Did you know?
Every year, about 8 million tons of plastic waste escapes into the oceans from coastal nations.... plastic pollution facts
How did plastic become a pollutant?
Our life is surrounded by plastic. From our bottle shampoo, to our smartphone even our laptop, all contains some form of plastic. These days, it's almost impossible to avoid plastic because its component is useful for many of our appliances. However, as the society progress, we are also exposed to the dark side of plastic.
Plastic is durable,cost-saving for mass consumption,and convenient.Yet, its lifespan isn't short. Plastic is non-biodegradable which means, it could persist in our environment for years and is not readily to be compostednon-biodegradable plastic. Plastic finds its way to the ocean from mismanagement in coastal area and insecure landfills. The plastic that reaches the oceans potentially harms marine life and even our life.
As of 2015, it was reported that packaging is the sector which produce the most plastic than any other sectors.
Individually, this is where we can make actual changes to reduce plastic and minimize plastic pollution. Some of packaging are unavoidable but that doesn't mean we have to ignore other things that could be reduced.
During my school year, I was always going to school which imposes environmentally friendly curriculum. It means, the school teaches the students to be environmentally aware through practical and tangible activities involving 3R reducing, re-cyling and reusing. For example, the canteen removes plastic bag and minimize plastic packaging replacing it with banana leaves. There was monthly contest on fashion recycling, cleanliness, and many more. Through this, I have always been conscious about environmental problems. Professionally, I have been freelancing in environmental sector for about a year in a project that deals with waste management. However, even with these involvement, I am not someone who screams about it everywhere as I'd rather start something from myself and let people follow if they think it's good.
Here are 5 easy tips to minimize plastic pollution
Use cloth shopping bag
In Indonesia, plastic bag has an extra cost. So, not only you are saving the environment, you are also saving extra pennies. Cloth shopping bag is better than plastic because you can reuse it many times. You can wash it and it lasts even longer than plastic bag.
Try to opt-out from plastic cutlery
Whether it's takeout or dine in, try to opt out from plastic cutlery. I know, some packaging is unavoidable but the opt-in like plastic cutlery is something you might need to tick on. Even when you are out dining with the family, if they use plastic ware, it would be much better bringing your own cutlery. My favorite is wooden/stainless steel cutlery set.
Avoid plastic straws
Interestingly restaurants these days use bamboo, glass or steel straws. They are slowly changing from using plastic to more durable options. It's also becoming increasingly trendy for many of us to use non-plastic straws. This is a good thing that people are slowly reducing their plastic straw use.
Reusable bottle, boxes and cups
If you love drinking water, coffee or eating out, reusable packaging is for you. Throughout the year of my travel, I have always brought reusable water bottle. This has helped me saved money whilst also reducing my plastic waste. For coffee, I would rather sit in the cafe than having to do takeaway coffee.
Recycle plastic packaging
If it's unavoidable to receive plastic, try to recycle it. Sometimes, I use plastic bottle as holders or re-using it for home use. I also re-use plastic lunch boxes as storage. It's just the matter of being creative with the plastic we have.
Below is illustration of item swapping from plastic to more eco friendly option.
Swap This for This item
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Source : Unsplash
I also invite @ailindigo to check out Ladies of hive community and perhaps joining this challenge.
omg Macccc thanks for inviting me to the community and to join the challenge! :'D I actually found the discord server recently, saw this contest when announced and was tempted to participate.
The plastic pollution is a very interesting topic indeed. One of the cool things I realized about Argentina (where I live now) is that they have this environmentally aware culture, here plastic bags have extra cost too so it's normal to see people doing ther shoppings with cloth shopping bags, something I found amazing since I was used to people always using plastic bags in venezuela even though the cloth ones existed in there, it simply wasn't part of the environmetal culture of Venezuela.
Also, I don't remember if it was this year or last year (probable last year) that here in Argentina straws got outlawn for restaurants or any food related business, I remember I was in Starbucks and the guy just gave me the frapuccino without straw and I was like wth then I asked for a straw and guy gave a cardboard one! Here they might give you a non-plastic straw only if you ask for it.
Though, I started to recycle and took all of my plastics to these little cabins that are on each district of the city where you can put your separeted trash (you know plastics, paper, glass, etc) and got a little bit sad when seeing the cabins inside are a disaster, but well that shouldn't stop me from recycling I think. I'm still satisfied with this environmetally aware culture of Argentina :)
Awesome post! Thanks for the mention! I'll try to participate :)
Nice, they have weekly contest with some interesting questions, it would be great to see you participating. Also, that's interesting about Argentina, it has similarities to how Indonesian views plastic. This is also amazing news
Here though, there isn't law specifically saying that but people are self-conscious to pick better options than plastic straws. These days, you can even make money from plastic, it's not much but it's extra pennies for long-term investment.
Great suggestions for eliminating plastic in our lives. I have decided to eliminate paper plates from my daily use. Even though they are plastic and eligible for recycle, I just decided not to spend any more money purchasing them when I had kitchen towels to use. It was awesome to be able to complete this for an entire month. I have since kept up the practice.
This month is plastic plates and silverware. Instead, I'm going to utilize regular eating items, such as plates cutlery. I'll have to take time to wash them, but I did that before there ever was plastic items.
Thanks for sharing your tips.
Good luck in your journey. I hope you can continue reducing your plastic use. It sure is taking time to wash dishes but 10 minutes is worth the investment.
Excelente propuestas que son soluciones invaluables para preservar el ambiente, muy contenta de leerte.
This is wonderful. Zero waste is something we believe in very strongly too. It's pretty tough to stick to it in the society we live in, it's almost as if it's engineered to make us complicit in our own desruction... but we try. I find farmers markets are a great way to reduce plastic as grocery stores often package even their produce!
Indeed, it's pretty tough but we can always start small and contribute in ways we can. I myself is also a minimalist though not for environmental reason, this has helped me reduce a lot of waste even from plastic and technological waste.