Plastic is rubbish, can we do anything about it…?

We are a consumer family. I know that. We rely on a lot of items of convenience, to get us through our daily lives. It’s something I half feel guilty about and half accept, simply because life for us is busy and crazy and I simply cannot sit down and stress over every little thing.

I do know that we use a lot of things that come encased in, covered with, or made of plastic, and plastic is not great. 

In certain circumstances plastic is very useful and convenient, and solves a lot of problems, but for a lot of life and what we need, there is TOO much of it. Everything seems to have something plastic about it.

Don’t get me wrong, plastic is incredibly useful and does some very important jobs. I am currently typing this on a laptop made with some plastic materials, and my mobile phone is partly made of plastic materials, and the medication that I had to have post my knee surgery came in a special plastic bag so it could be given to me safely and easily (IV fluids) and my knee brace that is supporting my knee post surgery is partly made of plastic, and many items we use today are made with plastic materials, because that’s the safest and cheapest way for them to be produced.

Plastic has it’s place. 

But I do think there is too much. I am not going to quote any sources or research, this blog post is purely my own observations on what we use as a family and what we could be reducing our use on that involves plastic. I am pretty sure it’s too much and we can do better. A lot of the plastic products we use are not recyclable, or only partly, or take a lot to break down, or worse, don’t break down at all. Is it possible to live better, with less plastic. The making of a lot of plastic items and the disposal of them is not good for our planet, you don’t need me to tell you that, it’s pretty much common knowledge. What we can do about that, is the key thing. Can we do better?

So, from next week, when we get back from holiday, I am going to do a daily record of everything we have used, and what it is made of, if it’s plastic. Then I am going to do a weekly round up of what we could replace or use less of, or be more responsible about using. It could be interesting because I suspect we use a lot more than we think we do. 

From food packaging to healthcare, and consumables, it may prove to be quite a challenge. I think I will do a weekly blog post and YouTube or maybe even daily (I am a bit of a fail as a vlogger, so that will also be a challenge!) 

So, watch this space and see how we get on…

Image used with permission