under new plans to turn sustainably grown crops into plastic in partnership with major beverage makers.
A biochemicals company in the Netherlands hopes to kickstart investment in a pioneering project that hopes to make plastics from plant sugars rather than fossil fuels. The plans, devised by renewable chemicals company Avantium, have already won the support of beer-maker Carlsberg, which hopes to sell its pilsner in a cardboard bottle lined with an inner layer of plant plastic.
Avantium’s chief executive, Tom van Aken, says he hopes to greenlight a major investment in the world-leading bioplastics plant in the Netherlands by the end of the year. The project has the backing of Coca-Cola and Danone, which hope to secure the future of their bottled products by tackling the environmental damage caused by plastic pollution and a reliance on fossil fuels.
Globally around 300 million tonnes of plastic is made from fossil fuels every year, which is a major contributor to the climate crisis. Most of this is not recycled and contributes to the scourge of microplastics in the world’s oceans. Microplastics can take hundreds of years to decompose completely. “This plastic has very attractive sustainability credentials because it uses no fossil fuels, and can be recycled – but would also degrade in nature much faster than normal plastics do,” says Van Aken.
Avantium’s plant plastic is designed to be resilient enough to contain carbonate drinks. Trials have shown that the plant plastic would decompose in one year using a composter, and a few years longer if left in normal outdoor conditions. But ideally, it should be recycled, said Van Aken.
The bio-refinery plans to break down sustainable plant sugars into simple chemical structures that can then be rearranged to form a new plant-based plastic – which could appear on supermarket shelves by 2023. The path-finder project will initially make a modest 5,000 tonnes of plastic every year using sugars from corn, wheat or beets. However, Avantium expects its production to grow as demand for renewable plastics climbs.
In time, Avantium plans to use plant sugars from sustainable sourced biowaste so that the rise of plant plastic does not affect the global food supply chain.
Article by: Jillian Ambrose (The Guardian)
#northernbeachescleanupcrew #plastic #savethisplanet

Want to know more about what you can do?
Start change with the power you have:
Full interview can be found here:
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2SQNCn9
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2YCCejQ
Google Podcasts: http://bit.ly/googlewcwd
Anchor: http://bit.ly/2KTPLfp
"Northern Beaches Clean Up Crew" was founded to solve an immediate litter problem on the local beaches in Sydney. 5 years on, Malin from Kobie and the Crew are leading the campaign against single-use plastic in their communities and neighbourhoods. Thank you to @whatcanwedo.podcast for the interview.
#northernbeachescleanupcrew #plastic #beachcleanup

Do you maybe knows someone who could be our local Carter?
Carter wanted to close the food waste loop in his community, so he started collecting food scraps on his bicycle to create compost!
Eight years later and his initiative has turned into a successful business that diverts food waste from landfills, creates healthy soil, and strengthens the bond of his community. Once the compost is mature, members of the program can receive a full five gallon bucket of compost which closes the loop of waste-- their food scraps turn into healthy soil which will nourish their gardens. Carter’s brother has even started selling the worms so that community members can compost at home. Learn more at carterscompost.com.
Share if you want a bicycle-powered community compost program in your community!
#northernbeachescleanupcrew #compost #community

McGill University chemical engineering professor Nathalie Tufenkji decided to test tea bags after she was given one in a Montreal cafe that looked like it was made from plastic.
She asked her graduate student Laura Hernandez to purchase several tea bag brands from Montreal stores. The scientists then tested them to see if they left any plastic particles behind. The results, published in Environmental Science and Technology Wednesday, far surpassed the researchers' expectations.
"We were shocked when we saw billions of particles in a single cup of tea," Tufenkji told CBC News. In total, the researchers found that steeping a plastic tea bag at 95 degrees Celsius released around 11.6 billion microplastics and 3.1 billion nanoplastics into a single cup. That's much more than other foods and beverages commonly contaminated with plastics, Tufenkji told New Scientist. "We think that it is a lot when compared to other foods that contain microplastics," she said. "Table salt, which has a relatively high microplastic content, has been reported to contain approximately 0.005 micrograms plastic per gram salt. A cup of tea contains thousands of times greater mass of plastic, at 16 micrograms per cup."
#northernbeachescleanupcrew #plastic #tea

​WOOD PALLET PLANT SHELF - What repurposing things have you done?
#northernbeachescleanupcrew #repurposing

Local legend Sarah has created a kids party kit to try to cut down on the disposable elements of children’s parties. The kit contains:
16 dinner plates
16 cake plates
16 sets of cutlery
16 tumblers
1 large melamine bowl
1 ceramic cake stand
1 bamboo/ceramic dip/snack serving set
1 white cotton tablecloth
1 rainbow fabric table runner
3 coloured tea light holders
Tea light candles
Birthday badge
She asks for a $20 deposit when you collect it and you can choose to donate any amount, if you wish, to the upkeep of the box. If you have a kids party coming up please email her at sarah.peachman1@gmail.com to arrange collection.
#northernbeachescleanupcrew #plasticfree

Hobart is set to say goodbye to single-use plastics, after the council voted to enforce its ban on non-compostable food packaging from next year, becoming the first city in Australia to do so. The Hobart City Council's ban tackles non-compostable takeaway food packaging, which according to the Environment Protection Authority Tasmania, makes up about 50 per cent of the city's rubbish.
It was estimated that the ban would take 10 million bits of single-use plastic out of the waste stream and litter stream every year in Hobart. The ban includes, but is not limited to, tubs and lids, cups and cup lids, utensils, including cutlery, stirrers and straws, sachets and packets. Yes, even the soy sauce fish is on its way out.
It does not, however, mean the end of containers, straws or utensils, all of these can be substituted with compostable packaging.
While it's not considered to be the ultimate solution to litter, compostable packaging is able to break down in the environment, particularly when disposed of properly. Council research found that about a third of Hobart's 300 businesses were already using some form of compostable packaging, and the hope, said Cr Harvey, was that this by-law would nudge the rest to make the change.
#northernbeachescleanupcrew #plasticfree