31st July 2019

31^st July. Last day of the month. Scary how quickly they go isn’t it. Doing plastic free July hasn’t slowed it down at all and isn’t that usually the case when you don’t enjoy something? Which must meant there was something to it that I liked. Actually there was a lot that I liked, some things I was pretty ambivalent about and some things that I didn’t like at all. Fortunately though it was a mostly positive experience!

I’ve been working towards being – if not plastic free – as low a plastic user as possible for quite some time now and so I had already made a lot of changes. Just to qualify here – I’m talking single-use plastic, not multi. There’s the standard changes of having a reusable cup and taking my own bag to the supermarket, that sort of thing, but I really wanted to use this month to explore the additional things that I could do to make the difference. It’s been mainly the kitchen and bathroom that needed tackling. The kitchen I’ve managed to cut down drastically but it’s not been easy and I actually will end up relenting on this one as I am struggling with the omission of some things through being plastic free. Food wise, many things I’ve managed to make myself so I don’t have to buy plastic wrapped produce but in the making there are challenges. For example, buying butter/margarine not in plastic is virtually impossible. I’d had some stork hard marg in the fridge (bought pre-July) as that’s my preferred brand for making pastry and when I was finished I deconstructed the wrapper. Turns out it was a layer of foil (recyclable), a layer of paper (recyclable) and a layer of plastic (not recyclable) so if you’re thinking about throwing foil butter wrappers in the recycling, think again as they have plastic in them. I miss yogurt and as it’s not possible for me to have doorstep deliveries (I live in a block of flats) so I can’t get milk or cream in glass bottles delivered and therefore make my own butter or yogurt plastic free. I may have to relent and buy yogurt (I can happily manage without milk). I’m yet to have any stone fruits that aren’t out of a tin, and neither have I had any berries, other than the delicious strawberries that my Dad brought me from his garden as I’m yet to see any that aren’t in plastic tubs. I am planning to go out picking blackberries this weekend as there are loads along the River Wandle near my house so that’s both plastic free and actually free too! Otherwise, it’s cheese that’s the challenge but it’s just a case of needing to get my ass into gear and getting to a cheese shop that will solve that.

Other than stain remover for clothes and fairy liquid, my kitchen and bathroom cleaning regime has become completely plastic free. I’m finishing off a bottle of fairy liquid at the moment and then will be able to reuse the bottle at my Zero waste shop. I’m not sure about the stain remover, maybe I just need to get better at not dropping my food down me when I eat? Otherwise, it’s all refilled at the zero waste shop and I’ve become a fan of the white wine vinegar homemade cleaner which gets rid of lime scale a treat! 50:50, vinegar to water, piece of lemon zest and sprig of rosemary – sorted! There are other variations on this including bicarbonate of soda that I need to investigate too but for now this keeps my shower screen beautifully sparkling and my toilet too! For kitchen cleaning, I use a combination of this and some all-purpose cleaner from the zero waste shop that also gets diluted so lasts ages.

For the bathroom, the shower gel has gone in favour of soap and I’m now using natural deodorant in a cardboard tube and to be honest, that’s pretty much all I’ve managed when I think about it. I had already changed to solid shampoo but none of my other toiletries have run out over the month. I have just had a delivery of a rose perfume from Eden, a company who don’t wrap in plastic and I can get the bottle refilled which is great for reducing waste. It’s not quite the scent I was after but I think I’ll be able to get used to it. I’m not sure I can give up femfresh or Bioderma serum though. I also love my leave in conditioner, body lotion, Bioderma micellar water and Nivea eye makeup remover (although I hardly ever wear makeup these days to need it). These are all things that I’ll need to ponder on and figure out.

The one thing that were an absolute fail for me were the dentabs. I just don’t get on with them at all. I do think they were great when travelling but on a daily basis I’m really not convinced. My teeth were starting to go yellow using them. Not good. Unfortunately they’re the only brand of plastic free toothpaste that I’ve found which has fluoride in it and whilst I know all the arguments against fluoride, I’m of that generation where it was in the water when I was growing up and I have really good teeth. So whilst I also know there are many factors contributing to this, personally, I want fluoride in my toothpaste. It turns out, I had a tube of toothpaste in my bathroom cabinet that I hadn’t realised. I did end up opening this and as it takes me a really long time to get through a tube of toothpaste, I have more time to investigate this.

For me, the best find of the month was the deodorant. It’s taking my skin a while to get used to it, and every so often I still get red skin around my armpits (sorry Mum, you have to use this word talking about deodorant), this was far and away my most amazing discovery. I’ve always used heavy duty deodorant and it doesn’t always work, but this, this was incredible. I had one day where I didn’t use quite as much as I had been doing that I could detect the beginning of odour, but otherwise, even on the hottest days, whilst I did still sweat, I was completely odour free. I genuinely didn’t expect this. The brand I bought was Earth Conscious, Rose and Jasmine. It’s not cheap at £6.99 a tube but I’m guessing it will last around as long as a regular stick deodorant and is an expense I’m happy to increase.

The most challenging aspect of the month turned out to be lunch or eating on the go more generally. Usually I take my lunch into work so it’s not a problem, but occasionally for one reason or another, this didn’t work out. Buying a plastic free take out lunch was sooooo hard. I bought a sandwich one day from a shop I knew wrapped everything in paper but it cost £6.30!! It was a decent size, but still, £6.30 for a sandwich!! Nuts!

The final count for my single use plastic came in at 52 pieces.

1 plaster

2 compeed plasters

1 piece of cling film

1 jar label

25 little plastic veg stickers

2 plastic bags my shoes were in

1 plastic bag a new set of bathroom scales came in

3 plastic stickers on the shoes

2 straws

1 yogurt film 

1 milk bottle

1 squash bottle

1 yeast carton lid

1 plastic hanger on my socks

1 plastic tag keeping the socks together

1 plastic lid on my sweet chilli sauce

2 plastic bags in my tights boxes

1 oat milk carton plastic lid

1 plastic glass 

1 gift card I received for my birthday

1 wrapping around the top of a tonic bottle

1 plastic window in the bag some bread came in at a restaurant

I’ve only included that which I generated during the month through purchases, this tally wasn’t about historical purchases that won’t be repeated. I am gradually clearing the plastic items that are in my house as they are being replaced by non-single-use plastic alternatives so in addition to the above there were also around 12 items that went to the recycling (assuming they will be). So if I continue at the rate that I did in July, then in 12 months that would be 624 items of plastic. Against the average of 4490 so 13.9%. Volume wise I would guess it’s a lot lower and if I shop somewhere other than Sainsbury’s hopefully I’ll be able to avoid the little plastic veg stickers that made up almost 50% of the count.

So, tomorrow it’s August and where to from here? Well one thing I do know is that other than the yogurt and butter, there’s very little I’m prepared to buy that comes in plastic. I’m really pleased that my doing this has made people think a bit more about what they’re doing and I remain hopeful that if I continue to do so, it might make other people think about making some changes to their habits too. But as I always said, this was a personal journey. Other people will realise the importance of making changes at different times, hopefully before it’s too late, although sadly as a species, I don’t think we will. Plastic production has surged over the past 50 years, from 15 million tonnes in 1964 to 311 million tonnes in 2014, and is expected to double again over the next 20 years. About 4% of the petroleum consumed worldwide each year is used to make plastic, and another 4% is used to power plastic manufacturing processes. Much of this plastic ends up in our oceans, choking our marine life and slowly (but getting much quicker) destroying our beautiful planet.

However, to end on a positive note. I have clearly not been the only person doing plastic free July. I can’t find figures for 2019, they may not be out yet, but last year 120 million people across the globe took part in the challenge from 177 countries. So even if that’s stayed the same this year, based on my plastic use that’s potentially around 39 BILLION pieces of plastic that didn’t end up in landfill, or more importantly our oceans this year. So whilst it’s nowhere near enough, it’s definitely something to be thankful for.