I write many blogs about the environment and how we must all do our part to slow climate change and to protect our natural resources. This page will be a page for sharing ideas, inventions and discoveries. I hope it engenders a real conversation about what individuals can do in big and little ways.
Here’s a question to start us off. Plastic is so much a part of our lives. It seems to be a part of almost everything we buy – on the packaging, if not in the product itself. So much of what we use in our homes is plastic, and to make matters worse, so much of it is one use plastic- cellophane wraps, plastic bags, plastic sandwich and freezer bags.
Question: What are the ways you reduce the use of plastic in your life? Let’s see how many ideas we can get.
Here is one thing I do. It doesn't sound like much, but after years of using plastic without even thinking about it, it was a big change for me. Now I hardly ever wrap anything in any kind of plastic for storage. Instead, I use glass containers for leftovers.
A simple easy change at the grocery store - I don't put my produce in plastic bags when I buy it. Why put apples, lettuce, tomatoes, etc in a plastic bag in your grocery cart just to put it in another bag to carry it home? My produce always arrives home just fine even though it is packed loose in my reusable grocery bags. (I have quite a variety of bags that I use for toting groceries. I think I got them all free and I just keep accumulating them. )
I realize that for much of the world using reusable bags is the most common practice imaginable, but for many of us here in the U.S., it is something we actually had to "learn" to do. The same goes for not wrapping things in plastic...a learning curve for us here in the U.S.
Please add some suggestions for reducing or eliminating your use of plastic in your home. The more ideas we share, no matter how simple, the more we help people like ourselves make simple changes, and if enough us make simple changes it adds up to a big change. Even it you think it is something everyone already does, put it in a comment anyway. You never know what an impact your one idea may have.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions!