Plastic-free July
Don’t worry, I didn’t do it either.
What I don’t understand is how anyone can without radically altering their life for a month. And maybe that’s the idea, but when you’re barely making rent, it’s not an easy ask.
The biggest source of plastic in normal people’s lives is packaging. Avoiding it has become so difficult that you almost have to be rich to do it. Lets go through a hypothetical day:
Morning: what’s for breakfast? Toast? Bread comes in plastic bags, unless you get the pricier bakery bread in a paper bag, or make your own; “artisan” bread also goes off faster because of the lack of preservatives. Yeast is also, often, in a plastic jar. Most spreads, too (Wax paper is not plastic, but it is also not recyclable). Cereal? Also bagged. Milk? There are glass bottles…for a few extra bucks. Oatmeal and eggs may be the only things that come in paper (and oatmeal often uses wax paper).
Once you’ve brushed your teeth with your plastic toothbrush and plastic bottle of toothpaste, you can put on your plastic-encased personal care products (deodorant, makeup, lotion) and head to work. We won’t even look too hard at your phone or your transportation.
Daytime: if you take leftovers for lunch in a reusable plastic container, we won’t count that. Even the bottles that we think of as “recyclable” aren’t.
“While we might think that much of the world’s plastic waste is recycled, only 9% is” (ourworldindata.org)
Eating lunch out is also usually fine, if more expensive than a packed lunch, as long as you bring your own utensils. Even those cardboard takeout boxes and wooden forks that could be composted usually get tossed in the same plastic garbage bag as everything else, and they don’t decompose like they would in normal compost (if you’re still getting styrofoam containers, what are you doing?).
Most people won’t have to grapple with too much plastic waste at work on a daily basis; office jobs tend to have very little single-use plastic. Some workplaces, like medicine create far more plastic waste, but that’s on an industrial level. While encouraging recycling in the workplace is great, it’s not foolproof.
Evening: time for dinner! Anything frozen is out. All the bags of frozen peas, the shrimp and the pre-made fries, are plastic. Some things come in waxy paper boxes, which are—would you believe—also plastic. Meat is out unless you buy straight from a butcher who wraps it in wax paper (again, more expensive). Most fruit and veg are still good though, except for those cucumbers that are always wrapped in plastic. Rice is often in plastic bags; same with some pasta, although that is more often in cardboard now (yay pasta!). Don’t forget all the cleaning products at the end of the day; from dish tabs to laundry detergent, they’re usually in plastic.
In one day, we’ve already had to switch up our diet completely, forgo cleaning and personal hygiene products, and consider how far our weekly budget will stretch.
Plastic is ubiquitous and all together accounts for about 3% of CO2 emissions. You read that right. Three. Percent. That begs the question:
Why are we asking normal people to try and give up a cheap, lightweight, extremely useful material that everyone would rather pay less to use, when the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions are entirely different?
The top three industries that contribute to greenhouse gases are:
Energy (fuel, heating, electricity, and road transport)
Agriculture (especially livestock)
Direct industrial processes (chemical production and cement)
We’ve talked about cutting down on meat before. For the other things? While we can all turn off our lights when we leave a room, get efficient heat pumps for our houses, switch to electric stoves instead of gas; this is a drop in the bucket compared to the pollution from businesses.
Industrial processes generate far more greenhouse gases than any one person.
We know this is not an individual level problem and we can’t expect an individual level answer. Unless the answer is: vote.
This is the everyday solution. We, the normal individuals, have to vote for the politicians who have real, tangible plans to reduce pollution, curb waste, and invest in sustainable alternatives to oil and gas. We have to hold those politicians accountable to pass laws that regulate how much companies can pollute, and subsidize renewable energy and sustainable materials.
We have to vote with our wallets, and buy from companies that already have products in place that are reducing their plastic use, that are changing their internal policies to cut their pollution, and who are actively switching away from fossil fuels. Plastic is here to stay; trying to cut it out for one day, or one week, or one month as individuals is a way for companies to make us blame ourselves and forget who is causing the problems. We have to encourage systemic change.
So don’t feel too guilty about your plastic fork at lunch or buying bottled water when you forget your Hydroflask at home. Buy your cling-wrapped veggie sandwich from the local cafe instead of the big chain grocery store, and tell your power company you want to see more renewable energy options—or you’ll switch to someone else who has them. And then tell your council members if they don’t invest in buses and a walkable city, they won’t be sitting in those chairs long. Don’t forget who really holds the power: we, the people.