Monday 1 July 2019

Plastic Free July


Every month this year I've been getting a VeganKind Lifestyle Subscription Box ... it was a Christmas present to myself from myself.  It's been really good and has opened up a whole new world of vegan treats for me to discover.  I've had some lovely things ... and most are pretty healthy.

Last week I ordered myself an Eco Life Box, not even knowing that July is and has been for the past couple of years Plastic Free July.  Something that started I believe in Australia and has now gone global.  


How appropriate that I have my box then.


Inside were all these goodies ... and despite what you might think at first glance ... there was not a bit of plastic to be seen.

All the packing materials, the tissue paper and the paper straw have gone into the kindling basket to be used to start up the log burner (once this heatwave is over obviously 😉), the cardboard box is now flattened and in the recycling box and the contents have come with me to the Van.


I now have another re-usable coffee mug, a coconut bowl, spoon and fork set, a bamboo straw and a recyclable toothbrush.


There were also a couple of pot washing scourers and a bottle of water.  In a bottle made from 100% plant based material.  I will have to have a closer read of the labels, but hey, what a breakthrough idea this is!!

So what a happy coincidence that I ordered this Eco Box just as Plastic Free July kicks off, and although I am not doing a Challenge as such I am going to use this month to really watch how much plastic I use ... and do what I can to avoid it where possible.

Watching Hugh and Anita's War on Plastic over the last few weeks was a real eye opener for me, and a shocking one at that.  Did you watch this series?


Sue xx






12 comments:

  1. I haven't seen that series but we have been making an effort to reduce our plastic and I feel we have done quite well. We refuse to buy cingfilm and freezer bags, use bar soap, shampoo bars, bamboo toothbrushes,make my own surface cleaner, loo cleaner etc,no nasties in our house,when the detergent runs out I am going to try making my own 2 ingredient detergent. Its not easy though I fail miserably on the food packaging as like you I am vegan but being on a limited budget a lot of my fruit and veggies and we do buy a lot, are in plastic wrap but we have recently found out that Morrisons recycle veggie bags, roilet roll packaging etc so we take them there.

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    1. It sounds like you are doing really well. 🙂 I too only recently found out that the supermarkets carrier bag recycling boxes also accept other bags and similar packaging. So that's where mine goes now.

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  2. What a great idea. Although we have made a tentative start to ditch the plastic I must try harder

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    1. Once you start it does start to snowball nicely 🙂

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  3. Last week I ditched the bottled water I used to buy and bought a water filer jug.

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    1. Yes, I've stopped buying bottled water too. Now I have tap water in a jug in the fridge. Living in the two places I do I don't even need a flter, it's good straight from the tap, but it tastes even better chilled.

      When we lived in the South we had to filter all our drinking water otherwise it furred the kettle up at first use and left nasty scum in hot drinks,

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  4. It is good to see that people are wising up about plastic. Years ago when my daughter was studying Environmental Science to become a Water Quality Technologist, she influenced our family to cut back plastics but especially water bottles. After watching a 4Ocean video .. we have cracked down further on our plastics use.

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    1. It sounds like you are a quite a few steps ahead of most of us then, brilliant 🙂

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  5. It IS shocking how much plastic there is in packaging. Once we have composted and recycled, plastic wrapping is about all that goes into the bin. Still, the tide is turning quickly against single use plastics - a plant based bottle is pretty impressive!

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    1. I agree totally shocking ... at the moment it is feeling like everything has some plastic in it. Even some paper bags have plastic windows in them.!!

      It doesn't say on the bottle exactly what the bottle is made from, but does say it produces 60% less greenhouse gases and uses 50% less fossil fuel during production ... still not brilliant in my opinion, but as the tagline on the bottle says it is 'a step in the right direction'. I'll use the bottle as much as I can before it finally goes into the recycling bin. At least then it's also not 'single use'.

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  6. Hi Sue, I've been doing Plastic Free July here for years after buying a book "Plastic Free" by Beth Terry. Also you maybe interested in www.plasticfreejuly.org. Great items in your box, I bought one last year but it was an eco friendly box full of great items. There are some excellent blogs on plastic free which is mind blowing when you think about it, in my own way I've been making small changes over many years but I can still do better:(

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    1. Yes, I signed up for Plastic Free July last week over at the website you mention, and I've done the Pesky Plastics quiz 🙂

      I've also been following a few YouTubers living low waste, low impact lifestyles for a few months now, some of them are very inspiring. I think anything we do to reduce our plastic usage is a step in the right direction, and I've found a real knock on or snowball effect happening with me.

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