No Blame. Just Better Choices: Rethinking Plastic Together

Let’s start with the truth, not the delusion. We’re all guilty of using plastic, every one of us. At some point, and in many cases still today, we’ve relied on it because it was cheap, convenient, durable, and everywhere. Pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone.

Blaming industry or retailers isn’t the answer either because it’s consumers who create the demand, industry simply responds. Understanding this is what’s going to turn the tide. Plastic didn’t arrive as our enemy, it arrived as a solution and for a time, it solved a lot of problems. But there was also a time in human history when plastic didn’t exist at all, and somehow we still built, traded, stored, travelled, and lived full lives. Remembering that matters, because it reminds us that alternatives are possible.

Truly aware people have already realised the uncomfortable truth, and that is that plastic has become a problem, and our addiction to it is no longer sustainable. My frustration and at times a deep sense of hopelessness rises when I walk past retail shelves stacked with plastic trinkets and pre-trash. Items with no real purpose, designed for a brief moment of novelty, destined for landfill within a few years, often much sooner. We all know it. We’ve just become numb to it.

The hard truth is this: so many things currently made from plastic could be made from natural materials. They once were. As I’ve sourced materials for Koga EarthGear, I’ve seen firsthand how little most manufacturers care about natural fibres over synthetics. Plastic is easier. Cheaper. Faster. And that mindset is part of the problem. Even sourcing recycled materials is not easy, it all seems too hard for manufacturers and a lot of consumers don’t care.

What we need now is a conscious effort at an individual level. Real change won’t come from waiting on governments, and it shouldn’t have to. This is our problem, all of us. The choices we make today will still be echoing through the lives of our great-great-grandchildren. The plastic era doesn’t end because a government makes a law or inflicts a tax, it ends when people decide to live differently.

A core part of the focus behind Koga EarthGear is reducing plastic wherever possible. I’ll be honest, in the world as it currently stands, zero plastic isn’t always practical or achievable. But where obstacles exist, we commit to innovation, collaboration, and realistic solutions that move us away from plastic dependence rather than excusing it.

Here are some measures that I have taken at Koga EarthGear:

When we place orders with manufacturers we ask for their environmental mission statement, if they don’t have one I ask why not? If they aren’t prepared to provide one we don’t do business.

I also insist on no plastic packaging for finished goods - this has really spun some suppliers out as no one is asking for goods to be delivered without plastic.

We insist on natural materials, as a second option we ask for recycled materials.

All our packaging is biodegradable - even our packaging tape. This is very easy to achieve now and consumers should insist on this as a standard.

Our innovation team is constantly experimenting with natural fibres and materials. Materials like bamboo and hemp are incredibly abundant and rapidly renewable.

If you have ideas or insights around this subject I’d love to hear from you.

Plastic isn’t the enemy. Ignorance and complacency are.

Let’s stop sitting on our hands and start making better choices.

Let’s be the change our planet is asking for.

Thanks for your interest in this article.

Koga