Quitting Plastic
Clara Williams Roldan & Louise Williams
Quitting Plastic is a quick guide to quitting plastic! Plastic has insidiously invaded modern society due to its convenience and perceived cleanliness. But the throwaway nature of plastic is killing the environment and isn’t sustainable. This is a great book to introduce people to the concept of reducing plastic waste.
First off, there are lots of interesting (and horrifying) facts about the true amount of plastic in the world. Then there are practical and accessible ways to approach quitting plastic. Something I found particularly good was that each tip comes with easy, medium, hard, and ‘it’s personal’ symbols. Just a few little steps can make a huge difference. As per the starfish parable – it makes a difference to that one (original story, story in common use). If one less plastic straw makes it into the body of a turtle, that’s a big deal to that turtle!
For a person like me who has already done a lot (I hope) to reduce my plastic impact (and I honestly feel sick when I see the amount of plastic trash around) this might serve as a guilty reminder that we could be doing more. For example, I should be washing the foil seals of dip containers and putting them in a can to be recycled.
At the time of me publishing this review many councils in Victoria have decided to stop taking recycling – so in fact it’s all going to the tip. So now is a good time to think about the Zero Waste initiative and the five Rs – refuse, reduce, reuse (+repair), recycle and rot. I actually rot quite a lot of paper waste because I have !6! compost bins, but I still have a very full recycle bin.
My co-blogger Kyria has already requested that she be next in line to read and review this book. Her journey to reduce plastic is beginning – and I know she and her family will get lots of helpful tips. Just realising how easy it is to do some of the options is the first step. Pick this book up for yourself, read it, take notes and pass it on to someone else who you know is ready to reduce plastic.
Allen & Unwin | 4th February 2019 | AU$19.99 | paperback
I hoped that this book would discuss how to exploit people as media. Instead it reads as a list of facts with no actual argument. My wife got half way through this book before she gave up and needed to rant to me about it. She did read the second half (no other books on offer at the time) which had more details and practicality in terms of what will happen next eg. ‘getting lots of likes’ is the way that things are heading.
What I thought I was going to get out of this book was a series of interesting, respectful stories about funerals Wilde had directed. Instead I encountered a memoir that aimed to dispel a negative ‘death narrative’ and restore a knowledge of death as inevitable, but not bad. While there are some stories, this book is more about how Wilde has changed his attitude towards God and religion since being a child afraid of hell through to being an adult who sometimes suffers from compassion fatigue.
Meg Jay has really delved into this topic with insight and sensitivity. Some of the chapters really resonated with me, even as I struggled with the concept of the horrible human circumstances that some people grow up with (eg. sexual/physical/mental abuse, neglect or alcoholism). The statistics on how many brilliant people come from adversity were really eye opening.
I put off reviewing this book because I wanted to cook some things out of it to really get a feel for its usefulness. In the end though, I didn’t cook anything out of it because I just didn’t have the motivation to go search out the ingredients, and I also don’t eat many of the items in it (like slices or some veggie dishes).
I started reading this book, and then put it down in favour of something else. When I picked it up again, I had to start from Chapter 1 because I honestly didn’t remember what came before that. That first chapter is one of the most interesting ones – what I would think of as true ‘shapeshifters’ such as the biology behind the myth of werewolves. After this there are discussions of pregnancy, menopause, tattoos and other body changes. Which are interesting, but just not what I expected.
I should have really enjoyed this book, but I sadly didn’t. What I mainly felt was a sense of envy that the case studies within the book had contact with such a fantastic, holistic MD. I am very grateful for the medical facilities in Australia, and I understand the importance of funneling resources, but the system sometimes makes it difficult to reach the professional you need.
I very happily read this book and described it in great detail to my almost-wife. She found it a bit creepy thinking about the fact that some people who are vegetative are actually in there, and can’t communicate! The technology is getting better, and maybe eventually we will be able to identify people who are still present in their helpless bodies.
If only Julio had been taught about money management from young age, and then perhaps he would have gotten as rich as he desired. I’m not familiar with the currency conversion, and of course the price of living is cheaper in Brazil, but I feel like he still could have done more. When he stated that he had left school at the age of 14, I understood that education was part of the problem. It is a systematic problem that led to Julio being able to lead a profitable life as a killer.
Despite the somewhat gory descriptions of Rhino poaching, this book is definitely suitable for younger readers interested in animals. I’m going to try it for a 9.5 year old girl who is passionate about reading and David Attenborough films. It’s a great primer about both the glory and the boredom of being a vet in practice.