Can you go for a day, a week, or the perhaps whole of July without buying single-use plastic?  

This is the challenge being put forward by the Plastic Free July campaign (www.plasticfreejuly.org). Over 1 million people in 130 countries have signed up to participate. 

I’ve signed up again to challenge myself to explore new ways to diminish plastic in my family’s life.

Will you?

It deeply troubles me how much damage our society is causing with everyday waste and the culture of disposability.  

Living a simpler life, a permaculture way of life, does dramatically reduce plastic dependence, but there is always more we can do, and more we need to do. The planet is drowning in plastic.

On my Simple Living segment on ABC Radio Queensland’s Evenings show, I chatted with host Trevor Jackson about this issue. You can listen here:

https://soundcloud.com/user-523529725/choose-to-refuse-single-use-plastic-plastic-free-july

12 things to consider about single use plastic

Here’s a dozen fact to keep in mind when we’re making decisions about what to buy:

1. 6% of the world’s fossil fuels are used to make plastic
2. from 2000-2010 1 billion tonnes of plastic was made – same amount as between 1950-2000
3. half the world’s plastics are used once before going to landfill
4. 8 million tonnes of plastic end up in our oceans every year – that’s like putting five bags of plastic trash on every foot of coastline in the world.
5. Almost 75% of the plastic found in the oceans is single-use (food wrappers, food containers, caps and lids, plastic bags, polystyrene…)
6. 90% of sea birds have eaten plastic, 50% of turtles have too
7. 1 million sea bird and 100,000 turtles die from eating plastic and becoming entangled each year.
8. 5 billion plastic lined coffee cups are used each year 
9. 4.7 billion toothbrushes are made each year. They’ll last around 1000 years.
10. each person on the planet uses around 700 plastic bags a year each
11. it takes around 5 litres of water and a litre of oil to make a litre of bottled water
12. In Australia, we use almost 120,000 tonnes of plastic drink bottles each year. 

Image Source: CSIRO

What will it take to dramatically cut down on throw-away plastic?

Simple steps

We can impact change in our sphere of influence, and that is different for us all. Out and about, in our home, at work, at school, in our community …  

Source: www.sustainablecoastlines.org

Single use plastic is a massive problem in the world, and while many of us are aware consumers, we still manage to come home with more single-use plastic than we’d hoped because it is just everywhere!

Some simple steps to reduce single-use plastic waste:

1. Grow more food
2. Choose to shop at farmers markets and CSAs (community supported agriculture programs), and bulk food stores.
3. Store leftovers in jars or reusable lidded containers
4. Make more things from scratch and pack food to take out with you.
5. Choose biodegradable options
6. Take our own cups and bottles or slow down and have a cuppa in a ceramic cup.
7. Pick up rubbish we see around.

Plastic free veggies and herbs from my garden – freshly harvested for dinner.

Choose to Refuse

Choose to Refuse is the theme of this year’s Plastic Free July campaign.  The idea really is that we use this time to change habits and then continue on with less plastic in our lives. Since signing on last July with my family, there are lots of things I no longer buy such as: plastic wrapped toilet paper, shampoo or conditioner, hand soap, laundry liquid, dishwashing liquid, take away coffee cups, plastic straws, microfibre clothing… and more.

I’d like to extend a special big thank-you to my growing community of patrons who help me keep this blog and youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/moraggambleourpermaculturelife)  free and ad-free. If you’d like to support me too, you can find my Patreon page on  (https://www.patreon.com/moraggamble). 

Morag’s workshops coming soon:

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