Greener Days Prevail

Plastic Free July has come and gone, and I hope you all were able to participate in some capacity! And now that we’re in August, the question arises: how do we take these actions and make them habits we continue to practice?

According to Plastic Free July, 88% of their participants make one or more changes that become new habits, which is such a great percentage to read! I participated by sharing on my Instagram 31 days of how I reduce my single-use plastics in my everyday life (you can check that out and follow my page here if you’d like). I also introduced a few new things this past month and am now carrying them over to August (and onwards!) to maintain. So, let’s have a little look back at last month:

One switch I made was switching to a conditioner bar. I have already been using bar soap for years and started using a shampoo bar last year, so it was only a matter of time before I made the switch to a conditioner bar. July was the perfect month to do that, so I grabbed the Kitsch Ultra Sensitive Solid Conditioner & Shave Bar (I already use their Rice Water Protein Strengthening Shampoo Bar). I’m still getting the hang of using this, but I like it so far, and I love that I can use it for shaving as well.

Plastic Free July is also a good reminder of how much single-use plastics come from the food and drink industry, so this is an area I try my best to refuse whenever I can, and even more so in July. Like most people, we go out for ice cream more in the summer months, so for July I made sure to always opt for a cone, and this is something I am going to continue being mindful of when I have the option. I’ll admit, in the past, I usually would get a cup and spoon for convenience, but getting a cone is such an easy way to reduce your single-use plastics—and a good excuse to upgrade to a waffle cone while you’re at it!

Another thing I’ve started to be more mindful of now is opting for loose-leaf tea over teabags, as even some paper teabags can shed microplastics from the sealant used. This is actually a topic I want to dive into more on here, as I don’t think a lot of people realize how much microplastics we are also ingesting and accumulating in our bodies. Along with shopping for loose-leaf tea, I’ve also been making tea with leaves from my mint plant. Come the fall, I’m going to try drying out the rest of the leaves, so I have loose-leaf mint tea to last me through the fall and winter.

Overall, Plastic Free July always keeps me inspired and challenges me to be less passive and more present with my actions within the climate movement. It’s also always a good reminder to leave our egos at the door, as despite all the ways I reduced my single-use plastics this month, I can still get hung up on the times I end up with them. A couple of these instances included buying a bottle of water after a concert (the venue didn’t allow reusable water bottles inside) and going to the farmer’s market and the vendor putting my produce in a plastic bag before I could ask them to skip the plastic.

These two instances in no way negate everything else I’ve done, as we are striving for progress over perfection of living more sustainably in an unsustainable world, and this is something I’m always reminding myself of.

So, if you want to reduce your single-use plastics my tips are to break it off into small, more manageable chunks. Use up what you currently have before replacing it with a more sustainable option, refuse single-use plastics when you can when you’re out, and make the swaps as they fit into your life and budget. Living more sustainably and building lifelong habits that benefit our planet, like a lot of things in life, is about the journey and not the destination!

See you next year Plastic Free July!