Plastic food and drink packaging remains useful for a matter of days, yet remains a destructive presence on the Earth for centuries afterwards – Sian Sutherland, A Plastic Planet
Some single-use plastic is unavoidable but we can definitely all do our bit reducing it wherever possible. You don’t need to only have a jar of waste – you need to reduce it as much as you can especially if you’re in an industrialized country. It does take a little more effort but collectively it is worth it (and seeing how much less you start to send to landfill is pretty exhilarating). It can also connect you back to food. We love hummus and it’s so easy to make instead of buying it premade with preservatives and chemicals in a plastic tub. After a few rounds, it’s more cost effective too. The same goes with learning to bake bread – once you learn the basics it’s incredible what you can make and is a fulfilling weekend activity.
Supermarkets really need to understand they’re creating a mass problem in this realm and have taught us consumers to get used to extremely wasteful ways for a couple of seconds of convenience. If your local grocer wraps everything in plastic, a silent form of protest is to unwrap it, leave the packaging there and pop it in your own reusable produce bag. If everyone did that they’d quickly realize the plastic isn’t needed.
The thing we miss most when avoiding plastic? Berries! How about you?
Note: single-use plastic is literally unavoidable in many countries that rely on it due to poverty for example. Also, there are many communities where bottled water is needed – including in the United States where lead poisoning just keeps on going.
