Plastic Free July - Getting started

Plastic Free July is a global campaign to encourage individuals and businesses to examine and reduce their single use plastic consumption. Plastic has been a hot topic in recent years, our general awareness of the impacts of marine pollution, litter covered beaches and the health impacts of plastics leaching chemicals into our food and drinks has grown steadily.

Many of us want to make a change by reducing our dependence on plastics, but the concept of going plastic free can be incredibly daunting and seemingly impossible.

The Plastic Free July campaign works on a pledge system, whereby you can choose to challenge your self to anything from a single plastic free day, to committing to plastic free for life. Once you have made your pledge, you will receive regular emails with support, ideas and facts to motivate you on your journey, for example this ‘Action Picker’ below sets out some key ways that you can avoid plastics by making a different choice. You could simply choose one of two of these actions to focus on for the month.

I am already quite a way into my journey towards living plastic free, so I wanted to share the first three steps I made to get going:

Invest in reusable bags

get yourself a load of cotton or jute bags and place them strategically so that you are never without a reusable bag. I keep some in my kitchen, some nearby my front door, a few in the car and one in my handbag. That way you will never be in the position to need to use a plastic carrier bag.

A reusable bottle

I love being outdoors for long walks, runs and exploring new places so I always ensure that I have a bottle of water on me to make sure I can keep hydrated without having to buy plastic bottles of water. Filling my metal Kleen Kanteen bottle with tap water before I leave the house is an essential part of my daily routine now, once you start this is such an easy habit to stick to. This one is a cost saver in the long run too, because bottled drinks can be really expensive compared to the cost of your tap water!

Straws

Straws are an essential item for some people, however there are now all sorts of plastic free versions, from metal to bamboo. I dont have a need to use straws so this was one of the first items that I tried to eliminate. It took me a while to feel really confident about ordering a drink in bar and saying "no straw please" but this has now become a natural part of a night out for me! If you, like me, are a fan of drinking spirits or cocktails on a night out then you will know that bartenders often put a straw, or multiple straws in each drink, so over the course of an evening you could be using several pieces of single use plastic without really noticing. As pubs and bars begin to wake up from lock down, its a perfect time to take this action and make it a habit!

There are tonnes and tonnes of ways that we can all reduce our plastic use in very simple ways. For each day of July I will be sharing a plastic free tip on my instagram to motivate and inspire you to make positive steps towards becoming plastic free. So are you up for getting involved?

You can find out more about Plastic Free July and how to make your pledge here.

If you would like to follow my ‘ 31 ways to go plastic free’ tips then you can find links to my Facebook and Instagram at the bottom of the page.

As ever if you have any questions or want to chat about anything in this blog just get in touch!

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