I’ve tried going completely plastic free for consumables in the past, and failed. There were simply too many things with plastic in them or on them. Drinks, yogurt containers, meat, cereal, berries, dried fruits & nuts, etc… are all packaged predominantly in plastic. And, our family recently moved to Hong Kong where plastic wrapped items are even more prevalent, and getting certain things in bulk (like flour) is difficult.
Plastic bottled drinks everywhere…
Plastic-wrapped produce everywhere…
So, I’ve been getting more and more disturbed by the amount of plastic we and others are disposing- even if we do “recycle” all of it. I read the recent Gaurdian report that says only 9% of all plastic is ever recycled – a massive amount of even the plastic we put into recycling ends up on landfills and oceans.
I’ve had good luck in the past with changing behavior by micro focusing on a specific mechanism to either start or stop doing. So, I decided to give the plastic thing another go by starting with simply never buying a plastic bottled drink again.
Hopefully, I will be able to build on this and achieve “peak plastic” (kind of like Peak Oil, where production/consumption hits a maximum rate) in our household and begin whittling down usage from there.
Here is the last plastic bottled drink I’ll ever buy – as I took a swig of the excellent green tea, I looked down at that bottle and created this pact.
Anyone want to join me (and/or them)?