Keeping the momentum on minimising plastic pollution
With Plastic Free July fresh in our minds, there’s been plenty of momentum to create a stir in supermarkets everywhere.
It can be very overwhelming to tackle the plastic issue. The critical thing is that we keep the momentum and build from there.
It’s unlikely that we will completely eradicate plastics from our society – they are literally everywhere, but we can absolutely eradicate the most toxic products in three easy steps:
- Educating ourselves on what the most nastiest of plastics are, where they’re found and how to avoid them (See War on Waste, Help your Health)
- Choosing not to buy those products, and making a conscious choice to buy an alternative without the nasty plastic – or writing to the manufacturer and asking them to provide an alternative product – the better businesses love to have customer feedback, it drives their marketing and gives their product development teams something to work on.
- Refusing to buy single use plastics that are the main contributor to devastating pollution of both our ocean and land environments. Plastic bags, plastic wrap, straws and disposable coffee cups
LITTLE KNOWN FACT: Did you know that every time you wash a polyester garment in the washing machine (poly – plastic), then a minimum of 50 polyester fibres (plastic) are released into the water treatment system. – Ending up in our marine life, or if we’re lucky, washing up on our shores.
Making sure you have an efficient filter on your washing machine can help to minimise this pollution, and using natural fibres grown without toxic chemicals will improve your impact on our environment, and the world our children will be raising their children in.
See ecologist Dr. Mark Browne’s research into pollution on our shorelines.