My weeks without plastic changed my life.
Before my communicating sustainability course let alone my advertising self change project. I was concsious but not aware of the impact that I could make if I reduced plastic consumption.
I would see this as an unattainable goal — Far from my reach so I would satisfy myself with just doing bare minimum. Naturally, I started to document my plastic consumption for the sake of the project, not knowing the impact that it would have in my life.
For staters, do you actually know how much plastic the average person uses per day? let alone in a week! An article from The Globalist mentions that “Today, an average person living in North America or Western Europe consumes 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of plastic each year, mostly in the form of packaging.” (The Globalist) When we look at the facts and the amount of plastic that is actually consumed it is eyeopening.
This is when I began to create concious and see where I was getting my plastic every day. I began to evaluate my days and the results that I discovered where shocking. For starters you know that saying “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone” well that was my case with plastic starting when I woke up, I have a puppy and I use plastic bags to pick up his poop at 7:30 am I already used my first piece of plastic, my replacement for that was paper bags not as convienent but they do the trick. Throughout my day whether it was not having where to store my leftovers, or drinking the tea that comes from a single plastic use bag. I became frustrated with my unconscious shopping. I had no idea how much plastic I was purchasing, based on my instagram post I’m sure you can tell it was a lot.
https://www.instagram.com/jessbyeplastic/
On my road to a no plastic few weeks I discovered the beauty of plastic alternatives!! and boy are there plenty. Whether it is paper, or cloth, glass, or cardboard there are SOOO many alternatives for plastic the challenge is they are more challenging to find, more expensive and less accessible to everyone. Bringing my water bottle absolutely everywhere became a must, even to the movies which I thought was funny.
My plastic free journey was difficult at first because I wasn’t even aware of how much plastic I even had or consumed I then began to see everything whether it was my trash bags, my honey, my condiments, my cleaning supplies, my toothbrush it was everywhere plastic was all around me and it was difficult to avoid it.
When I started to research more about living a plastic free life. It became an easier process to live without plastic. I would anticipate what I needed to do in the day to avoid plastic at all cost.
Reducing my carbon footprint has become something that I have determined myself to reduce, we have talked about this tirelessly in class and it has made me so aware of it. That it saddens me that I had not done it before, the fact that I have the decision and the power to do so much and to help take care of the earth, makes me want to engage in conscious decisions. Whether those decesions involve not using my car as much,and begin to walk more, or use publiv transportation. Making sure I bring my own bag to the supermarket, finding alternative plastic free products for the products that I already use. There are numerous things that we could do to help.
It is incredibly important to know the impact of your carbon footprint in order to reduce it. One of the I most impactful moments for me that made me want to stop my plastic consumption was, when we saw the movie about recycling, I had never seen how plastic was actually made and how dangerous it is to everyone in our society. Dangerous to make, nearly impossible to get rid of and extremely toxic when we do get rid of it. The fact that it is nearly impossible to recycle was one of my biggest concerns and it really caught my attention because, ever since we are little we are taught to reduce, reuse, recycle and in the movie we are told how useless it recycling actually is.
The most dangerous plastic of all and the one that can’t be recycled is single use plastics. Whether this is candy wrappers, tea wrappers and just single use plastic in general.
Living a plastic free life is not easy, I know that but life is all about making a conscious effort to do better and to be better. Spread your awareness, let people know about the importance of their carbon footprints, gift people water bottles, do what you have to do to raise awareness and to make conscious choices. i’m in no way saying that living a plastic free life is easy, it’s about sacrifices, it is the least we could do to save our planet.
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