In researching Cleanzine’s Sustainability feature, which broadcast on Tuesday, (here’s the link if you missed it) I came across an inspirational initiative which took me back to last week’s Cleanzine Leader, in which I commended the NHS for attempting to streamline its staff uniform protocol but slated it for not having thought things through properly, which meant in my eyes, that it would likely lead to more waste being created, and potentially higher costs too – at least for a time, anyway.  

 

The initiative, by Linda Ball and Mitch Herber of Upcycled Medical, is turning discarded plastics in our oceans and landfill into useful medical equipment – including staff uniforms and other workwear. Partner, Seaqual, based in Spain, collects the waste and mixes it with locally-grown organic cotton, before turning it into yarn which it then makes into the textile used by Upcycled Medical to make into NHS workwear. There’s a video which explains the process by which, instead of being discarded after just one use, plastic aprons etc can be reused some 20 times, after which they’re returned to the manufacturer for reprocessing back into new NHS workwear. Currently the ratio is 35% cotton to 65% of PET plastics waste, but Linda argues that this could be improved to include more plastics in future if our waste is segregated correctly, since different types of polymers can be recycled into different types of products. She says that with the correct initial manufacture and fortification the plastics can effectively, be used forever. 

 

Now if the NHS can cut the ridiculously high number of colourway options to make its new protocol more workable, and use Upcycled Medical as its single supplier, we could perhaps be onto a winner! 

 

This issue of plastics recycling is something of a bugbear for me. I’ve been a keen recycler for 30-plus years yet am sure I still don’t always deal with all my plastics correctly. I feel that the only way we can make the best use of plastics and prevent what Mitch says in the video is our individual consumption of a credit card sized amount of plastics each week, is to embrace the practice of co-mingling, and let the experts sort the waste. If I can admit to not getting it right all the time (and the rest of my family certainly can’t!) what hope is there for us when so many people simply can’t be bothered to try and get it right?