01.07.2019
This July I decided to take on the Plastic Free July challenge. Given that one of my New Years’ resolutions was to reduce my plastic use I decided that the plastic challenge would help me follow through with that.
Already fairly plastic free, I wanted to take this challenge more as an opportunity to share with others what I am doing so that hopefully more people will consider how much plastic they are responsible for. I’d also like to learn from and connect with others.
I will be taking all possible action (nothing illegal or unsafe) to avoid buying to bringing more single-use plastic into my possession. This means I am not running around trying to throw away all plastic in my house because that would be more wasteful than using it until it comes to the end of its lifetime.
Plastics can have very important uses, especially in the medical industry, and have provided us with many advances in modern society. Plastics are incredibly versatile which has made them so widespread. They can be found in electronics like TVs and phones, as well as used in protective equipment like airbags and helmets. It is more the fact that we use too much, in general, and much of the plastic we do use cannot be effectively recycled. It’s important to also consider what types of plastic we are avoiding, and what happens to the plastic we do end up producing.
Pollution in general is a serious environmental issue and ditching plastic for a month won’t fix everything, but hopefully I will learn about some more niche solutions to plastic swaps for those items I just haven’t managed yet.
Over the course of the month I will share with you some of the swaps I’ve already made, the challenges I face, and successes I have.
I signed up for the plastic free July challenge with both the Marine Conservation Society in the UK and the official Plastic Free July organisation. You can find them here: https://www.plasticfreejuly.org/, and here: https://www.mcsuk.org/campaigns/plastic-challenge-home
I challenge all of you to reduce your plastic consumption and let me know how you do‼