Day 52 of 365 Days Of Low Carbon Living: time to begin our Plastic Free July challenge for 2018.
It’s July. The second half of the calendar year. The start of the financial year (in Australia, at least). And time to ramp up our efforts to avoid plastic.
I lead a pretty plastic-free life. Many of us do.
Yet it’s always good to take a look at how we might make more changes.
Why do Plastic Free July?
There so much news about plastic pollution at the moment. The huge gyres of plastic ‘rubbish’ in our oceans. The dreadful toll on animals, particularly in the sea. The volume of plastic being so huge that it is forming a layer on our planet and is found in the remotest places.
It’s even in our food.
That’s why now we are seeing more and more campaigns to reduce and eliminate ‘single-use’ plastics. Organisations such as National Geographic, the Australian Broadcasting Commission, and churches are adding to the longer-running campaigns like The Story Of Stuff and Plastic Free July.
These campaigns focus mainly focus on the problem of what happens to plastic after we use it: the unsightly, dangerous and toxic ‘rubbish’.
But there is also a problem with plastic before we use it.
That’s because plastic is made from fossil oil or gas or from coal. They are major causes of damage to our climate and pollution in their own right. This happens when they are extracted, transported and used. In particular, the potent and fast-acting climate-damaging methane leaks from joins in gas pipelines from well to end-use. With damage to the climate still increasing and its consequences accelerating, it is vital that we stop contributing to the damage as a matter of urgency.
Recycling is not enough to deal with the sheer volume and spread of plastic – and it doesn’t deal with the problems that come with making plastic.
We need to stop creating the plastic problem at its source.
That’s where the Plastic Free July challenge comes in:
- If we use less plastic, then demand for plastic falls and then businesses will make and use less plastic.
- If we make using ‘single use’ and ‘disposable’ plastic socially unacceptable, then businesses will look to alternatives – and it will become socially acceptable to once again go about our lives without these materials.
- It is time-limited. And we all know that it’s always easier to do something when the end is in sight! The time limit is one of the things I like about challenges. (That’s why I undertake and promote things like carbon fasts for Lent and Ramadan and the Drawdown Ecochallenge.)
- It is over several weeks – and common wisdom says it takes at least 3 weeks to change a habit.
How to join Plastic Free July
It’s really easy to get started with Plastic Free July.
The easiest way is simply to go to the original website for the challenge: http://www.plasticfreejuly.org
It has a simple quiz so you can work out where your plastics come from, and some great resources to help you make changes.
I shall also be blogging about some of what I do to live plastic free and give longer lives to plastic that has already come into my life.
The challenge
Take 3 easy steps to start Plastic Free July:
- Go to Plastic Free July and just click on the link then click on blue button to accept the challenge.
- Follow this blog (see below)
- Tell your family and friends and share what you are doing on social media – and tag @PlasticFreeJuly and use the #PlasticFreeJuly, #ChooseToRefuse and #LowCarbonLiving hashtags.
Join me!
Any change or challenge is easier if you have company along the way.
So let’s embark on this journey together.
- Read my blog every day for ideas, thoughts and experiences for living a lower carbon lifestyle, more in harmony with nature – while also adapting to the consequences of our damaged climate.
- Subscribe to get posts direct to your inbox.
- Commit to taking action yourself.
- Add a comment to let me know you’re joining in the effort to turn around our world so it can remain liveable – and what your experiences are.
- Share with others my posts and what you’re doing – our efforts, progress, experiences and challenges – on Facebook, on Twitter, in conversations with friends, on talkback radio and in letters to the editor. Use #LowCarbonLiving hashtags on social media.
A problem shared is a problem halved. We’re all affected by the changes to our world so we need to be all in on the action!
Till next time…
SaveSave