Who joined me for Plastic Free July…? (Sign up for the challenge here) It’s never too late even though we are on the last day of July…every little helps and there are some great ideas on the website..small changes combined DO make a difference.

Have you been the change in July?

Personally, Plastic Free July has been a stepping stone for me and will not stop on the 31st of July…If you have been looking at the figures and watched the video on the biggest garbage dumps around the world I hope that has encouraged you to think about your waste and how you can reduce it… I know many of you are already aware but we can all do more…

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make.”
—Jane Goodall

Let’s have a look at what good ideas I have seen throughout July…

I have now received my first pack of bamboo toilet paper…I have NO plastic waste packaging to dispose of and the only downside is it isn’t wound on a roll so we can’t attach it but the paper itself is very light beige not unpleasant in colour.. feels strong and soft not really any noticeable difference in texture apart from the middle bit is missing …I await the comments from the boys…

Bamboo is far more sustainable than trees and grows at a rate of knots…lol..it wasn’t overly expensive as some alternative products are but this is Thailand and it grows here…I can’t speak for anywhere else…The name of my product was Panda very apt…

Plastic Free July in Action has seen many great changes people have implemented

I have concentrated…Cleaning Products…

Cleaning products…so many plastic bottles on each shop to me to start there was a no brainer…

White Vinegar with water is brilliant for cleaning glass…If you watch this video you will get easy recipes and tips for drastically reducing your cleaning and it has a double whammy because what you are replacing it with doesn’t harm the environment when it enters the water systems…

I now have on order Castille soap to make my cleaners and hair soap which I will test and roll out to the family it is called Reef Safe and does not harm the environment and is not tested on animals…

I remember my grandmother using castile soap and her house was spotless…admittedly maybe she used a bit more elbow grease as my mum and nan used to tell us but it was the worse day when these time-saving cleaning products appeared…Just saying…

And then we had “Surf”

That was the start of all the worlds problems…

Overall just concentrating on those few products has reduced my plastic footprint…

My next step as July has just made me more conscious and determined to reduce our plastic footprint… is to address all the non-recyclable wrappers…I don’t think that will be quite so easy maybe I will have to make homemade sweeties for the little and the big kids or cook more popcorn as a snack…

I now have all my produce bags and once I go out shopping again I will be using them…sigh this covid is not getting any better here…They are easy to make and washable…

I changed my soap washing power at the beginning of Plastic Free July and the consensus is good which means another plastic wrapper bites the dust and there is no difference in the cleaning…

Elsewhere…

The action of the Month...worth a read as there are some interesting ideas.

Ye Olde Greengocer...Some delicious foods here…

Personally, I think this plastic bottle debate about leaching and harmful chemicals has gone on long enough…it’s our health and our families health for god’s sake I wrote about all this a couple years ago and I am going to revisit those posts and just see if any of the companies I mentioned have actually taken their promises forward …at a guess, I would bet my money on it…

This article just confirms it for me...Many of the world’s plastic containers and bottles are contaminated with toxic PFAS, and new data suggests that it’s probably leaching into food, drinks, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, cleaning products and other items at potentially high levels.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/09/toxic-forever-chemicals-plastic-food-containers?

Time for us to talk in the only language manufacturers understand…we have the power over what goes in our shopping trolleys…

How did you do for Plastic Free July..are you going forward? What changes did you make?

Thank you for popping in see you tomorrow for my weekly roundup…it is also the first day of August…where does the time go..it scary, isn’t it?