By Jenel Hunt
It’s nearly a week into the new month but it’s not too late to be a part of Plastic-Free July.
This global movement has a mission to help people be part of the solution that will result in cleaner streets, cleaner oceans and a healthier planet.
The main aim of Plastic-Free July is to encourage people to do on better – wherever they are on their personal environmental journey. For those just starting out, that means refusing single-use plastics.
We’re already used to taking our own bags to the supermarket so the next step shouldn’t be too daunting.
The top four most prolific single-use products in the world are plastic bags, water bottles, takeaway coffee cups and plastic straws. For each of these, there’s already a solution in place.
Queensland banned the use of a number of single-use items in September 2021, so there should be no need to worry about single-use straws, plastic stirrers and swizzle sticks, plastic plates or bowls, plastic cutlery, expanded polystyrene takeaway food containers and cups.
Taking your own water bottle from home is an easy fix for the use of single-use water bottles but may require the purchase of a filtration system, ranging from Brita jugs to a fully operational household model. Sadly, the Brita filters come wrapped in plastic and the jugs themselves are totally made of plastic, but you have to look past that to the bigger picture.
No doubt you’re already used to using those paper straws that go soggy before your drink is finished or stainless steel straws that you whip out of your bag any time you want to suck a fizzy drink through a straw.
Many people now carry their own travel mugs for takeaway coffee – and if you’re going to dine in, choose an establishment that uses that old-fashioned stuff Nan and Pop used to call crockery. That goes further than the plastic ban to eschew single-use paper products as well.
Bread bags and plastic bags for produce are a little harder, but not impossible.
Buy your loaves unsliced from the baker. An added bonus is honing your knife skills. Purchasing fruit and vegetables from farmers’ markets make it easier to sidestep the plastic bags because no one generally looks at you like you’re strange when you produce your own containers and bags.
Then there are the produce bags that you can buy from companies like Onya.
Cotton bags are easy to access these days, and each one will do carrying duty from shop to home for years.
Wrap your rubbish in newspaper (go ahead, we won’t mind). Cook more, use takeaway less.
Taking the sustainable journey a bit further than steering clear of plastic, you can buy – or build – a worm farm and put your fruit and vegetable scraps (not citrus or onions) to work making compost for your garden.
Plastic-free July is about helping us change our habits. Once that’s done, it transforms into a permanent commitment that becomes easier the longer you do it. Check out some of the stories of what individuals and businesses are accomplishing at plasticfreejuly.org.
For people who are really keen, Bea Johnson’s ‘Zero Waste Home’ will open your eyes to just how much can be done. That’s when you’ll start lobbying your council to take away your wheelie bins – and the annual charge they hit you with – only to find out that kind of reduction isn’t in their vocabulary.
But that’s another story.
