HEALTHY PLANET: PLASTIC FREE JULY: WEEK ONE: CONSCIOUSNESS RAISING

Week One Finished.  Awareness increasing.  Impossible to avoid plastic use completely, but every choice within my power not to is worth something, right?

July 1:  We are doing an aesthetic "remodel" inside and outside our home this summer.  Hub's setting a huge patio of flagstone; I'm re-imagining our indoor spaces with some furniture, accessories, and art updates.  I ordered a couple of chairs and a lamp.  As you might imagine, they all showed up wrapped in plastic and packaged with styrofoam.  Ugh.  Not a good start to Plastic Free July.

With a guilty feeling of dread and defeat, I stuff all that styrofoam in the trash can.  Then I took it all back out.  Instead, we Googled where to get rid of styrofoam -- notoriously hard to recycle.  There are drop off places outside our county (if you live within the jurisdiction, which we don't) and I could pay Ridwell (link to resources at end of post) to take it.  But we found a postal/shipping place not far away who said they would take it, keep what they can use in their business and put the rest in their recycle container for pick up.  Sounds good to me, even though it's a 40 minute round trip.  (Not burning gas in my little EV Leaf!)  So my styrofoam won't go in my garbage can straight to the landfill.  I trust this place has a recycling partner?

I checked with Ridwell -- at least they can take the huge swaths of plastic wrap that came around each chair.  

July 2:  I seem to collect "pretty" rocks that I think I'll strew about my garden or display in a dish or something.  I also have some of those glass pebble things you get at craft stores which I've accumulated for some unknown and undone craft projects.  Gathering up the loose ones rolling around in a shoe box for no apparent reason, I decided to separate them out and store them more efficiently. Of course I ran to the kitchen for a handful of plastic baggies!  Perfect for the job!  Oops.  Nope.  Well, let's see, how about my food storage containers?  Well, then where do I put my food?  Wait!  I just threw a couple yogurt containers in the recycle bin that most likely will never get recycled anyway (#5 plastic -- a type that gets sorted and landfilled).  I dove into the bin, retrieved the containers and voila!  Re-used!  I see how my automatic "go to" is not the best, even if it is a bit more convenient.  I'm still using plastic, but I'm using it more than once...better, right?  Now I just have to learn to make my own yogurt to ditch those big yogurt containers! 

July 3:  I thought I needed a new hose nozzle.  (Turns out I didn't -- Hub found a plethora of them in the garden shed.)  The one I bought, because I have another like it and love it, was plastic but it's not single use, so I felt sort of OK.  But the tag and zip ties that came attached were throw-away plastic. Why???  Sigh.

July 4:  My son gave me a bunch of bamboo toothbrushes for a gift at some point.  He knows my "save the earth" tendencies.  (He buys Hub carbon offsets. LOL)  But I was recently at the dentist and got my "good girl" parting gift of a new (plastic) toothbrush and (plastic-encased) floss.  This morning I decided I might be able to do better.  I Googled and there are eco-friendly alternatives!  I've order the "Starter Kit" from "Bite" (link in resources).  I'll get a bamboo toothbrush, a refillable bamboo floss container with non-plastic floss, a tin of "mouthwash" tablets, and a reusable glass jar of "toothpaste" tablets (you bite into the tab and start brushing and it gets a little foamy), also saving me from buying toothpaste tubes which are not recyclable.  I'll let you know how it goes!

July 7:  Farmer's Market temptation was an amazing looking chocolate toffee candy thing that was enough to share with Hub.  I wanted it!  But the portions were all pre-packaged in clamshell containers.  I asked the proprietor of the booth if he had any that he could just stick into a little paper bag or wrap in a napkin or something.  Nope.  So I said I'd have to pass; explained I was foregoing plastic when I can.   I was sad; he looked perplexed.  

I've noticed that every single day I've dealt with something housed in plastic.  Containers of every type, blister packs, molded plastic containers, wraps and double wraps, styrofoam packaging.  I don't yet know how to avoid it in today's world.  

But...on to Week Two.  Wish me luck.

Here's to health, for ourselves and our planet...©

If you live within their service area, Ridwell is a great recycling resource.  Check out their website here: https://www.ridwell.com/

Here's some dental alternatives to traditional toothbrushes, floss, etc. : https://bitetoothpastebits.com/