Blog / Beverages

Plastic Free July

The plastic that we throw away pollutes landfills, seas, lakes and rivers, and it often ends up in the stomach of land and sea animals. Plastic is not biodegradable and unless it is incinerated, every single piece of plastic ever created is still around today. As Australians send 1 million tonnes of plastic to landfill sites every year, this “convenient” material is damaging out environment.

This brings us to the “Plastic Free July” challenge. The idea is to stop using single-use plastic during the month of July. This means not using plastic bags, plastic cups, straws, plastic packaging and any kind of plastic that is used once and thrown away. This is a challenge so it is not meant to be easy but is meant to make you aware and open your eyes to how much plastic we use. If you fail on one day just try again the following day. You can still use plastic items that are not single use, for example your computer, phone, car and others.

Some ideas to make this challenge work for you include using newspaper to line the rubbish bin instead of using plastic bin liners. You can take your own reusable shopping bags to the grocery store, buy loose produce instead of packaged, only purchase bakery items in paper bags and avoid tinned foods as the tins are lined with plastic. Take your own containers when buy meat or fish, or ask the butcher to wrap meat in paper instead of plastic.

Save glass bottles and jars to store food items in the fridge or freezer and buy wine with corks in the bottle. Make sure you buy a stainless steel water bottle and take your own water with you when you go out instead of buying water in plastic bottles. Carry your own reusable containers, cup and utensils with you so that you can avoid disposable plastic utensils at restaurants. Buy bars of soap instead of liquid soap in plastic pump bottles.
There are many ethical companies who have come up with clever inventions to reduce plastic waste. Buy some reusable sandwich bags, food covers and wraps that are made from biodegradable materials. These can make your life a lot easier, especially when it comes to packing your child’s school lunch, saving leftovers and freezing meat and groceries.

Do your bit for the environment and give the Plastic Free July challenge a try this month!
 

Sources
http://www.plasticfreejuly.org/
https://www.facebook.com/PlasticFreeJuly