It is officially Plastic Free July! In addition to barbecues, fireworks, and baseball, NOW is a great time to evaluate where plastic has seeped into your life and how you personally can work to reduce plastic use.
What is Plastic Free July?
The Plastic Free July Campaign is a global initiative to highlight the detrimental effects of plastic waste to our environment. This campaign was started in 2011 by the Plastic Free Foundation and has helped escalate efforts among both businesses and individuals to help deal with this troublesome material. In 2020, 326million people participated in Plastic Free July. Let’s help make this year even more successful!
Why is Plastic a Problem?
Plastic is NOT all bad, but this tricky material is very hard to recycle. We started using plastic widely around 1950. Since that time about 8.3 billion metric tons have been produced. And get this, less than 10% of plastic ever produced has been recycled!
If so much plastic has been produced and very little is recycled, where is all this plastic going? Obviously some plastic is reused, like buckets, electronic devices, and toys. However the majority of plastic is single or minimal use and winds up in the landfill, the ocean, beaches, roadsides, the air, and even our drinking water. Plastic in the environment will stay there for hundreds if not thousands of years, breaking down into microplastics that are harmful to other wildlife. Alternatively, some plastic is incinerated, releasing toxic chemicals into the air or environment.
That sounds like a problem to me!
Read More About the Plastic Problem
What Can Individuals Do About the Problem?
If all this information is concerning to you, don’t worry! Luckily there are many things that each of us can do to help the plastic problem. Here are some ideas:
→ Focus on reducing single use plastics. These are the things that you use once and throw away, like straws, coffee cups (plastic lined cardboard), water bottles, and food packaging
→ Refuse plastic items like swag bags at events, stickers, plastic bags, and party favors
→ Eat more home cooked meals
→ Buy secondhand at garage sales, consignment stores, or online marketplace sites
→ Join a plastic clean up effort at a beach or other sensitive area
→ Spread the word! The best thing you can do this July is share your concerns with others. Grassroots is truly how change happens
Join Plastic Free July
Join me in celebrating Plastic Free July. This month I plan to double down on my efforts to reduce plastic use. You can spend 1 day, 1 week, or even the whole month of July to focus on the problem. I know that we can all work together to be a part of the solution.
If you are ambitious, or need specific ideas to get you going, check out my 90 Day Plastic Reduction Challenge. I know change isn’t easy. That is why I have worked to break everything down into easy to do steps. You can also come back over and over to my daily challenges to work on different areas at a time if you aren’t ready to tackle everything over the 90 days. Let’s get to work!
