I joined Plastic Free July 2019 on impulse looking at a Facebook post. Then I took a long, hard, Paddington Bear stare at the plastic in my cupboards, pantry, fridge and bin and felt a little sick. Plastic was everywhere: multiple plastic bottles of cleaners; bath and shower products; liquid soaps; laundry products, individually wrapped kids snacks for packed lunches; meat; veg and other multipack options all had wrappers I hadn’t noticed before.

I simply hadn’t realised how widespread my plastic use was. It wasn’t just a plastic bottle here or there. For a moment, despair set in. It seemed like an enormous task, too big to tackle all in one hit so I picked one thing to focus on.

For me, Focus number 1 happened to be the ‘out and about’ items, the water and soft drinks we bought for the kids lunches and trips to the park, the multibuy snack items and the fact I wrapped sandwiches in cling film every day.

1. I bought us all refillable water bottles – this was the only ‘special purchase’ I made in July. That removed a massive 10 small drinks bottles from the lunch boxes a week and the random purchase of soft drinks made at weekends on visits to the park or town.
2. I stopped buying cling film – sandwiches now go in a paper bag or reusable wrap or hard plastic tub.
3. I bake items such as cookies or sausage rolls at home – they removed the multiple packs of snacks that used to fill the lunch boxes. Things like the sausage rolls I buy frozen in a bag of 50 so I cook batches as needed and the bag can be recycled at the supermarket where as the plastic tubs for fresh snacks couldn’t be recycled at all.
4. I still buy crisps but with emphasis on sharing packs – rather than the multipacks in a even bigger bag.
5. For little portions of things in lunch boxes I now use small refillable plastic tubs – these were a purchase in September for the new school term.

Focus number 2 was on the multiple bottles of cleaners for the house, me (!) and clothing. How did I end up with so many showergell bottles? It has taken me all year to get through the backlog – that is a long time of not buying anything new. I have swapped laundry and dishwash detergents for those in packaging I can recycle or those I can refill at local shops. All the liquid soap has been swapped for bar soap and I now have a shampoo bar for everyday hair wash with a shampoo/ conditioner for when my hair is really greasy.

Focus 3 is food, and it is where I am at right now. For some reason I was buying loads of fresh products in plastic trays and tubs and then often freezing them at home for cooking later in the week. The first simple win was realising that I could buy a similar frozen product in a cardboard packet rather than plastic tray. Using the green grocer for fruit and veg means I can buy everything loose although it does mean a separate shopping trip to town. 2020 Plastic Free July I have started making an effort to use the zero waste shop near us and factoring in buying loose dry products for cooking rather than the prepacked versions in the supermarket.

I’m not perfect, I’m also not on some pilgrimage to fit all my waste into a random mason jar for a year. But I do know that every bit of plastic I have ever bought, used and ‘thrown out’ probably still exists on this planet and that for me is not a nice feeling.

What will you avoid this Plastic Free July?