Wishcycling & Greenwashing Pt. 1

‘Wishcycling’ and ‘Greenwashing’. Two important terms that every modern day consumer should be familiar with. Alternatively, two important terms which sound more like drunken wordplay by that one “eco-hippy” friend of yours. Both of these things are used by and aimed at those well intentioned individuals who want to make a difference for the planet. So grab a cuppa, pop your feet up and listen to some sober “eco-hippy” ramblings.

Wishcycling: Wishcycling is the process of putting items in a recycling bin instead of the general waste, even if you’re not sure whether they are recyclable or not.

We all know the drill. You’ve got a random piece of plastic packaging. You’ve maybe googled it to see if it can go in your household recycling. No luck. Surely it’s better to try recycling it rather than just sending it straight to landfill, right? Wrong. Welcome to the catastrophic concept of ‘wishcycling’.

There’s no denying that this recycling reflex action comes from a well-intentioned place. The thought that the more waste going to recycling than landfill the better. Unfortunately that’s not how the recycling process works. Here comes the technical part.. Recycled materials are taken to Materials Recovery Facilities where they are sorted by a series of conveyer belts, light sensors and other specialised technical equipment. Contaminants within these recycled materials can cause severe issues with the process including:

• Damage to equipment within the Materials Recovery Facilities
• Huge cost implications in time and money, due to operations having to be temporarily shut down to administer repairs (and let’s be real here, local councils don’t/won’t have an endless supply of money and patience when it comes to eco initiatives)
• Entire loads of recycled materials being sent to landfill, or away for incineration – including those materials that can be readily recycled

So what can you do? By all means recycle. Reduce and reuse what you can, and then recycle what you can’t. But do your research. Make sure that what you’re planning to recycle can actually be recycled. Household recycling facilities are accepting more and more as the demand for recycling increases, but they all have their limits. If you can take a minute out of your day to aimlessly scroll your brother’s-girlfriend’s-cousin’s-ex’s-dog’s insta profile, you can take a minute to look online and find details around what’s accepted by your local recycling facility online.

On that tangent..

Think outside of the box. By now we’ve all heard about Terracycle and the abundance of schemes they have available for typically hard to recycle items. A few examples; Walkers are accepting crisp packets here, The Body Shop are accepting beauty and toiletries packaging here, Louellabelle accept all nail polish bottles here.. the list goes on. Ecobricks is another incredible global scheme that everyone should get themselves familiar with. I’ll say it again. Do. Your. Research. There are SO many recycling options out there just waiting for you to find them. Find the time and make a difference.

Just remember, if your research comes up empty, accept it. No, landfill is not something to promote in any scenario, but better that only one item goes to landfill that a full recycling load contaminated by a ‘wish-cycled’ item. If anything, let the discovery that an item isn’t recyclable actively discourage you from using that item again. Be open-minded. Find an alternative. Make new habits. Change is good.

No, ultimately recycling can’t save us, but wish-cycling will destroy us.

And on that cheery little apocalyptic note..

Much love. x

Feeling Grey

This isn’t actually the blog post I’ve been writing tonight. This isn’t a blog post that I had any intention of writing. I’ve been sat typing out a new post for the past couple of hours. An easy post. But it’s taken me two hours to write about two minutes of content. I’ve had to stop myself from hitting the delete button a fair few times. I don’t know if the writing is poor or if my head’s not in it, so for now that post can sit in my drafts. Maybe tomorrow’s fresh eyes will be more forgiving of today’s fumbled words.

Today is a grey day. I’m not blue but I’m not myself either. It’s a hard one to describe. I have absolutely no reason to feel down. I have the best friends and the best family. I’m on a course next week which I’m pretty excited for. Man I’m going to Iceland next month, an absolute dream come true. There are so many good things coming up and I am beyond grateful for them. But today I woke up feeling grey.

That’s a lie actually. I woke up today and I thought I was okay. I was bubbly, I was joking around with my family. But then something clicked. No trigger. Nothing said. But the grey came nonetheless. It’s not so much an “everything is terrible” nor “woe is me” moment. Today it felt like an overwhelming pressure in my head. A physical feeling that stemmed from absolutely nothing at all. A head full of grey that felt like it could explode at any moment.

When I feel like this I am an arsehole. There’s no other word for it. I need to be alone. The only problem is, when your family realise that you’re not quite yourself, they don’t want you to be alone. They want to check in. They want to care. They are so full of love and kind heartedness. But. I. Am. An. Arsehole. When I’m an arsehole I can barely muster a grunt of acknowledgement. I sure as hell can’t hold a conversation. My head is a pressure cooker and too much interaction could be very much catastrophic. So in trying to avoid exploding at anyone who is only deserving of the nicest words and actions, I just have to be an arsehole. Mad, right? I swear there’s logic there somewhere. Sorry mum.

Full disclosure, I’ve already cried once whilst writing this post. I’ve not cried at all today up until this point. Again, I have absolutely no reason to cry – Jesus Christ Gemma – but here we are. I’ve always found something incredibly cathartic about writing since day dot. I was the kid who wrote stories and poems all through first and middle school. Percy the Rabbit That Couldn’t Hop? Absolute classic guys, seriously.

Sometimes the only way to make sense of everything you’re feeling is to write it down. When I was first diagnosed with depression I wrote. I was always sh*t at talking about my feelings. I went through months of talking therapy with a counsellor who was absolutely amazing, and I’ll never be able to thank her enough for that, but writing has always been my go-to.

I wrote poems every day in some of my darkest days. How lame does that sound? I jUsT hAVe A lOt Of FeELiNgS oKaY gUyS.. It was never something I planned to do. I just had a lot of words buzzing around my head and I needed to get them out. waves_ofemotion. I put them all up there for the world to see. I don’t really know why, but I do know that I like being able to look back on them every now and then. They stir up some crazy cocktail of emotions inside me, but it’s nice to reflect on how far I’ve come.

Anyway I’m rambling. I don’t know what the point of this post is. At this point I don’t even know if I’m going to publish it. I just know that in this moment, this tapping of keys is freeing up some space in my head. Finding the tiniest gap to push back against the pressure.

I slept a lot today. I tried to be productive (whilst shut away from the world), but in the end the pressure in my head won and I gave in. Don’t get me wrong, I’m an absolute Nap Queen, but this was different. At one point I woke up to find my dog asleep at my feet. What a babe. When I woke up properly the grey had lifted a little. I mean it was still there – it’s still there now just niggling away at the back of my mind – but it’s not stifling. I could actually crack a smile without feeling like my head would crack open and all the grey would pour out. I could apologise for being an arsehole – albeit still with no reason why.

Today was grey but that doesn’t mean tomorrow will be. Today was grey but that doesn’t mean that I’m taking two hundred steps back. It just is what it is.

Today was grey and that’s okay. (#ImAPoetAndIDidntEvenKnowIt #Bantz)

Thanks for humouring me to the end of whatever this is. Much love x