I have always considered myself one of the good ones. In the quiet, ongoing battle against environmental degradation, I believed I was holding the line with a degree of distinction.
My home is a testament to this commitment; several years ago, I invested a significant sum in fitting solar panels to the roof, watching with a sense of quiet righteousness as the meter showed a significant contribution to the grid and that I had become a net exporter of electric power.
I have also spent months campaigning to scrap what is widely considered the most common item of plastic rubbish in the world: the non-biodegradable cigarette filter: engaging with MPs and peers to highlight the toxic legacy of these tiny, ubiquitous pollutants with 4.5 trillion of being littered every year.
My car is efficient, I have been involved in developing a hydrogen-enriched fuel for the marine sector that slashes diesel usage and pollution by up to a third, and my reusable coffee cup is a permanent fixture in my bag.
I am, therefore by almost any standard definition, a self-proclaimed smug greenie. Happy in the knowledge that I am trying to do my bit for our planet.
Yet, a single week of participation in The Big Plastic Count has utterly shattered that illusion, replacing my sense of environmental superiority with a profound and lingering sense of shame.
The Big Plastic Count is a national citizen science project that asks a simple question: how much plastic do we actually throw away in a week? For seven days, you record every piece of plastic packaging that enters your bin.
I began with misplaced confidence. I assumed my tally would be tiny. I shop with intent, carry a reusable bag and like to think I know better. I was wrong. What emerged over the week was not a minor lapse, but a mountain of waste generated by the ordinary routines of modern life. Despite the solar panels and the what I thought were smart choices, I was still buried in plastic.
It started innocently enough. A plastic seal on a milk carton, the film around a block of cheese, the little window in a bread bag. By Tuesday, the kitchen counter was telling a less flattering story.
The biggest shock came from internet shopping waste. Like plenty of people trying to juggle work and home life, I rely on deliveries far more than I care to admit. But when you start counting properly, online shopping looks less like convenience and more like a conveyor belt of plastic.
One small item for a home repair arrived in a rigid plastic shell, inside a padded plastic envelope, sealed with plastic tape. Even products sold as “eco-friendly” often turned up wrapped in more protective film than seemed remotely necessary.
The shame was not only in the quantity, but in the kind of waste piling up in front of me. I have spent months campaigning against cigarette filters, one of the most common plastic pollutants in the world, writing to MPs and Peers to take the issue seriously. Yet there I was, staring at stacks of fruit punnets, snack wrappers and soft plastics that could barely be recycled, if at all.
It was a sharp reminder that there is a gulf between believing in greener living and managing to practise it in a consumer economy built around disposability.
By the middle of the week I had started to look at every purchase with suspicion. Why are three peppers sealed in plastic? Why is each biscuit in a multipack given its own tray? The count forces you to confront something most of us try not to think about. We throw things away, close the bin lid and let the waste disappear from sight. But of course it does not disappear. That was the point that hit hardest. There is no magical “away”, only a growing accumulation of material that lingers in landfill, incinerators, rivers and oceans long after the moment of convenience has passed.
What changed for me over those seven days was not just my understanding of my own habits, but my view of where responsibility really sits. Individual effort matters, up to a point. I can carry reusable cups, avoid some packaging and feel pleased about the electricity generated by my solar panels. But I cannot shop my way out of a system that wraps almost everything in cheap plastic by default. The vast majority of what I counted was hard to recycle in my area, impossible to avoid or attached to products in ways that made refusal unrealistic.
The internet shopping waste was still the most sobering part of it all. Every click seemed to trigger another chain reaction of plastic mailers, air pillows and protective wrap. Tracking it item by item for a week turned an abstract concern into something visible, ugly and impossible to ignore.
It also made me realise that my green credentials were far more compartmentalised than I had cared to admit. Solar panels help reduce my carbon footprint, yes, but they do nothing to stop the flow of plastic into my house and then straight back out again in bulging bin bags. You can make progress in one area and still fail badly, even catastrophically in another.
By the end of the week, when I should have submitted my data, the number was far higher than I had expected. I felt embarrassed, but also oddly clearer about what needs to change. Personal responsibility is real, but it is not enough.
If even people trying to do the right thing are producing this much waste, the problem is bigger than consumer choice. It is about how products are designed, how supermarkets package food and how retailers dispatch goods. The campaign I led against cigarette filters still matters, but this week showed me the argument has to be much broader. The punnets, films and delivery mailers deserve just as much scrutiny.
I would urge anyone who feels vaguely virtuous about recycling to try counting their plastic for a week. The result may be as chastening as mine was. I went in thinking I was one of the good ones. I came out understanding just how easy it is to confuse good intentions with meaningful change.
My week of shame may be over, but the case for harder political action on plastic has rarely felt more obvious.
To read the results of the Big Plastic Count 2026, please visit: https://thebigplasticcount.com
