All My Trash For Plastic-Free July
I’ve been saving my trash in a “plastic audit” since October of last year. I live a generally plastic-free lifestyle but I’m not 100% plastic-free…yet. So, to see where the last 1% of my trash was coming from, I started keeping track of all of it. And at the end of each month, I take a look to see where I could improve. This month is a little more interesting because it’s Plastic-Free July! Along with millions of other activists around the world, I’ve taken the pledge to refuse single-use plastics for the whole month of July!
A few reminders of the rules. This is just my trash not my whole family’s (although they don’t generate too much more than this). Normally, I do not include my family’s trash because I am not with them 24 hours a day. Also, my husband is not as stringent on plastic as I am, so he buys a weekly tub of yogurt for himself and I don’t include it in my trash. But again, his trash is not too much more than what’s shown here.
I do however save any trash generated from feeding my family meals at home. So, while I don’t drink milk (being basically lactose intolerant) my kids drink milk. So, the milk caps are technically trash that my kids generate but I add them to my trash since I decide what they eat at home.
Finally, in the city I live in, there’s compost and recycling pick-up along with trash. Now, given the state of recycling, I only recycle metal, glass, and paper. This generally includes an occasionally drink or food can, glass jars with metal lids, and glossy junk mail that can’t be composted.
So, now that we’ve covered the ground rules, let’s dive in! Here’s all my trash for the month of July!
Overall, I’m pretty happy with the results. This is probably my smallest monthly trash pile since I started and a great result for Plastic-Free July. Let’s dive into each week to see what I learned.
Week 1
I’m pretty happy with Week 1. For the purposes of my trash audit, I end my weeks on Friday. And since July started close to Friday, Week 1 for this month is technically 10 days of trash. Given that, I’m even more stoked by how little trash there is! We’re winding down our milk consumption and I’m being a little more strategic about the vegetables I buy to avoid the pesky tags. Other than that, it’s a good week!
Week 2
Half way through Plastic-Free July and I’m stoked! These last two weeks have been the best weeks since I started tracking my trash. Ideally, I’d like to avoid the vegetable tabs by buying the vegetables at the farmers market, but as I mentioned in 5 Tips for Shopping at Farmers Markets during COVID-19, when my Farmers Market opened back up nearly everything is was bagged in plastic. With the farmers I know well enough, I ask them to dump the items in my bag or on the table. In the next week or so, I’ll start exploring how I can get more plastic-free produce at my farmers market.
Week 3
Week 3 got a little more interesting. I’ve been trying to replace the polyester items in my closet and I’ve been doing it with items from an online consignment shop. I love that I can buy high quality used items online but I don’t love that they come shipped in a plastic bag.
I’ve also been doing a little more indoor and outdoor gardening so I bought a part of gardening gloves. The plastic seals on glass jars have been catching me off guard. This is a reminder for me to pay attention when I’m grabbing glass jars at the grocery store. More and more glass jars are now coming with a plastic seal around the lid.
Week 4
Another awesome week! The only thing I will say is that it bums me out when I see glass jars with plastic seals on them. This glass jar of Himalayan Pink Salt had a both a paper tamper seal and a plastic seal. Luckily, I saw that my favorite online zero waste bulk shop, The Wally Shop, has Himalayan salt. So, I’ll order some more from there when I run out. I talk more about the Wally Shop in “My Experience with Online Zero Waste Bulk Shopping“.
Lessons Learned
Overall, I’m pretty happy with my results from July. Granted it was Plastic-Free July, so I made an extra effort to avoid single-use plastics.
This month, I went back to getting the majority of my produce at the farmer’s market. My farmer’s market was closed for the first few months of COVID-19 and when it finally reopened, nearly everything was packaged in plastic. The first few trips I only went to my favorite vendors to get the necessities because I knew they would take the extra steps to remove the plastic if I asked. As time went on I’ve seen less plastic and I’ve started buying more produce at the farmer’s market to avoid those extra vegetable tags.
My other takeaway for the month is to look closer at glass jars before putting them in my shopping cart. If I can find options without a plastic seal around the lid that’s one less piece of plastic!
What do you think? Are you interested in doing a trash audit? Maybe for a day or a week? Tell me if you do in the comments!
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