The end of Plastic Free July = The END of Single-use Plastic Habit

It is August already and before you know it, it would be Christmas soon, cray cray. Well, if you have been on social media lately, you may have come across posts about Plastic Free July and hopefully you have been implementing it one way or another in your life. July has been a month full of creating good habit to reduce our single-use plastic consumption and it is a habit that we seriously need to have moving forward.

There have been a lot of distressing posts about how plastics have seriously damaged our environment, wildlife, and tons of researches showing how plastics have negative impacts on our health as well. It is really sad to see how marine animals got trapped by plastics and how they consumed plastics because they mistakenly thought plastic bags as their food. 

People may also not realise or choose to be ignorant about plastic pollution. Mostly because plastic is everywhere and has become such an integral part of our daily life and most of us never see how bad the impact it has to our environment. 

I came from a country where plastics, all kinds of rubbish, and air pollution are part of our daily lives so I am not that new to this. However, I never stopped to analysed and be bothered to question it, not until these recent months where I finally “see” the devastation it caused to our wildlife especially. This is probably the same for most of us, we know we have this issue but never taken any action until we realise it down the track. But now time is critical for us to make positive changes, for us and for our next generation.

The scary thing about plastics are their longevity. They can live in this planet for hundreds years. See below table for their lifespan.

Most plastics do not decompose, overtime they just break down into smaller particles called micro plastics which get absorbed into the soil, flushed into the ocean, and eventually into our body. In fact, a study carried out by University of Newcastle that was commissioned by WWF, people may have consumed an average of 2000 tiny pieces of plastics every week. It is an equivalent of a credit card, how crazy is that.

(Source: https://www.wwf.org.au/news/news/2019/revealed-plastic-ingestion-by-people-could-be-equating-to-a-credit-card-a-week#gs.buvq1j )

I hope Plastic Free July has raised much awareness in the global community and kick started positive habits in our daily habits. I have done lots of swaps in my own household like:

1. Using my own shopping tote bag and muslin bags for grocery shopping. I always have them ready in my everyday bag.

2. Use stainless steel straws instead of plastic ones. I carry this as well.

3. Make DIYs for all my cleaning products and reuse my glass containers for them.

4. Use silicone and beeswax food wraps and ditch the cling wraps.

So what swaps have you done in your daily life, comment below and share the positive acts. I would love to hear what your plastic free swaps.