Jibbitz

I was struck recently by the statement that nearly every toothbrush ever made still exists as a piece of rubbish somewhere on the planet. Plastic doesn’t degrade … it is estimated around 3.5 billion people on the planet use toothbrushes … National Geographic estimated 23 billion plastic toothbrushes thrown away each year … 460 million kilograms of toothbrushes (or 730 thrown away per second). I should swap to an electric toothbrush except I travel a lot including camping and electric toothbrushes don’t work for bikepacking. Or I should buy bamboo toothbrushes. Except Chris does the shopping. I need to train Chris ... dilemma to be solved in due course … preferably near course ...

Of useless pieces of plastic, jibbitz are even worse than toothbrushes (in my opinion at least). Know what a jibbitz is? When I asked some test people this question they thought of gibbets (on which people are hung) and giblets (the bits you pull out of birds before cooking them because you don’t like eating those bits). Jibbitz are neither of these – they are pieces of plastic you put in the holes in your Crocs to decorate them.

The recommended number of jibbitz per Croc is four to five (someone is shortly going to figure out that a higher number should be recommended because then more jibbitz can be sold). I have no idea how many jibbitz are thrown away each year because the web provides no information as to jibbitz sold or discarded on an annual basis. Sheri Schmelzer invented jibbitz – she is listed here as one of the ‘Amazing Mom Inventors’. Gee, thanks for your amazing contribution to the planet, Sheri.

We love Crocs because of their practicality in the country (noting that we like real Crocs as opposed to fake ones because when the stones outside our house are wet fake Crocs slip on them while real Crocs don't slip). We don’t wear shoes inside to minimise cleaning (I don’t love cleaning) but constantly go between outside and inside to get vegetables, pick raspberries, turn watering on and off … bare feet to Crocs to bare feet to Crocs …

Crocs last a reasonable length of time but not indefinitely (although we had a visitor recently who had riveted pieces of plastic to the base of his crocs to give them a longer life … we were most impressed). Chris’s favourite yellow crocs only lasted two years although Chris probably gives his gear a harder time than most people do (based on how frequently he has to replace or fix items). However, the really sad thing is that Crocs are as unbiodegradable as jibbitz or toothbrushes.

The web has lots of helpful suggestions about what you can do with old Crocs, such as:

- Plant holders – we don’t have indoor plants.

- Pencil holders – we have drawers.

- Painted as decorations used strategically to enhance your house – I don’t think so.

Our answer is to burn the Crocs which sends their component fossil fuels into the atmosphere to create climate warming rather than the plastic living for eternity on the skin of the planet. Not a good answer … I have created myself a whole new dilemma. I can be superior because I don’t have jibbitz in my Crocs but I can’t be superior at all because I have Crocs. Really, I have no answers.

Despite my lack of answers, here's wishing you a very Happy New Year!