Plastic waste isn’t just the obvious

Tweet

Plastic waste is frequently in the news these days, but when we think of plastic waste we most often think of the obvious things such as food packaging and shopping bags. There is a lot of that of course and some is not necessary but some of it is genuinely useful and helps to cut down on food waste for example. But there is so much more plastic around that we don’t often think of. Today I sat on a chair in the kitchen and found that the cushion seemed to be lumpy. It’s a wooden chair and I had got a flat pad for it a few years ago in case people found the bare wood too cold or hard. But today when I picked up the cushion it seemed very thin and just had a lump in one corner, and when I turned it around the contents just fell to the bottom. So I cut open the stitching and found that the foam pad that was originally inside had just disintegrated into a horrid sticky powder! (How can it be both a powder and sticky, you may wonder? Well once you have experienced this stuff you will know, it’s really horrible). We are continually being told that plastic stays around forever, and that may be the case, but it isn’t true that it lasts forever in its original form! This kind of foam, which I think is polyurethane although I’m not sure, certainly doesn’t. I’ve had the same issue with a variety of things, from the lining of a cap (eugh that was horrible in my hair!!) to the padding inside a musical instrument case. When you buy these things you have no idea you will have to deal with the nasty consequences in a few years. And those tiny foam particles must get everywhere – I was afraid I might be breathing them in as I shook the contents of the cushion cover into the bin. We need a better alternative. What did we use before plastics came along? Is it back to straw and horsehair? All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2026.