Quitting Plastic? But how???

Our daily lives are so surrounded by plastic that we take it for granted just how new the integration of plastic really is into our culture? Just think back to a hundred years ago in 1915. Think of what their daily lives were like. Even then people were afraid of the effect that technologies of the day would have on the world.

And they were right.

It is as if plastic became our new God to worship. It has become more than an altar. It's altar is our world.

So when people are confronted with the problems of climate change we are confronted with changing our entire lives. It means we have to re-think all of our choices and we realize just how many of them we make and just how many are made for us to the detriment of the environment.

So when we are faced with this it is natural for us to be over whelmed. It takes a lot of thought, research and time to make these changes. It is true that we must do all we can as soon as possible and feel the urgency is calling us into action. But the truth is that we need to understand that we can't do it all overnight. Quitting plastic is a process and everything we do makes a difference and the more we do the better. We just have to keep wondering what more we could do. What other changes could we make? How can we do better just a little more? And ask ourselves these questions regularly.

In this blog I will break it down into simple steps of things that we all can do from the very simplest that you might already be doing to the things that are a bit more complicated, where the answers are rare and hard to find.

I am by no means 100% plastic free or waste free. Very very few people are. But I do what I can and I keep asking myself what more I can do and I take actions to integrate it into my life.

To begin reducing plastic and our foot print on the earth  we begin with the no brainers.

1. Use re-usable cloth shopping bags. This also applies for when you go shopping for non food items.

2. Stop using the produce plastic bags that are in every aisle in the produce section. Produce is fine being wrapped in dishtowels and put in your re-usable shopping bags. I simply stack them in the shopping bags loose. So far nothing has been squashed. Simply pile them in a way that makes sense with the hard and heavy produce at the bottom or in a separate bag just like what you would do for eggs, milk and bread.

3. Shop at your local farmers market as much as possible and quit buying processed and packaged foods. When you buy your berries you can bring the containers back for them to re-use and don't forget to bring your own re-usable bags.

4. Get as much use out of your tech gadgets as possible. Tech gadgets fill our landfills more and more each year as we replace our perfectly useful and still working gadgets with the next best thing. If you must replace/want to replace a gadget please donate it to a second hand shop like the salvation army or anyplace that takes second hand goods.

5. Stop and or do not ever buy and regularly drink the single serving coffees that we see everywhere.

6. When ordering pizza say no to the little plastic table that they put in the middle.

7. Take the local transit, walk, bike or carpool.

8. Buy bulk foods as much as possible bringing your own re-usable glass jars and cloth bags

9. Do your banking on-line

10. Say no to plastic lids and straws

11. Stop buying water bottles, pop bottles, and juice bottles made of plastic. Start using metal or glass bottles to bring with you.

12. If you are committed, purchase a machine that carbonates water which can be flavored with natural juices, juices from glass bottles and fresh herbs such as peppermint and basil. Delicious drinks can be made simply with lemon juice, carbonated water, and fresh raspberries. Look up recipes!

13. Use hand soap instead of liquid hand soap

14. While your still using plastic containers think of ways to re-use them such as storing beads and craft supplies, nails, paper clips and the like.

15. Turn off lights and electrical gadgets in rooms you are not in. This is a tough one though it's simple. We can also unplug the appliances because they use power. This one is difficult but I challenge you!

16. Store left overs in bowls in the refrigerator with saucers covering them.

17. Buy pens which can be refilled with ink instead of the everyday plastic pens

18. Save water which has been boiled for pasta to water plants or for cleaning dishes or floor. Think of any way you can to re-use perfectly good water without it causing harm to plants, animals and the larger environment.

19. Stop using q-tips! They're horrible for you ear health anyway!

20. Take the time to research on-line. Ask questions and get curious about what you can use instead of plastic and ways that you can make the world a safer place for all of us and future generations.

Feel good about all that you already do and about the choices that you are working on bringing into your life now.

Don't give up. This is a process. Just keep going. Learn how to avoid burnout from information overload or from all of the changes your making. Establishing new changes in our lives takes adjustment and time. In the beginning we feel overwhelmed when we are doing something that is not the everyday regular and familiar that we are used to. Something as simple as stopping our use of q tips or using our tech gadgets more or not using the single serving coffees that come in little plastic cups. We get used to these modern conveniences and feel it to be part of our lives. We like what has come to be familiar and sometimes we feel as if something that makes us comfortable is being taken away from us. That our rights are somehow being denied.

Just remind yourself of the rights to live a healthy life that you are denying yourself, your community, your children and their children, the animals and everything in this world. What we do really does have a far reach and impact. All of our choices literally reach across the world into other countries and deep into the oceans.  Our choices reach deep down into the soil and into unseen habitats. We are all infinitely connected.

In this world we are connected through technology. And through it we feel more disconnected. We see less, we feel less. Somehow even in our knowledge based culture it is as if we know less. Our instincts are eclipsed by technology and modern conveniences. We are simply so comfortable that we find it hard to believe our structured culture is bad for us or for anyone else across the globe. We are so comfortable and feel so safe that we have unending faith in plastic and the modern culture in which we live. We are so comfortable and safe we are lazy and do not wish to do anything new or different.

I would like to remind you of history and how the period which we went through in the past hundred years is exceedingly rare. Never at anytime in history did we bring such massive change on ourselves, our cultures, our ways of life, ideas and on the environment that we did in the twentieth century. It is more common for our species to remain stuck in our ways. We like familiarity. Though we adapt and believe ourselves to be good at it we still gravitate to what we have known to be normal and everyday for us.

The changes that we were made in the last century were made for us. A few people made very large decisions and so, here we are. Today it is the same. A few politicians hold the power over many many people and of a very large amount of land and water. Companies hold the power over our health so that they can meat their bottom line. The fabrics we wear are made of plastic and when they are washed it pollutes our environment. The dyes used for textiles have come to be all chemical which is another modern invention, new to us in the past century. Previous generations dyed all of their fabrics with natural dyes. The facial cleansers we use are stored in plastic and have micro beads in them.

Think and ponder the choices that are being made for you and how you can step outside that plastic box.

Future blogs will address alternatives to modern skin care, textiles and more.

Make the world a real one, with less and less plastic.

Be real.