What do you do to reduce your use of single use plastics?
I really love the idea of reducing single use plastics in my life. What have you done to successfully reduce or eliminate it?
I am finding that there are things that I can replace stuff with but they don’t tend to work as well. If I can get like 90% efficacy out of a more eco friendly replacement then I’m good, but it’s been more like 50% so far.
Out whole system is set up to make it crazy hard. I drink a lot of soda water, and despite what they’d have you believe, aluminum cans are lined with single use plastic. While the aluminum is recyclable, the plastic liner is not. I’ve been carbonating my own water at home to reduce the amount of cans I go through. Glass bottles aren’t much better. In America, at least, they aren’t reused, they are recycled, which involves melting them down at a large energy cost (probably more than the energy cost of making a single use plastic bottle).
I think my main cause of single use plastics is just food packaging. I try to avoid any of the really processed foods that are packaged in plastic. Obviously, I’m no better at this than anyone else, but I at least try to buy ingredients to make my own food. Every loaf of bread I bake is a single use bag I don’t buy.
I also get a good portion of my produce from my own garden, or from a local farm, and that’s all plastic free.
I’m always wary of products that try to do “plastic-free” by switching to a cardboard/paper material, cause if they are a package that needs to be water/air tight, they are going to be coated with some kind of plastic or other petrochemical product. Maybe it actually cuts down on the total amount of plastic, but it might just be greenwashing.
I have a few water bottles, I take my bags for life when I go shopping and I try hard to buy things in recyclable packaging. This has really helped reduce the amount that goes into my general waste.
I use my own container and utensils for takeaway, bring my own shopping bag, eat less fastfood, and do less online shopping, and also buy less cheap plastic stuff(because cheap stuff that is no good is just plastic waste/e-waste). Not sure what i can do more because almost all groceries comes with one use plastic.
I have the Opinel Picnic+ Cutlery set and it is awesome. It’s a Opinel No.8 with a fork and spoon that can slide in, and all kept wrapped up in a cloth. It has completely replaced my need for plastic cutlery while out as I keep it in my man-purse (which is defined as a purse carried by a man).
Where are you struggling to eliminate or reduce single use plastics?
My approach is I avoid buying things with lots of single use plastics in their packaging. If you shop Amazon you can opt to prefer paper/cardboard packaging (it’s not always used though). I use reusable or no bags at the grocery store. Don’t use straws or use metal / silicone. But that just scratches the surface of common sources of single use plastics - I’m also into 3D printing which can be a bear to reign in plastics use, luckily more companies are moving to cardboard spools for example.
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