13 Jul
Vesica blog

7 Ways To Have A Plastic-Free Weekend

We find the weekend one of the toughest times to be plastic-free. You’ve spent all week packing lunchboxes in glass or metal containers for you and the kids, remembered your shopping bags and sipped from your water bottle but then the weekend comes and you’re out of the house a little bit more and looking for ways to treat yourself to a coffee from your local cafe. It’s all too easy to fall back into your old plastic wasting habits.

The Plastic Free July Challenge is a great way to get started on the road to a zero-waste lifestyle, but it is exactly that – a lifestyle. Incorporate some plastic-free activities and practises into your weekend and soon they will become second nature, meaning that you will be reducing your plastic without even thinking about it! Here are 7 of our favourite plastic-free weekend activities to get you started.

Visit the local farmers market

Farmer’s markets are a great weekend activity and a great way to save on plastic wrapping, eat organic, support local and independent businesses and have an all-around more personal shopping experience. You can find these in your local town and more and more are popping up in cities. Bulk food stores are also another way to say on the packaging, just grab your favourite refillable container!

Buy from the deli or bakery

When it comes to buying the ingredients for brunch this weekend visit your local bakery for your loaf of bread or the deli for your bacon. Most businesses are happy to wrap your products in your own containers or wax wraps so just ask!

Take your own picnic

If you’re lucky enough to have some sunshine this weekend, pack up a picnic and set off for your local park. As most of us can’t visit cafe’s at the moment a picnic is a great alternative, and it will help you to reduce your plastic waste.

For the ultimate plastic-free picnic, wrap your goodies in muslin or wax and store items in glass or stainless steel containers. You can also bring your own glass cups to drink out of and bamboo or metal cutlery, if you need them. Then all you need to do is just sit back and relax.

Remember your water bottle

Plastic bottles are the quickest thing to sink to the bottom of the ocean, and will never biodegrade. Plastic particles from bottles are also slowly eroding into your water so on a whole they are bad for the environment, and bad for your health! Grab yourself a stainless steel water bottle and remember to keep these on hand when you’re out and about this weekend.

Start your own herb garden or veggie patch

Herbs and veggies often come with a huge amount of plastic waste. From herb portions wrapped in plastic to fruit on plastic trays, there are so many ways that you can reduce your plastic waste and growing your own is one of the best.

Even if you just have space for a few small pots of herbs or salad leaves on your window ledge growing your own is a perfect weekend activity!

Ditch the coffee run

We know that a coffee run on a Sunday morning feels like a treat, but disposable coffee cups can no longer be recycled. It is estimated Australians use 1 billion disposable coffee cups each year. That’s approximately 2,700,000 paper coffee cups thrown out every day!

Instead, invest in some quality, fair-trade coffee that lives up to your takeaway coffee standards and make your own at home. It also means that you can stay in bed a little bit longer while you drink it.

Make your own cleaning products

There is basically nothing that you can’t clean with a little vinegar, baking soda and water. Mix 1/2 cup vinegar and 1/4 cup baking soda into 1/2 gallon (2 litres) of water in a glass spray bottle and you’ve got an eco-friendly cleaner that will clean kitchen surfaces, water deposit stains on the shower stall panels, bathroom chrome fixtures, windows, bathroom mirrors, etc.

Can you count how much plastic you’ve used so far this weekend

29 Jun
Vesica blog

What is Plastic-Free July – and how to get involved

Plastic Free July is a global movement that helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution.

Founded by the Plastic Free Foundation in 2011, Plastic Free July allows us to work towards our vision of seeing a world free of plastic waste so we can have cleaner streets, safer oceans and beautiful communities.

The Plastic Free July challenge helps millions of people take small, daily actions to reduce plastic consumption. Last year, 326 million people across the globe took part in the challenge from 177 countries to reduce each participant’s household waste and recycling by an average of almost 5% (21kg). 

This year, the Plastic Free July® challenge is calling on people to choose to refuse single-use plastic in a bid to help exceed last year’s worldwide efforts and hit the global target of 1 billion kilos of waste avoidance.

Whether you’re a beginner or an avid plastic-waste warrior. This is a great opportunity to reinstate the positive progress made in reducing plastic waste and pollution in our own household and across the globe. How much of a difference would this make in your house?

Rebecca Prince-Ruiz, founder of Plastic Free July and one of the world’s leading plastic waste experts, explains why she believes the challenge can achieve record waste avoidance this year.

“Every year this challenge has grown exponentially, having started with only 40 colleagues in Perth to over 250 million global participants. This year the challenge feels more poignant than ever as we begin to realise how intrinsically our social and physical environment is tied to the fundamental wellbeing of our communities. We have also seen the power of collective action firsthand. Whilst Plastic Free July is a personal challenge, participants are part of a global effort to create cleaner streets, oceans, and a cleaner, healthier planet. We can all be part of the solution.”

The Plastic Free July Challenge seeks to address the most critical solution to plastic pollution – waste avoidance. Reducing waste and recycling is significantly more energy-efficient than piling up landfill or trying to extract plastic waste from the environment.

“Plastic Free July isn’t about drastic lifestyle change; it’s about being more conscious of the single-use plastics that you use day-to-day and taking small but smart steps to reduce them. Simple swaps could include switching to bar soap or avoiding plastic when you buy your vegetables. The majority of challenge participants started by choosing to refuse at least one single-use plastic but nine out of 10 ended up creating long-term habits that lasted far beyond the challenge itself,” said Rebecca Prince-Ruiz

Plastic Free July stated that last year, 73% of participants refused takeaway coffee (double that of those who have not been part of the challenge) and 8.5 out of 10 people made changes that have become a way of life.

To help you with your challenge, or just to help you get started, we will be sharing handy tips and tricks of how you can reduce your plastic consumption throughout the month of July. Sign up to be part of the solution and join the Plastic Free July movement here. Will you be taking part in the Plastic Free July challenge?

Modern Minimal Muted Blue Product Promise
04 Nov
Vesica blog

5 of the best plastic-free swaps for No Waste November

If you missed our last Instagram post, this month is No Waste November – a global movement to inspire people to pledge to reduce or eliminate waste in their lives. 

The initiative was started by Roots and Shoots, a youth-led action program in over 50 counties.  Founded by Dr. Jane Goodall, the program’s mission is to foster respect and compassion for all living things, to promote understanding of all cultures and beliefs, and to inspire each individual to take action to make the world a better place for people, other animals, and the environment.

Why a month? The theory is that it takes a month to develop a habit – in this case, one that benefits the planet!

The No Waste November pledge aims to help people (especially young people) to create good habits and healthy habitats.

You can get involved in No Waste November by:⁣

– Pledging to reduce your waste throughout November

– Getting your friends involved and joining the conversation through #NoWasteNovember

– Keeping it up for the rest of the month…and beyond!

If you have already pledged, we’d love to hear how you are doing and what kind of changes you have already made in your day-to-day routine.

If you are just starting, we wanted to share some of the easiest and cheapest ways that you can make a few swaps in your life which will make a massive difference to the amount of waste you create and reduce your plastic usage.

Reuse your shopping bags

Somewhere between five billion and one trillion plastic bags are used each year around the world, so get yourself some pretty reusable bags to take on your weekly supermarket trip. These are usually more attractive, bigger and last longer too. Plus there are so many great options of bags which fold up small so you can always keep one in your bag/pocket, just in case. Alternatively, grab an empty cardboard box from an aisle for an easy option to carry those extra items.

BYO reusable drinks bottles and coffee cups

Plastic bottles are the quickest thing to sink to the bottom of the ocean, and although coffee cups are made mostly from paper, they’re hiding an interior coated in plastic. Plastic particles from disposable water bottles are also slowly eroding into your water, so on the whole, they are bad for the environment, and bad for your health! Grab yourself a Vesica BPA Free, stainless steel bottle and a refillable coffee cup/tea infuser and keep these on hand whenever you’re out and about. 

Swap tea-bags for tea leaves

If you’re anything like us and average upwards of 5 cups of tea each per day, every day then over the course of a year you’ll be sending over 2,000 tea bags to landfills. The numbers are shocking when you think about it! To reduce this swap your tea bags for tea leaves in a metal strainer instead. The tea leaves are often better quality too, so it’s a win-win for everyone.

Ditch disposables

Disposable items in your house like razors, plastic toothbrushes and disposable cutlery may seem small. Still, over a lifetime, they are going to add up to a lot of plastic in our landfills. Switch to safety razors which you can change the blades of or items made from natural/biodegradable materials like bamboo. Plus, they look much nicer on your bathroom shelf.

Avoid wrapped fruit and veg

One of the easiest things you can do is to refuse the pre-wrapped fruit and veg in the supermarket. Instead of buying that plastic-wrapped multi-packs or items like packs of 6 apples, visit your bulk shop or pick your own from the loose section and bring your own bag or put them straight in your basket. Even better if you are lucky enough to have access to a farmer’s market!

Are you taking the No Waste November pledge? Let us know in the comments!

Wooden cutlery
06 Jun
Vesica blog

How to Start Living Plastic Free…

15 May 2018

How to Start Living Plastic FreeBulk Food Stores are fast becoming more popular and accessible

First you need to take a closer look at all the plastic in your life and around you – observe how much there is, where it comes from and where it goes.

Then, it’s all about finding plastic free alternatives to those products and things that come wrapped in plastic and are made out of plastic – and swap them out.

Start with steps – you don’t have to do everything all at once because that will become daunting, overwhelming and discouraging very quickly. Don’t be too hard or judgemental on your-self and others either, otherwise it becomes completely draining as well.

As you take the first steps by implementing the alternatives – I find that sectioning or categorising things into separate groups or areas really helps and makes it more manageable. For example: bathroom things or kitchen things, or food and cooking, cleaning products, beauty products, clothes, eating out and takeaway, travel and lifestyle, product packaging, shopping, etc… there are a number of ways you can categorise things to make it easier for you to handle, you’ll come up with what works for you based on what your current modality is.

Vesica Vessels

Modern Cloth NappiesManly Food Co Op

 

Gradually you’ll start to really notice a difference and more of a significant reduction in the amount of plastic going through your hands since you began this journey. You’ll see the impact in your life and around you as you start to become a lot more conscious of what you’re consuming and where it comes from.

You get to the point where you can be creative with it as you delve deeper and explore more as you research and discover new things. You’ll come up with your own innovative ideas, recipes, solutions, practices and alternatives to things you had before – and this becomes habitual and automatic. You are more conscious of your choices and how they impact your life, reality and the environment around you. It starts to extend into other areas of your life too, and people notice the change in you and become inspired by you as you shift towards a more conscious plastic free lifestyle. You are sharing more information and connecting with others and the network begin to grow.

Before you know it, this way of life is fully integrated into your lifestyle now and you are really aware and conscious of your impact and plastic footprint. You are taking charge of your choices not to support the unnecessary plastic pollution occurring on this planet and you can shape a positive, healthy, vibrant and plastic free environment.

For 10 simple ways to reduce your plastic – see our next blog post

 

Article written by Lillian Adele

(visit: www.lillianadele.com)