Episode 61 - Plastic Free July Movement

I can't even remember, I think at six or seven years, um, three years ago. So this was plastic fridge, July, 2018. I decided to why not challenging myself a little bit more. Why not continuing with the challenge and not only go plastic free, but also to go as low waste or as zero waste as I could. And when I was thinking about doing this, I was actually. Thinking of why, why do I want to do this? Why do I want to challenge myself to do that?

And one of the things that I realized was that at the foundation and the basis of taking part of challenges, making changes like this for our life is why, why do I care? Why do you care about making a change? Like. Do you care about climate change? Do you care about the environment about plastic on the beach or in the ocean about the amount of pollution there is about your own personal health, about the amount, about your legacy in the next generations.

It's really important to understand that aspect because once you understand that. It's easier to take the actions that align with that or easier, at least. So for me, I know that my own journey, I care about my wellbeing, my wellbeing, with my own health, what I eat, what I put into my body, the impact that that has. I love to be connected with. Modern earth with nature with its natural spaces. And therefore I care about how those spaces are kept.

I care about going to different places and to live them better than I found them. So as I started to realize what I cared about, I started. Align my behavior to that, and having a really big footprint with how much waste I'm creating. Wasn't something that is aligned with my values on what I care about. And it's not easy. You know, we live in a society that we are used to what the normal is that. A linear model that things are created. We use them, then they're rubbish.

Then they go to landfill or whatever they end up being, uh, in the streets, the ocean somewhere in nature. And that really, it's not something that I think that is natural. Normal doesn't mean natural. Something that has been normalized. Doesn't need to be what we. Because the reality is that in nature, nothing is linear waste. Doesn't exist in nature. If we look at all of the natural systems, everything is circular.

We create waste because we created this system that is linear, but the reality is that everything is circular. So for me, Looking at that, it was easier to make a decision to keep on changing my behavior more and more. And one of the biggest things with this was understanding my consumption habits, understanding where I'm buying things from. How are those made. And then what happens with other things?

After I use them, I decided to slow down even more to be able to look, take stock of what I was buying from, how I was voting with my daughters. Um, I started to realize I am fortunate enough here in New Zealand to be able to have the local farmer Mar farmer's market, where I can go with my own reusable bags. I can buy the produce from there. I live in a house where we grow some veggies. They're FRA get some veggies from there.

I can go to some refills to go with my own containers or glass jars, and I can refill them with all the rest of the things that I need. So I started to realize that if I did that most of the waste that I was creating, that's gone. Because most of the waste that I was creating, came from what I was eating. So if I started to buy everything from the farmer's market, I stopped going to the supermarket. I stopped buying things that came with packaging.

Now this was something that I needed to actually make a decision. and this was one of the hardest ones that was those things that I cannot find without packaging. I'm just not going to buy them. I'm not going to eat that product that I cannot find without packaging now also just to share and I'm vegan. So I eat, uh, fully whole food plant based diet and. Some things it's really challenging to find without package. And most of those packages are single used plastics.

So it's, it was a decision that I had to make. Not everyone is going to make that decision, but for me, it was more important to align with what I cared about with reusing. Single use plastic with reusing the amount of rubbish that I was creating rather than my taste balance. Of course, I try as much as possible to it, to really balance diet, to make sure that my health is well, but that is a decision that I made. That's not a decision for everyone.

I made that decision and it's been really incredible to see that I can do it. And actually it is possible to reduce a lot of the waste that we create just by changing a few things with what we eat. Then I started to notice that beyond that, what else was I getting some waste? And some of it was, if I was buying something, I would get it in.

If I was carrying it home in that career, usually if I didn't specify in advance, which now I do, if I, if I do buy something, I specify in advance for however, they are sending that place, not sending that in plastic. And it is those little things that I started to reduce to also help me. So. With plastic fridge alive and with reducing our waste, it's not as hard as sometimes we might think that it is. I know for me, it wasn't that hard. It is a little bit less convenient.

And with that, I think that for a lot of people that makes it really challeng. Because a lot of the people that I talk to, a lot of my clients, their lives are really busy. They are running around, going from thing to thing to thing. And that's perfectly okay. I'm not saying that's not good for me slowing down, going a little bit more minimalist makes my life easier. Sometimes my days are full, but I make conscious decisions, conscious choices to make my own food every single day.

Instead of eating out to go during the weekend to the farmer's market, to take my own containers, to take everywhere with. My reusable bag with a container, with some paper bags that I keep on reusing until they're completely unusable and then encompass them to take my water bottle to take, um, reusable, ERY. So any time that I find myself somewhere under any situation that I didn't have. My own food, or I need to buy something.

I have everything needed to not need any single use plastic container, cap bottle, anything. Now this is not about perfection. This is not about charging myself, judging yourself or judging any other person. This is about making decisions that align. With what you already believe in. And it's really important to, to understand with reducing what actually is happening.

So if I understand that to create a plastic bag or to create a plastic bottle amount of resources, oil, So the petrol that is needed, the amount of energy that is needed, the amount of water that is needed, all of those resources that are needed besides talking about the ethical components and, and the. The people that work in those conditions and how the people that work in those places are treated beyond taking, talking about that, just the energy that is used and the resources that that uses.

That's a lot for something that potentially I will only use for a brief amount of time. And then the amount of resources, if that gets recycled. And that's big if, because almost. No, like almost 90% or even more of all plastic that has ever been created. Hasn't been recycled. If even something gets recycled or down cycled, that usually ends up actually using a lot of, so we can just not have that.

If we create systems a that are circular, that we start to reuse more that we say no to things more. I love free stuff. I think that almost everybody loves free stuff, but I've been to a few conferences that they were giving some giveaways and some good bags and some free samples. And I said, no. Even though I would love to have a lot of those little things. Cause I grew up loving all of that free stuff. I say no to that.

And when I challenge myself with plastic, French light, and I challenge myself beyond that, that's a personal journey and that's something that each of us go through differently. We all learn differently. I learn so much. About composting. I learned so much more about the local community next to me. I learned so much more about how I like to engage with people and how I prefer to know where my food is coming from. The people that are growing it, the love that they are putting behind.

Knowing that I'm supporting someone with a faith that I know, and those little things really helped me. So for this plastic fridge line, I invite you, if you haven't joined yet to join, to challenge yourself, to see what are those little smart things that you can change. But first of all, Knowing your why, knowing what you care about knowing that you don't need to be perfect. There's no such thing as perfection.

It's just about what is the next conscious action that you can take each and every single day seeing what is that being kind to yourself whenever you don't do that? Being kind to others that don't know. that perhaps they don't care about the same thing that you care about. Some other people might be focusing on other things on how to reduce their impact with a carbon footprint.

Or by being vegan with animal suffering, by focusing on ethnicity and minority groups that are not having their first share in the world. So equality and, and, and being more equal. There's so many things that people are focusing on. So it's not up to me and up to anyone to. It's about understanding. Do I care about this? Yes. Is there something that I can do about this? Yes or no. And potentially it's yes, a little bit. I'm going with that little bit, so I encourage you.

If you care about this, give it, go, see how it goes. Sign up for the challenge. And see, get inspired by other people doing this. I know that it's possible. I'm in this journey. I know a lot of people that are in this journey, we've had already in the podcast and a lot of people that are in this journey. So get inspiration from people. Take the time, see where can you make small changes?

How can you have a bigger impact in the world by reducing your F. you are negative footprint by reducing the amount of plastics that you use. So go take the challenge and let us know how it goes for you.