Reducing Plastic Use In Your Park Home

Reducing plastic use in your park home can be a simple matter of making a few small changes without any major shift in lifestyle or habits, which can nevertheless build up to a large beneficial effect on our shared environment. The pollution caused by plastics, particularly single use plastics, is a well-known issue and one that can particularly affect waterways and shorelines. Here are a few tips to help you keep the planet and your local environment free of unnecessary plastic waste. Replace, Re-use, Recycle  In descending order these are the measures which have the most impact.  Replacing plastic in your park home

  • If you can replace plastic completely with something made of materials that are easier to recycle, the impact on reducing plastic pollution is simply maximised.
  • Wherever possible use washable wooden or metal cutlery, glass cups and washable napkins as opposed to plastic disposable cutlery and cups and paper napkins. It does mean more washing up but the energy spent on this can significantly help reduce the plastic (and paper) waste produced in your park home.
  • From a recycling point of view, glass bottles are much preferable to a lot of plastic ones. If you can get your favourite drink in a glass bottled version, this will help you reduce your regular plastic use and the glass can be easily recycled.
  • When it comes to shopping, think about replacing plastic with an alternative or even with nothing. Plastic bags now have a charge to encourage us to use our own bags. Try to make yours a cloth bag. Think about the packaging on the products you buy. Try to buy loose vegetables as opposed to pre-packed ones. This can reduce plastic hugely on a week-by-week basis.
  • There are a growing number of packaging-free outlets across the country. Look at this packaging-free outlet guide to see if there is one near you. This is a fantastic way to reduce the use of all packaging materials, perhaps most importantly plastics.

Re-using plastic in your park home

  • Where the best option for a particular item still is plastic, try to get a reusable option and avoid single-use items.
  • It is understandable, for instance that a tough, hard wearing plastic bottle might be a cyclist’s preference, as it is lightweight and can survive accidents, impacts and drops. One made from a non-plastic material is best but a reusable plastic one is still vastly preferable to constantly filling up with disposable single use bottles of water or another drink.
  • Refilling services for many products like detergents and printer inks are growing in the UK due to a heightened interest in doing one’s bit for the planet. Look out for these in your local shops and supermarkets. Ask about it in shops near you. If they don’t run a refill service the more people who ask, the more likely they are to realise it can bring in custom.
  • The reusable item will eventually need to be disposed of and recycled if possible but one of the best and worst qualities of plastic – a reason for its popularity as a material and conversely its persistence as a pollutant – is its long life. Reusable items greatly reduce the speed at which we each generate polluting plastic waste.

Recycle

  • Some disposable plastic will most likely still make it through to your park home and be used. This is where your own and your park’s recycling efforts really come in useful.
  • Some plastics cannot be recycled and must be disposed of in the regular waste. Try to avoid plastic with printing on it and coloured plastic. The chemicals added to make the colours and writing often make it harder to recycle these plastics.
  • Read the label before disposing of plastics, not all clear plastic is recyclable either.
  • Many residential and holiday parks have their own recycling services. Make sure you know what they can deal with as it can often be more than standard domestic recycling.

Hopefully, this quick guide will help you to think how you can reduce your plastic use in your park home so that we can all enjoy cleaner waterways and clearer seas. This is a marketing article from Park Home Assist, multi award-winning providers of residential park home insurance.  If you would like to speak to an advisor regarding insurance for your park home, please contact our friendly team in our Northampton office on 01604 946 796. To stay up to date with similar topics like this, please like and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. For more information about any of our other insurance products, please choose your product of interest below:

Published – 12/08/21