Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
How the BBC's 'Secret Life of Landfill: A Rubbish History' Changed my Perceptions
Last week, I saw an ad for BBC4's documentary Secret Life of Landfill: A Rubbish History and, as with many TV programmes, I thought I'd hop and skip through it and move on. However, the programme really did grab my attention and I'd recommend your taking 90 minutes to sit down and watch it.
Essentially, the programme shows how the rubbish we've been chucking out and burying in landfill sites for the past 150 years and more is building up under our feet and is gradually coming back to bite us.
The programme makers dug up and examined various landfill sites to see what's happened to rubbish since it was dumped.
It showed how calculations about how even things that most of us assume will rot away in a heartbeat, like a newspaper, don't meet the expected decomposition times. A newspaper is expected to decompose in 2-6 weeks. They found one in a 30 year old landfill (ie before recycling was common) that looked the same as the day it was thrown away. Apparently they hadn't figured the lack of oxygen into their calculations. Imagine what this might mean for rubbish for which much longer decomposition times have been calculated.
The programme also explained how landfill rubbish creates a kind of stew and exudes a leachate which is essentially a disgusting liquid incorporating all the stuff that goes into landfill, much of which is highly toxic. It includes harmful stuff like the chemicals in batteries and all the other stuff that households and businesses throw away.
One of the landfills examined was from the 1960's. In a masterstroke of forward thinking, it was sited next to the Thames estuary. The programme showed how the river current is now washing away the landfill and sending it out to sea.
The programme was a scary reminder of how we're wrecking our planet. I recycle and try to act responsibly, but I've never been a card carrying greenist, nor even a pale imitation of one. Watching this programme though gave me a useful reminder of the need to be more responsible. The first thing I'm changing is to stop being lazy with my batteries. I've now put out a container for them and will drop them off in Sainsbury's when I have a few to recycle. (And, as a step in the wrong direction, I've already stopped recycling any black plastic food trays we get since I read that they can't be recycled because their colour means that they can't be 'read' by the recycling machines. I guess as a next step I should refuse to buy anything in a black plastic tray).
You can can catch the programme on iPlayer for another three and a half weeks. If we can all change our habits just a bit, it'll help. But I was left with the impression that as a society we need to do a darn site more before long - and soon.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by V&M on
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We have been trying to move all of our regular purchases (shower gel, loo roll, toothpaste, cleaning products) to options with no or minimal plastic packaging (and where it's plastic, giving preference to varieties that are commonly recycled). So far have swapped to Whole Cane Green Cane for bulk deliveries of loo roll + kitchen roll + tissues (plastic free, recycled w. biodegradable packaging, works out same cost as supermarket), bars of soap instead of shower gel, metal tubes of toothpaste and an incredibly effective deodorant that comes in glass jars instead of aerosol or plastic roll-on. Next up we're going to try to refill shop in Muswell Hill for detergent etc. It's slow progress but a bit more approachable to change one buying habit each time a repeat purchase comes up than to look at your shopping basket full of plastic and feel it's an insurmountable problem.
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Permalink Reply by Sarah on
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can I have a link for Whole Cane please? I Googled but got a page full of sugar. (I have the deodorant from Harmless though! Want to check out the toothpaste though I get mouth ulcers so I'm very picky about toothpaste)
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My bad it's actually Green Cane - https://greencane.com/ :)
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Permalink Reply by Maddy on
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Hmm - I don't know...presumably they have to ship the bamboo and sugar cane a long way in order to produce their 'green' toilet paper.
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It's a trade off. I've had a read about it and came to the conclusion that the pros outweighed the cons. And I feel a lot better not sending lots of plastic film packaging to the tip.
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Haha, I have done Roman archaeology at Vindolanda, if we can still read a letter someone wrote 2000 years ago (ink on wooden tablet) of course stuff we chuck away today will take forever to rot in an anaerobic environment.
I can really, really recommend Harmless at Blue House Yard for anyone wanting to cut down on the amount of plastic waste they throw out. It's a tiny shop but it has most of what I need!
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Harmless looks lovely, am going to pop in tomorrow, thanks for the tip!
After a clear out yesterday I've just re-homed some knackered bras with Against Breast Cancer and some nice new-ish bras with Smalls for all
It's amazing how many great recycling schemes there are out there.
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Permalink Reply by Alice on
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I’ve been thinking about setting up a community group to share tips for reducing waste and also to encourage businesses in green lanes to use less plastic (a big task, I know!). Would anyone be interested in this? There is a sustainability group in Muswell Hill but doesn’t seem to be one in Harringay unless I’m mistaken?
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