Every Little Helps

Recently, you may have seen that All Things Hemp has been branching out into what we’ve lovingly titled our Eco-Friendly & Plastic-Free collection. For the most part, these products are designed with Mother Nature in mind, to ensure a guilt-free shopping experience. But you might be asking yourself: ‘Why do I need to go Plastic-Free?’ Or ‘How can I make a difference?’

Eco-Friendly

Protecting the Environment

In the weird world of 2020 that we find ourselves in, consumers have turned to an online experience which finds us purchasing more products online and putting a greater strain on couriers and companies who - before COVID-19 - relied more upon in-store purchases than online retail. Interestingly, in some companies, they’ve found an almost like-for-like revenue from this time last year (when stores were open) to an exclusively online shopping experience, showing an ever-increasing need for customers and a desire to purchase, even without seeing the products.

One of the downsides to this shift in our shopping habits, is that more plastic packaging, more CO2 emissions and more vehicles are on the road delivering during the pandemic and this means: more harm to the planet as non-recyclable and non-renewable waste is put to the environment.

With little changes in our daily routines, a more relaxed approach to our expectations (e.g. instead of next-day services, purchase orders for bulk deliveries once a month. Companies like Amazon already reward customers for opting for a slower delivery option to reduce the strain they experience), we could see a marked improvement in our planet’s ability to breathe.

Whilst not a pleasant time by anyone’s standards, COVID-19 gave the world an opportunity to see the effect a reduced human presence could have on our world. In the UK, carbon emissions had fallen by 31% in early April, with some places showing up to 22% lower emissions than the same time last year. Unfortunately, with an eased lockdown, this is now returning to normal but for a moment we had regularly clear skies, beautifully warm weather and much less traffic for emergency services and frontline workers.

Why should I go Green?

There are so many reasons to go Green, with the basics being less waste, more demand for naturally sustainable resources and a better quality of life for future generations, but there’s a whole wealth of reasons to make small changes. My favourite two are:

Becoming self-sufficient. An eco-friendly life can involve a lot of DIY techniques which encourage you to be self-sufficient and innovative. Instead of expecting everything to be delivered pre-packaged, you get more from such a lifestyle by being dependent on yourself. And your wallet will thank you too, as you find yourself overall saving money and even generating an income in some cases (such as installing solar panels and selling excess energy to the Power Grid).

Building local businesses. A large part of eco-friendly consumerism is the idea that you can support local business instead of large conglomerates; a craft shop will sell a lot of materials you need to get crafty, and smaller businesses will contribute more to the economy if they experience a higher demand. This benefits the community as a whole and encourages further business; bringing in more jobs, and thereby encouraging greater spending. It’s a win-win scenario.

Plastic-Free

Why is it important to go Plastic-Free?

One of our biggest changes here at the All Things Hemp Shop is our change to ensuring larger orders are packaged in our fully recyclable, bio-degradable boxes (made from recycled materials).

This is one small way any company can make a huge change to their products, their impact and their approach to customers. But aside from how it looks in the world of PR, it also helps to reduce overall plastic waste which has become rife in the current world.

As of 2015, more than 5 trillion (5,000,000,000,000) pieces of plastic are already floating in our oceans, which nearly 73% of beach litter being plastic. This is an incredible amount of plastic which cannot be reused being put into our eco-system and it only gets worse.

Our world plastic production in 1950 was 2.1m tons, up to 147m in 1993 and 406m in 2015. That’s almost the same as 40,200 Eiffel Towers (a weird analogy, I know but I think it puts it into scale the gravity of the situation).

Even one small company removing plastic from their production could help reduce this huge growth to more sustainable and beneficial alternatives which have no effect on the quality of the products. Our full range of Eco-Friendly and Plastic-Free products is committed to reducing plastic wherever possible and will contact very little plastic, or plastic that its reusable time and time again.

Other alternatives

I know this is quite a lot to take in, but the bottom line is this: if we don’t start making a huge shift in the way we think about plastic, by the time we start making changes, clearing up after ourselves and using plastic-free and bio-degradable alternatives, the damage may have already been done.