As the fruits of
autumn inspire us to start baking in earnest, we tune in with relish to watch
seasonal programmes on our plastic television sets. In Great British Bake Off,
one contestant was shamed because they left a sheet of acetate (very useful
baking material) to hold together their rapidly melting cake as it was being
judged. This got me thinking:
Is plastic the
culprit here or the person?
This multi-use, acetate
sheet was so effective in its properties to hold food together hygienically and
without sticking, that maybe the contestant couldn’t help but use it, even
though the judging outcome was risky. No
doubt she would be using this invaluable plastic sheeting again, much like many
other multi-use plastic baking aids – a bit like the ones currently being
showcased in a MoDiP exhibition dedicated to the Tupperware story:
 |
 |
| A nifty floursifter to add a lighter than air dusting of flour |
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| A handy cruet seton a stand to stylishly season a savoury bake |
Where we aren’t
quite so clever is where we have been quick to demand low cost, convenient, single-use plastic ‘consumables’ that we
have gladly gobbled up and chucked out in the kitchen bin. Of course, no one would choose to drown the
ocean in plastic – right? – but we are contributing to the problem every time
we throw away a single-use item of plastic. We are in effect the culprits.
We need to think
ethically about the plastic problem. People in plastic houses maybe shouldn’t
throw plastic pellets around but instead think long and hard about the
consequences of their actions.
Using plastic
instead of animals, trees or rare minerals does have its ethical place in the
world, but our insatiable demand for everything now, everything cheap and
everything easy, makes ‘plastic the solution’ become ‘plastic the problem’.
We do need plastic
in our lives - quite a bit of it - not just to help us cook, but to aid
healing, build sustainably and replace animal derived products…however this
means that as well as appreciating the creative potential of plastic, we need
to understand the parody of plastic, and make sure it doesn’t turn everything
we touch…well, to plastic.
The Midas Touch
effect is starting to jump up out of the sea to bite us – the King didn’t want
to eat a golden apple any more than we want to eat plastic fish. And what of
the poor fish? They’ll have plastic worms for their catch of the day – neither
will make the ‘specials’ board.
Better stick to
Bake Off cake in that case, but then again, you can’t always have your cake and
eat it.
Julia Pulman
(Engagement Officer)
