Imagine yourself chilling on the best Caribbean beach, diving Australia’s Great Barrier Reef or even hiking in the white mountains of Switzerland. Now close your eyes and imagine one of these places covered up with single-use plastic… Would you be happy to keep this image on your mind or try to join the Plastic Free July challenge?
The 5 Ws for the Plastic Free July challenge
What is the Plastic Free challenge?
I’m going plastic free next month. Who wants to join me?
Rebecca Prince-Ruiz
The Plastic Free July challenge is an Australian initiative of Plastic Free Foundation Ltd. founded in 2011. Today, eleven years after, this initiative is known and supported globally, as a good way to get closer to this way of living: plastic-free and so respecting our planet. This global movement helps and teaches people to avoid plastic as much as possible for the whole month of July.
Shouldn’t this challenge be a daily routine? Something most of us should be aware on “why” and “how” to refuse plastic in our life?
Rome wasn’t built in a day… perfection doesn’t exist and to start something you need to start from somewhere. As good to take it slowly but with care, I believe, this challenge is what those who are looking to go Plastic-free shall join.
Plastic Free July consists easily of avoiding and refusing single-use plastic and finding a replacement for all the plastic for the future. The actual challenge is quite easy and if your goal is to make it for the whole month, this shouldn’t be impossible, you don’t need to be perfect from day 1.
Today, especially in big cities, plastic is one of the main materials you will see around you. Starting from water bottles to food bags, coffee cups and many more.
So are you ready to take the Plastic Free July challenge and maybe keep the good habits for the long term?
Why refuse and avoid plastic?
The problems with plastic are many – in my previous article on “little steps to go plastic-free“, you can learn 5 easy ways to use less plastic in your daily life. The main issue with this element is that this is made from fossil fuels, and it uses energy and water to be produced; in hundred of years this won’t decompose, the plastic recycling is still a very small percentage compared to the use and production; it does kill wildlife and it is now in our food chain.
The world produces yearly around 380 million tonnes of plastic each year, half of this for single-use. If we talk with a percentage, 91% of this plastic is not recycled, so this says that only 9% in fact is.
Of the 8.3 billion metric tons that has been produced, 6.3 billion metric tons has become plastic waste. Of that, only nine percent has been recycled
National Geographic
How can you easily do it?
Do it first, then learn. There are no actual rules for the Plastic Free July challenge, as I would say is a challenge that teaches us and put us in a position of learning how much plastic there is around in everyday life and how much plastic we can avoid just with easy reminding.
Going in a July Plastic-Free mood means for me to acknowledge and fight this crazy production, to have less waste to care about and to do my little to change the world.
If I think about myself some years ago, maybe in my teenage, I am probably surrounded by plastic. The amount of single-use plastic to see in birthday parties, cheap restaurants or fast foods, water bottles, make-up and beauty products, plastic bags and many other more, was crazy…
Since I started to work in restaurants, after my diploma, I realized even more about how the plastic problem was visible; most of the things used in the kitchen, for hygienic reasons, are made from plastic (chopping boards, containers, measuring jags etc.). In most the kitchen the amount of plastic it’s very uncomfortable, plastic that has been used for literally 1 minute and then chucked in the mix waste bin.
When I left Rome and moved to London in 2014, the plastic issue was becoming bigger and more annoying than back home to my eyes. Starting to live on my own meant buying all the items and accessories I needed for the room, the bathroom and the kitchen; so all these new experiences made me face how difficult was to go plastic-free from day one of my new life chapters. Since I was facing the plastic problem daily, I decided to be aware of what I was buying and I tried to avoid single-use plastic as much as I could.
The keys to do the Plastic Free July challenge are simply to reuse what you already have, refuse what you don’t need, avoid single-use plastic by replacing it(for example your coffee mug, or shopping bag), recycle the plastic you can’t avoid to buy, shop from the plastic-free bulk store and slowly replacing the daily items you can’t stop to use (such as toothbrush, dish sponge, shampoo, bath detergent and many others more). The challenge won’t leave anyone behind as we are all learning how to do these steps, every day you will be able to learn something you will be happy change the day after.
Today, I can say I am changed from what I used to be. My “silly” shopping has ended for years now and I can finally make a lighter suitcase when I move from one place to another, I believe this challenge will help you to start thinking differently and so acting, in terms of plastic consumption and making less waste.
Who’s able to change something?
Who is able to do the Plastic Free July challenge? I would say everyone is, you, your friends and family, your partner and I. Together we will have the power to share, compare and give advice or easily talk about our own experiences.
For the past three years, 2019-2021, the Plastic-free July organization registered an average of 240 million people joining the challenge each of these years, the participants choose to refuse a total of 2 billion tonnes of everyday plastic items for the three years together and the participants reduce their household waste and recycling by 15kg per person per year.
Plastic Free July, back in 2011, was being joined by only 40 people from the Australian city of Perth. After a few years, already the challenge became bigger and thanks, also, to social media development, it was known all over the globe, so allowed more people to be aware of the reasons and the ways to avoid single-use plastic and plastic in general.
In these 11 years, Plastic Free July has reduced global demand by 2.3% of all bottled water, 3.1% of all fruit and vegetable packaging, 4.0% of all plastic straws and 86% of the people who joined the challenge, made changes that have become a way of life.
Join the Plastic Free July Challenge
So be one of us and feel free to join the challenge today, you can register to their website and take a 1-minute survey, just to be a part of the change that will affect not only your lives but will help the globe to have less plastic in everyday life.
When to take part?
Today is the day to start the Plastic Free July challenge. Today as the day you will read this article or today as the 1st of July 2022 or as well two weeks after the beginning of the month.
Doesn’t really make the difference if is not July, but I believe if you are reading this article is as well because you are planning something you already were aware existed. So don’t hesitate and take all these pieces of information and plan your day 1 of the challenge.
It’s free, it’s cheap and does make huge changes if done together.
Did you like the article? If yes, you can have a closer look to Rebecca’s and Joanna’s book about this topic. You will read the full story of how this began, the different experiences and how to become step by step plastic free.
Let me know your thoughts on this challenge and share your experience here with me, we can together support each other where it might seems to be some difficulties.
