Passion for Plastic Free

The enormous environmental damage done by plastic waste has become a hot topic recently, but for Claire Summers, tackling this global problem has been a way of life for many years.
She is proud to be an activist in this field, and her mission is to provide others with advice and information they need to adopt relatively minor changes to their lifestyle that can make such a tremendous difference.
She certainly practices what she preaches. While most of us put out our wheelie bins of household waste every week, last year she filled hers only once over the entire 12 months, with everything else going to be recycled.
Claire and her family moved from Ditchling to Seaford a year-and-a-half ago – she felt this was the ideal place to bring up son Jack, now aged four-and-a-half, and daughter Matilda, now three years.
“I used to work as a PA in London, and the way I live now was nothing like my lifestyle when I was in my 20s or early-30s,” she says. “I think having children changes your view of everything.
“I don’t have a background in environmental science, but we lived in Cornwall for a while, and until then, I had no idea how much plastic pollution there is. That’s what made me think and everything about my passion for tackling plastic waste just clicked into place.”
Now Claire is devoted to making a change and influencing the future of our planet by educating consumers, being actively involved in environmental think tanks and campaigning for a permanent change in the way we use and dispose of plastic. Writing as Zero Waste Maman, she has had several articles published locally and nationally and has featured both on BBC and ITV local television, including radio.
She devotes enormous time and effort into getting her message across by adopting a very down-to-earth and practical style with her Zero Waste Maman website, offering a wealth of commonsense advice and encouragement.
“I’ve not set this website up to preach about how I care for the environment; it’s a ‘go to’ for everyone who wants to do their bit but are confused about how to do it,” she says.
“I’ve been on the zero waste journey for a few years but plastic-free living for a lot longer. I am desperate to get across to parents how they can make the jump to living as waste-free as possible because it’s essential for our kids and the planet they will inherit. We need to cherish, nurture and respect our environment.”
Claire is particularly concerned about the problem of single-use plastic, with plastic detritus polluting the seas to a frightening extent. She points out that of the eight types of plastic which are manufactured, only four or five types can be recycled.
Campaigning against how the supermarkets control how we shop is at the heart of what she does, as it is supermarkets which lead how much single-use plastic is on sale and promptly thrown away as soon as the buyers get home. She firmly believes that change will come about by the power of consumer care, that by changing our shopping habits, we can change how supermarkets think and make us shop.
“I find that when I talk about this to some people, including friends, they ask ‘how do you live like that?’ They find it alien. I don’t profess to be a green-eco goddess who has nailed the zero-waste life journey; I’m a mother who cares passionately about the future of the planet my children live on. I want to show how a ‘normal’ person can not only cut down their waste and plastic consumption but also save money.
“More and more people are feeling like this nowadays, not yet in their millions but definitely in the hundreds of thousands. There has been a big upsurge in people wanting to do things differently. My website was quite slow at the beginning, but it has now gone up a notch, primarily women asking advice on how to start living a waste-free life.”
Claire has devoted a great deal of time to researching the best ways in which people can embark on such a lifestyle change.
“How people do it is different for every person, and it doesn’t happen overnight,” she explains. “But an excellent way to start is doing a waste audit, room by room, in your home. See what you put in that room and look at how much of it can be recycled, how much will go to landfill.
“Do it gradually, starting with the kitchen and bathroom which are the rooms where most plastic will be found. Identify the plastics which can’t be recycled and avoid buying them in future. Make a list of the items you want to change.
“It doesn’t have to be scary. Do it in bite-size chunks, one room at a time, and it is incredible what you can achieve. If consumers say enough is enough, that will affect what supermarkets put on their shelves.
“But while the petroleum industry refuses to acknowledge the problem of single-use plastics and continue to manufacture them, it is always going to be hard.”
Claire says that many councils are now making considerable efforts to recycle wherever possible, but she would like more outreach to be undertaken, going into schools and teaching students about the perils of plastic, the impact on the environment and the effects on climate change.
“Making the change to waste-free can be very rewarding – I get a little glow and give myself a high-five when I know that I have helped someone to achieve it,” she says.
Alongside her writing about waste-free initiatives, Claire also runs a campaign called Plastic Free Seaford, part of a national campaign run by the Surfers Against Sewage charity, and she is proud that there are now several plastic-free campaigns along the south coast that are working hard to educate and motivate communities to give up single-use plastic.