Abundance, a word that I have always viewed as being positive. Especially when I look to nature and witness the abundance of life that surrounds us. No matter where you are in the world, you are surrounded by life. We are made up of an abundance of life giving cells and nature provides us with an abundance of plants in which to aid us in our quest to live a life of balance. Natures way is to provide all life with an abundance of what it needs.

But then @eco-alex posed this question, asking us to look at our abundance woes. So here I find myself being forced to see the dark side of abundance. Which of course exists, it's just I would never chose to associate that word with it. Abundance to me sounds joyful and something that you would want to embrace, not frown upon and wish to discard. But really any abundance that comes into our lives, we should deal with it,be it the good or the bad.

So what are my abundance woes. Well the one thorn in my side, as the saying goes has to be plastic. It is everywhere, some of the food I buy is wrapped in it, some of the clothes I wear have plastic in it. My children always end up with plastic toys, it is an constant battle trying to keep them away from them. Because of the wonderful exchange boat next to where I live, my girls bring back things from there, that are inevitably made of plastic. In one way at least those things have been re homed and not put in the ground, but I still to not wish to promote plastic, especially to my children.

I remember being in Morocco a few years back, and at the time the local people seemed to have a bit of an obsession with plastic bags. Anytime I went to a souk, they would try and give me bags to put my food in even though I had my own cloth bag. One guy actually took my cloth bag from me and put it into a plastic bag, whilst looking very pleased with himself. They really seemed to love how convenient the bags were, but then everywhere I went I saw plastic bags that had been dumped, all along the roads, on the beaches and at times I even saw some goats eating them.

So what do I do, with this abundance of plastic. I have been trying to cut down on the amount of plastic that I bring into my home, but it is just inevitable. Of course I will continue to cut down , I would love to see myself not using plastic in the future. But the plastic I do have now, well I needed to find a solution. So over the last few months I have been making plastic eco bricks.

Me filling my 4th bottle, using the mental rod to ensure that all the waste inside is properly compressed.

The community I live in, has come up with the idea to make a children's space out of ecobricks, something that the local children will be involved in building too, once enough bricks have been made. Every bit of non-recyclable plastic and non-biodegradable waste that I have purchased or received has been put into these bottles. I have had some friends bring me their plastic and waste as well. I have 3 x 6 litre bottles filled with everything from plastic wrapping, foil, caps that I have cut up, packaging etc. If anything is too big I just cut it up and put it in. It has to be packed quite hard, so i use a metal rod to really compress everything in there. There can be no gaps and it also has to be a pretty solid weight. You really have to make sure it is unsquishable.

This has been a wonderful way to educate my girls about plastic, about the dangers of it and also about the ways in which we can try and deal with it. Of course the best solution is to not buy it, to not use it. But it does exist in our world, we have it in abundance and this has been my way of trying to deal with it. Because we can no longer turn a blind eye, we can not rely on others to sort our shit out. We need to take responsibility for the way in which we live our lives.

Drop off space for the bottles, at the local community market

What would have happened to all that plastic, all that non biodegradable waste if I didn't choose to make eocbricks. It would have ended up in landfill. It can take up to 1000 years for plastic to decompose and all the while toxins are leaking out into the earth, out into the water.

By making ecobricks, I have found a way to protect the environment temporarily until I cut out the use of plastic completely. I have taken responsibility for some of my abundance of waste.

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