The focus of our last blog was about the fabulous program Cafeteria Culture and the next nationwide “Plastic Free Lunch Day”, now being held for a full week April 17-24.  We recognize that many of our subscribers do not work in schools or have possibilities of influencing schools to be plastic free. However, probably all of our subscribers eat lunch and may work in businesses with other people who eat lunch and thought it would be fun to challenge everyone to enjoy “Plastic Free Lunch Day” in solidarity with schools across the nation and in keeping with the 2024 Earth Day theme of “Planet vs. Plastic”.  EarthDay.org is unveiling a plan to achieve 60% reduction in the production of plastics by 2040. 

Our blog this week is to encourage you to participate in a fun, educational, and impactful way to measure the impact of plastics in our environment, our communities, and in ourselves.  You can even create a fun competition with family, friends, and co-workers.

We can learn together how much plastic permeates our lives and how we can do better, and how we can make positive change become reality. 

The challenge consists of measuring our personal use of plastic for one week, learning about what substitution and usage reduction strategies are available, re-measuring how much we can reduce our contribution of plastic into the environment without a drastic negative impact on our lifestyles, and then celebrating becoming part of the solution! 

 What can you do?

Plastic Free Lunch Challenge!

April 22-May 4

Going plastic free can be challenging and fun. . . like a treasure hunt!

Going plastic free is good for our health and the health of all living things!

Becoming plastic free is a gift to our future generations!  Try It, You’ll Like It!

Now that you have decided to participate . . . what are the steps?

1.    April 22-28 Set a baseline plastics usage; for seven days save all of the single use plastic you accumulate including produce bags, food wrappers, bread bags, shopping bags, yogurt containers, water bottles, soda bottles, take out containers, coffee to go cups, etc. etc. etc., everything that is made of plastic and you would normally throw away or recycle.  During this week don’t change anything in your daily habits. 

2.    April 28- Audit your collection: Weigh all the plastic.  Count how many plastic items you have. Make a list of the source of your items. Take photos of your collection. Analyze what is essential or unavoidable and what is not essential and can be substituted or eliminated. We have attached a list of ideas. (Please email us if you would like us to send you a copy of our audit form!)

3.    April 29-May 4-Many of us have gone on diets. . . now try going on a plastic diet. See how much single use plastic you can eliminate. Collect single use plastic waste again but this time make as much of an effort as you can to refuse, reduce and replace single use plastic in your daily life.  It’s only seven days- you can do it!

4.    May 4-weigh and audit your single use plastic waste again and compare to your “Pre-Diet” plastic.

5.    Congratulate yourself on completing this challenge which hopefully is enlightening, interesting and educational.  Collect and share results with us! Tell your friends about the challenge, and encourage them to participate and celebrate Earth Day, April 22 by starting this challenge!

Many of us have seen the most recent devastating reports on the state of plastic waste around the world. Here are some great organizations doing remarkable work.

• https://www.cafeteriaculture.org

• https://endplasticsoup.org

• https://www.beyondplastics.org

• https://esragplastics.org

A few great resources:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1_zb10euFo

• https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bottled-water-nanoplastics-up-to-100-times-more-plastic-pnas/

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yomf5pBN8dY

 Easy substitutes for plastic:

• Ditch plastic bottles of water, instead use a beautiful stainless steel to-go bottle.

• Switch from using disposable coffee cups to reusable. Some places will even give you a discount on your coffee.

• Transform your shopping routine, opting for mesh bags (or no bags!) for your produce, reusable bags for your groceries, and jars or paper for bulk items.  Try changing your buying habits to avoid products that come in plastic.

• Buy your produce fresh avoiding pre-cut and pre-packaged produce.

• Refuse plastic bags when offered, instead bring your own, even for fast food.

• Support restaurants that use compostable containers for take-out.  To make change happen, it’s important that vendors hear people politely say “No, thank you.”

• If you really need a straw, bring your own metal one.

• Transform your household products to refillable and items that come in sustainable packaging. A great example is clothes wash detergent that comes in sheets. Check out your local re-fill store.

• And change your toilet paper!! No more wiping with TP sourced from virgin rain forests and packaged in plastic. Consider Who Gives A Crap (https://us.whogivesacrap.org/collections/all) or other similar companies.

Thank you from McSisters Tackle Plastic