Plastic Free July

The Plastic Free Foundation was started in 2011 in Western Australia and is now one of the most influential environmental campaigns in the world. 2019's Plastic Free July saw 250 million people across the globe taking part in the challenge.

I can't wait for the figures of this year's challenge!

All of the brilliant PFJ participants have reduced their household waste and recycling by an average of 5%, down 23kg per person per year! So keep up the good work my friends, because you have saved 825 million kg worth of plastic waste from entering this world.

Did you know that 9 out of 10 people changed their plastic use habits after Plastic Free July? So spread the word and get all of your friends and family members on board for the next one (or better, for Plastic Free August, because why would we only commit to this challenge in July?).

This year, I've been taking it seriously and now that we're halfway through, I am still slowly working on making our house plastic-free.

Let me tell you how we are slowly moving away from plastics within our household:

Our bathroom is finally ~ almost ~ plastic free (we've been working on that for a year: huge bottles of shampoo take a really long time to use up). I am using a shaving bar, face cleansing bar, soap bar and will very soon move over to a shampoo and conditioner bar. I'll be ordering some more soaps and a shampoo bar from Geo Generation because I heard that shampoo bar is better than Lush! I got me and my husband some recyclable razors from Bambooi but I'm sorry to say they are HORRIBLE and the husband won't ever be using those again (I'll do a review on that later).

We use Cheeky Panda's toilet paper, wet wipes and kitchen towels (get the best price at @thecleaningcabinet).

Our kitchen is also almost plastic free. I have started making my own hummus, oat milk and granola, baking sourdough bread (what a commitment that is) and I'm still figuring out how to make our own vegan yoghurt (haven't had any successes with that unfortunately). Yes, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and it's always a mess.

We're getting our fruit and vegetables delivered by Oddbox and dried foods by Cero (which is completely plastic free), but for our other groceries we are ordering through Sainsbury's. They are currently delivering in plastic bags because of the pandemic, which is something I'd like to change. I have tried ordering with Waitrose and Ocado but there are never any slots open because they are reserved for the vulnerable and elderly (they both deliver in biodegradable bags so I hope to be able to shop with them soon).

We've been using containers, food huggers and reusable baking paper sheets to reduce our household waste and are using compostable bin liners for our general waste.

We put our recycling in a cardboard box instead of a bag (the Oddbox boxes are the perfect size for our amount of recycling every week).