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Green Living
5 Tips To Reduce The Plastic In Your Home
By: Kit Heathcock (2010-06-22)
Plastic is an incredibly useful substance. We have only to look around our homes to see how versatile it is. No doubt our computers, TVs and many other appliances would be out of reach luxuries if plastic had never been invented.
The trouble is that we have now reached a point where our world is awash with discarded plastic. The oceans have huge masses of plastic floating around in them, polluting the water and affecting marine life, and landfill sites are under pressure with mountains of this non-biodegradable substance.
There is also concern about the effect that so much plastic packaging has on our health and our kids’ health – the toxic chemicals and hormones in plastic are said to be reducing fertility levels across the whole population.
Yet another problem is that plastic uses petrochemicals to produce and petroleum is a fast-dwindling finite resource.
It is urgent that we all try to reduce the amount of plastic that we use, as much as we can. Reducing our household plastic consumption may seem only the tiniest drop in an ocean of plastic refuse that plagues our planet, but the only place that we can really start making a difference is in our own homes. If every person in the world used ten fewer plastic bags a month, that would be 60 billion fewer plastic bags each month floating about in our oceans and choking up our land.
These are just a few simple suggestions for reducing the amount of plastic you use. Use them as a starting point and then see what other ways you can reduce plastic waste in your home.
1. Use cloth shopping bags for your grocery shopping. Keep your cloth bags in the trunk of your car so that you don’t forget to take them with you. If you do have to use a few plastic bags for big shops, re-use them the next time, and the next. When they get too worn, they can be recycled rather than trashed.
2. Reduce the number of plastic freezer bags you use. Whenever possible use containers that can be washed and used again to freeze foods. Yoghurt containers with lids work well. Collect different sized tubs with lids, such as margarine containers and cream cheese containers. All these can be used for varying amounts of food to be frozen. By re-using these containers you are already helping reduce the amount of plastic you are throwing out each week. Label them with a permanent marker pen.
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3. Use waxed paper instead of plastic wrap or zip-lock bags for kids’ sandwiches and snacks. You can even re-use the bags inside cereal boxes for this very effectively.
4. Fill your own re-usable water bottle at home instead of buying plastic bottles of water when you’re out and about. Make a habit of never leaving the house without a bottle of water and make sure your kids do too. If your tap water doesn’t taste great, then filter it for home use instead of buying mineral water in plastic bottles
5. Buy products packaged in glass rather than plastic if there is a choice. Glass bottle and lids can be re-used again and again, for storing foods, making your own preserves, canning and salad dressings.
Get to know the re-cycling symbol and numbers on plastics and recycle all the plastics that you can. When you have to buy products in plastic packaging, look at the bottom to make sure the plastic is recyclable. Some plastics can be made into nylon for clothing and every bit of plastic recycled is at least being put back into use rather than floating about our oceans.
Don’t feel you have to throw out all your plastic containers and buy new glass ones immediately. The most environmentally friendly solution is to re-use the things you already have as long as they last, re-cycle them when they come to the end of their useful life and replace them with long-lasting non-plastic alternatives wherever possible. So for example, when your Tupperware gets too disgusting to use, replace it with lidded pyrex dishes, which will double up as food storage, as well as being oven, freezer and microwave safe.
Remember the green living mantra: Reduce, Re-use, Re-cycle, and put it into practice in that order.
©Copyright 2010 - Kit Heathcock
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