Plastic bottles, bags and takeaway containers that we use just for a few minutes use a material that is designed to last forever. They break up rather than break down (becoming permanent pollution), and they are either unrecyclable or down-cycled (made into low-grade products for just one more use). When sent to the landfill they can escape from bins and trucks to end up in our waterways and the ocean.
Alarmingly scientists predict that there will be more tonnes of plastic in the ocean than tonnes of fish by 2050! Imagine the impact on our food chain! Every bit of plastic ever made still exists and in the first 10 years of this century, the world economy produced more plastic than in the entire 1900's!!
We've taken this challenge every year for the past few years and it's made a big difference to our waste. We took baby steps at the start, which seemed hard at the time but now we (Sweetree and our household combined) only put out 1 paper rubbish bag about once every 6 weeks or so.
We store food in glass jars and containers, use old biscuits tins for baking, stainless steel drink bottles, reusable coffee cups, use reusable bags when shopping, take our own containers to the butcher, we've ditched liners in our rubbish bins and use paper rubbish sacks, use Honeywraps instead of plastic food wrap, use stainless steel straws, shampoo, face and body bars, etc. We have a kit in the car with containers, cutlery, fabric serviettes, etc for when have takeaways (which is very infrequent). We love some plastic-free products so much we now sell them for you to also enjoy, check them out on our online store!
All our honey is stored in glass jars, we don't use plastic frames in our beehives, our propolis is in glass bottles, we offer bee pollen in glass jars, we've always used paper bags instead of plastic at the markets, we're avoiding plastic in our production and product deliveries. Any soft plastic (eg from pallets of jars, etc) get recycled into outdoor furniture. But we can always do better!
Why not join thousands taking the challenge to refuse single-use plastic? Any time is better than none - a day or a week, the whole month or longer! If you want to you can sign up to get recipes, ideas & everything you need to take part. We will be posting more blogs with ideas of how you can reduce plastic throughout the month also.
Look out for my weekly blog this month on how to reduce plastic use this 'Plastic Free July'. Like us on Facebook to keep up to date!