I’ve been on a journey to go plastic free for over 6 months now and I am finally feeling like I made it to a point where I have learned enough to share my story with you and work towards making even less waste. This all started as a not so sudden, but serious decision to buy no plastic for ‘Plastic Free July’. In order to do this properly, I needed to keep track of all the waste I created, known as a ‘waste audit’.
The end of July was just the start of a monthly photographic record of the rubbish I created and a milestone in the journey to zero waste. ‘No plastic’ is not an easy thing to achieve and still 6 months after starting this I have a relatively small quantity of plastic at the end of each month which is destined for landfill.
My journey to living with less plastic
For quite some time I was really wanting to do more to reduce my impact on the planet, but never felt like I was gaining traction or making any noticeable difference. I like having something measurable so I started to keep all my inorganic waste separate. Its not the waste of the whole household, just the rubbish I create/accumulate. Some waste from personal products and purchases and all the packaging I end up with from cooking for two, in a little bag at the back of the cupboard.
In earnest, I tried so hard to avoid making plastic waste but there has been a transition period to go through. Realistically, it is pretty hard to ‘just quit plastic’ as its hidden in a lot of the products you don’t even think it is! I found out that its also important to not belittle your sucesses and resist feeling guilty or embarrassed about the occasions when you slip up or end up throwing away the things you already had. Each time you have a meal or a day with no waste is a victory and all small steps are part of the journey.
Disclaimer: I still many plastic things in my life, and it certainly is still a useful material, however I am finding replacements for almost all the plastic products which are in my life, or I am doing without them so I can avoid purchasing plastic in the future.
At the end of each month I would lay out the rubbish, think about the items that were in there and how I could avoid them in the future and I would photograph it. This simple action of examining my waste created so much more awareness; I started to think more about where the products came from and what the ingredients were that made up some of the processed foods I liked to eat. And despite trying very hard to resist some things, its been a challenge to completely change my diet to exclude some things, like cheese.
Top right: Cheese is one thing I’ve found extremely hard to give up and so I still make pizzas and pasta bakes but use cheese a bit more sparingly. Middle Right: I use dilmah tea bags that have been in the cupboard since we moved in to make my kombucha… there’s still lots of them in the cupboard so I will use them until they run out.
What about recycling?
I have been able to do this while recycling very little plastic however I still do have recyclables made of other materials. I have not found any contact solution that comes in alternative packaging and same goes for some prescription medications that still come in little plastic bottles.
I do recycle quite a few tin cans and a reasonable amount of glass. I know these have a higher recycling rate than plastic but still am making efforts to also reduce the amount I put into recycling because it would be a huge energy savings if we didn’t create so many products to crush them down and create again.
The beer caps are representative of most of the bottles I used that went in recycling, but there are a fair few that never made it home to add to my collection. When possible I would refill a glass 2L ‘flagon’ with beer from select liquor stores that have this option. I bought the flagon from Sawmill Breweries but its a bit pricey to fill it there so I reserve that for special occasions! Refilling your own container saves lots from going to recycling but this is something that is more expensive, since beers on tap are usually craft beers, so its nicer to drink-but not great for a drink on a budget.
Soft plastic recycling is a story for another post. I used to separate out the so called ‘recyclable’ soft plastics from the rest of the rubbish but I am worried about the effectiveness of the current soft plastic recycling scheme. Perhaps my fear is that ‘recycling’ gives consumers a false sense of doing good and puts a perceived value on plastic, not taking into account the huge amount of energy and expense that comes with making these soft plastics ‘recyclable’.
I hear they are making benches and fence posts and adding waste to roadways as result of this process of ‘recycling soft plastics’ but I am concerned this will lead to many more micro-plastics being present in the ecosystem as the plastic breaks down by UV and weathering. So I choose to not rely on recycling my soft plastics as a means of reducing my waste but it is good that there is effort going into recycling the mass amount of waste from soft plastic packaging, but I’d rather find a way to avoid plastic than recycle it.
I can’t find a photo record from December, not sure but I think some of it ended up being January’s rubbish. In December I was away for a little over a week, on a research trip camping on the Poor Knights Islands, where our meals were cooked together… I wasn’t about to try and separate my rubbish over there, meals were a team effort and we didn’t have the luxury of bringing loads of ingredients in reusable containers to make everything from scratch.
Although I don’t have a photo record of December, I think it would be a bit more than the other months of the year with the holidays and all (however I did give zero waste gifts!). At the end of December I also went on a sailing trip, 10 days long and to be honest we didn’t create that much rubbish for three people on a boat (there was much more glass and aluminium recycling). I did bring lots of my glass jars with zero waste treats I made before we left; home baking and crackers, as well as mixed nuts, pretzels and pasta from Bin Inn. However I acknowledge that this is not always a practical use of space and if we were on a racing yacht people would have an issue with so many of my reusable containers being glass, which is heavy and more likely to get broken – but I do have cotton bags I can put most dry goods in for the future.
As I mentioned earlier its been difficult to cut cheese out of our diet. We cut out 90% of the meat I used to cook and I and while my partner has been patient and understanding of me choosing to not cook any red meat at home, he would hate it if I took cheese away from pizza, and I mean, how do you have pizza without cheese? (‘Dairy free’ cheese still comes in plastic) I do bring my own container to the local Puhoi Cheese Factory on days that they are cutting cheese, just to get some little triangles of fancy cheese ‘unwrapped’.
I know I’ll have to make more changes to my diet if I want to really be ‘plastic free’ and have less of an impact since its pretty much impossible to find cheese without a plastic wrapper, aside from the fact that dairy is not exactly environmentally friendly!
Reflections along the way
Yes, there is bigger issues in the world but the waste we create and the rubbish we send to landfill are still significant contributors to greenhouse gases in our environment not to mention the unsightly pollution created by society’s reliance on so many single use plastics. Our consumption is just simply unsustainable.
Sitting down to write this post highlighted to me that my ‘low waste living lifestlye’ is hard to apply to all circumstances, especially outside of living at home with a pantry of refillable containers. It’s not always possible to go shopping at specific places you know where you can find groceries in bulk or ‘unwrapped’. There is places in the world that don’t have those options available to begin with and its sadly not affordable for everyone and that’s a social/environmental justice issue, not one I am ready to delve into for this post.
I am not saying you can’t do travelling, camping and sailing expeditions low waste, but it takes way more preparation, planning and lots of lightweight reusables! There is many scenarios in which you’ll realise you have little control of the waste created but this little insight into my journey is meant to encourage you to do what you can to reduce and refuse waste when you can.
There is still lots of room for improvement in my low waste life – what do you think? I’ll be trying to keep this up and I encourage you to try to do a waste audit yourself!
