Sustainability Saturday - Plastic Free July
#Sustainability Saturday - Plastic Free July.
Started in Western Australia in 2011 plastic free July (www.plasticfreejuly.org) has grown into a global movement, and with the governments ban on several single use plastic items kicking in yesterday, and expected to grow to include more items in coming years now seems like a good time to resurrect Sustainability Saturday (even if it's only for July). Each week we begin a discussion on one of the main ideas behind sustainability and plastic use.
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##Refuse
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Reduce
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Reuse
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Recycle
First up, REFUSE. The first step in cutting back on plastic usage is to simply refuse to use it in the first place.
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Plastic shopping bags are no longer an option but plastic is still very prevalent in the supermarket, and in some cases is increasingly popular in an age of self-serve checkouts.
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Grabbing a bag of apples/bananas/carrots rather than loose ones because it's easier?
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Sugar in plastic packaging because it's the cheaper brand?
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Cling wrap is very useful, but sometimes we use it because it's easier, can we use a container or a reusable cover?
You don't have to do everything, but if everyone can make one small change each shopping trip, it will make a difference.
Can you spruik your local waste free store? Do you have a favorite reusable product you wish to share? A preferred retailer? Are there any events or activities you know of that people can attend? Websites or YouTube videos you wish to share? Have you managed to remove plastic use from an area of your life and just want to brag? Go ahead and brag.
If you have your own strategies, tips, tricks, and hacks for turning down the placcy, please share with the rest of Perth to help inspire us.
Western Australia started the Plastic Free July movement, let's continue to embrace it and keep building something that all W.A. cavemen can be proud of.
Posted Jul 2, 2022, 2:10 PM UTC · edited
It was mentioned in another thread that tetra packs (long life milk, soy milk, some juices ect) aren't recyclable. Partly because of this, and since I don't drink dairy milk, I've been making my own almond milk and oat milk at home for about a year now, using the sus-named 'Nut milk bag' I got from a health food store.
If you use a lot of milk, this is going to be a bit tedious, but I make a batch in the blender once or twice a week, and keep it in a tall, clear, lidded jug in the fridge. There are endless videos on youtube showing different techniques you can use to make your own plant milks at home.
Even if not motivated by the un-recyclability of tetra packs, I would still go this way because it's way, way cheaper than buying these in tetra packs, and there are shelf-life benefits. Milks in tetra packs have a shelf life of about 6 months. Almonds and oats have shelf lifes in their original packaging of 2 years - and that can be extended up to 5-10 years if repackaged into glass containers with oxygen absorbers (almonds) or freeze-thaw treated before shelving (oats). That means you can buy in bulk quantities, and very efficiently have an inexhaustable source of your preferred milk that you really only need to replenish once a year or so, when the prices make it worthwhile to do.
My daughter goes through a lot of oat milk, I'm going to start doing this.