My “Plastic Free July” Goals & Tips

This is my third year doing Plastic Free July but honestly there is so much I still need to do. I am definitely not the most eco-friendly person out there but I aim to improve a little bit more every year and I really like using the Plastic Free July campaign to include new habits/ items into my home.

Back when I had my twins I thought that swapping for reusable and plastic free items was just too hard and time consuming- I put it off. I then started very slowly with jars and bulk shopping, using glass containers and limiting plastic purchases. Last year I focused on the kids dinnerware, toys and removing coffee takeaway cups. We also use natural cleaning products, mostly natural beauty and household products, buy second-hand clothes and baby toys. We also only use metal straws.

So here I am again in 2019 at the start of a new Plastic Free July and I want to really improve my plastic-free efforts in the aim to reduce our family waste. One of the main reason I am vegan is for the environment so I really want to make better efforts in this domain. I know I will probably never be zero-waste but trying is better than doing nothing. 

This is all the different points I plan to do/ and items I want to swap soon during this year plastic free July. These are just my personal goals and this blogpost is not sponsored or done in collaboration with brands or products. I just wanted to share this and I would love to know about

2019 Plastic-free July goals:

• Keep using my reusable coffee cup, shopping bags, stainless steel straws and leftover containers.
• Buy reusable baby cinos mugs for the twins
• Aim to reduce consumption of fruits and vegetables sold in plastic packaging (not always easy for berries or salads.)
• Laundry detergent: I have just got some soap berries, I will see how they go with baby food stains or use baking soda.
• Mick’s lunch containers: We meal prep his lunches for 2-3 weeks at a time and place them all in the freezer. We currently use mostly those cheap takeaway plastic containers. we reuse them a fair few times but they always end up breaking apart and are not heathy for my husband so I will go and buy 15 glass lunch containers for him this month! This is probably the main point I want us to improve on.
• Online shopping packaging – I receive a lot of parcels at my house every week and I will now ask companies who send me products, samples and gifts to try to do more eco-friendly packages if they can. I love packages from Better Packaging Co for example.
• Compost Bin: We consume a lot of fruit and veggies and despite reducing waste we always have scraps and now that I have a veggie patch I would love to make my own compost. So a compost bin is also going on the list this month!
• Baking Paper: I do a lot of baking and I have recently learned that normal baking paper is covered in toxins and heavy metals including bleach, chromium and dioxins. I am going to reduce my use of baking paper by oiling a tin when baking and using some unbleached, chlorine free FSC-certified parchment paper instead.

Other zero-waste initiatives we do at home are:

• visit the library for books
• buy second hand toys and clothes for children
• do not buy clothes too often
• reduce food waste by only buying minimum and freezing leftovers for lunches
• limit store-bought snacks
• reduce food waste from the twins by turning veggie scraps in veggie stock paste and fruits into smoothies like the one below or baked crumbles.
• I am also the queen of turning random leftovers and veggies in the fridge into yummy salads! 

So today I turned 3 half eaten apples from the twins into this delicious vegan and #allergyfriendly Apple Pie Smoothie using the apples, homemade oat milk, ice, 1 old spotty banana, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger powder, linseed and a dash of maple syrup.

Please let me know in the comments or on Instagram what other things you do in your home? I know I am not perfect so I would love to hear some more easy tips my little family and I can do to reduce our waste and go plastic-free.