My 31 Days Without Plastic

Thanks to EcoChampion on Flickr for this great image.

We’re hearing more and about plastic in the news, how it’s clogging up our oceans, killing off our marine life and ramping up our collective carbon foot print. It’s undoubtedly a huge problem, but one that is largely hidden despite coverage in the media. Hidden, because the manifestations of this problem are largely out of sight, in the atmosphere, in the middle of the ocean, in landfill sites. But its also a problem which is hiding in plain sight, because plastic is just so ubiquitous. Most of the time I don’t actually notice it; it’s everywhere, so you don’t see it.

We use 5 million tonnes of the stuff each year, and recycle around 19% of that, the remaining going to landfill. I do my part, and put my old plastic bottles in my recycling box every fortnight. But many items, such as packaging, cannot be recycled. So they go in the bin, and ultimately into a big hole in the ground. In other countries, with less stringent waste laws, it goes into the sea, gradually breaking down into smaller and smaller fragments, slowly poisoning our seas.

Is it possible to go plastic-free? I’ve decided to try it, for a month at first, to see how much effort I have to make to quit, and what impact it has on me and my life.

These are the rules I have set myself:

• Food - no plastic packaging unless it is recycled
• Drink - no plastic bottles or cups unless they are recycled
• Goods and home wares - no new plastic, recycled or second hand is OK
• Clothes and shoes - again, nothing new but recycled or used is fine

So, August will be my plastic-less month. I’ll be keeping track of how easy or difficult it is to live without plastic, and what changes I have to make to my lifestyle to cope without the stuff. Wish me luck!

Do you have any tips to help me leave plastic behind? Are the rules I’ve set myself too easy? Let me know in the comments.

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This entry was written by Nigel and posted on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 at 8:45 am and filed under Recycling, Packaging, Good things to do. Bookmark the permalink. You can follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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