Plastic Free July

What is plastic free July? It's an awareness month to reduce the amount of plastic in our lives. We are producing more plastic than we can recycle, and since we are no longer able to send it off to other countries to deal with (aka China), we have to look at ways of reducing the amount we use, and coming up with alternatives before even more plastic ends up in our oceans! 

I am no real advocate for set month/challenges because I believe you can simply make up your mind on any month, day or hour, and action positive change immediately. If you are reading this and it's day 5 of "Plastic Free July", instead of being like "oh, it's too late, maybe next year", just start now.
In saying that, I understand how it can make it easier to start when there is a movement and awareness around reducing plastics. Say for example you rock up to your local takeaways with your own container, you are less likely to get funny looks since they'll know it's "plastic free july", and they have probably had an influx of people doing the same already.  The awareness these campaigns bring can make for some great changes if you can find improvements and ideas you can roll out into the rest of the year and lifestyle.

You don't need to go 100% zero waste to make a difference (though that is awesome if you can), small changes in your day to day can still make an impact. We personally are not perfect, and are what I'd call a "work in progress" and have reduced our waste considerably, but still slip up occasionally and have not reached zero waste status. 

SIMPLE CHANGE IDEAS:

• If you usually use plastic bags at the super market try bringing your own reusables. 
• For vegetables, you can reuse drawstring bags, or at a pinch (if you forgot them) use a paper bag. 
• Say no to plastic straws when drinking out, or bring your own steel straw
• Bring your own keep cup to cafes for drinks. 
• Bring your own containers for takeaways 
• Look at what you are purchasing in stores, and see if you can purchase food in more sustainable packaging, or make your own from scratch. 
• Reuse Glass Jars or odd containers, and bring them to farmers markets or your local bulk food store! 
• Say no to single use plastics such as plastic cutlery etc.
  
• Swapsies, swap your talents/skills for locally grown food. See below to see what we did for a swap week. 

OUR SWAP WEEK:

A few months ago for fun, we decided to create our own challenge and trade our skills for locally grown food for a whole week! The idea was to save waste from packaging plastics, and saving food from others gardens that may have gone to waste, and to save money on food. If we had been growing our own veggies we could have swapped our excess for other food we could use, however our garden wasn't flourishing yet, so we settled with swapping some woodwork instead! We posted in a local community FB group and garden group asking for people to trade with, and below are the trades we made:

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We swapped a succulent planter for lettuce, and a coriander plant. 

An upcycled pallet planter I made for some fresh silverbeet, and cherry tomatoes! 

Wooden coasters for a large bowl full of delicious plums and lemons!

This last haul/trade was from a zero waste family who have a massive garden and chooks. They swapped us all this for some cedar stakes for their tomatoes. They also have a blog called Practically Green where they share some of their eco living tips. Check out their FB page here. 

I hope this has inspired you to make some simple changes, let me know what changes you will be making this July, and share any tips with us! 

- Kasia  xx