Plastic Free July Wrap Up

Well Plastic Free July is over for another year and here is almost all of the single use plastic that we accumulated over the month.  In addition to what you see here there were a few pieces that I did not save as they had contained meat.  There were also a few bread bags but in our house these get washed and used at least one more before being put to their final use of picking up the dog poop around the yard.

Some of the things that were in the dilemma bag that I am not so worried about were the packages for the home brew ingredients which make 25 litres of beer, the coffee pack with locally made coffee and I am not sure what I could have done about avoiding the band-aids since I decided to try and slice the top of my finger off.

There was also this little pesky thing that came around the top of a jar.  I am not sure what the manufacturers put it on for because it does not actually do anything functional from what I can see. Does anyone know what they are supposed to do?

Then there were the packages that the pet medication comes in and the lid from the home brew mix.

Finally there was the empty bag of dog food which we replaced during the month.  The old ones get used for bin liners so they do get a second use but they are a really good example of a form of plastic that we just could not avoid unless we made our own dog food.  making it is something I have considered, but of all the things that I want to do for myself it is a long way down the list.  Sometimes when you strive for a simple life you have to look at where you will get the most benefit in terms of making things yourself.  For me the 1 bag of dog food we buy every few months saves me what I imagine would be a number of hours which I could put to better use so in this case I am happy to buy it.

Overall I am happy with how the month went and now that I have found some where to take all my soft plastic for recycling  it makes me feel much better about the small amount we do end up with.  I will still work at reducing what comes into our house where I can and I really hope that everyone who reads this will at least start to consider how much plastic enters their home and what they do with it.
Yes it takes a bit more effort to save it up and take it to a location where they accept it for recycling but I would rather do that the send it to land fill.

How did you go during the month?