I strongly believe that part of growing up is deciding which causes are important to you. For me, it’s not eating meat and reducing the single-use plastic my life. The latter of the two is the most recent venture that I started back in September.
A big part of the plastic reduction in my lifestyle is removing plastic straws completely. It's been the easiest part of this process so far. I have come to learn that I have this severe addiction to buying reusable straws.
My addiction is to the point that my mom doesn’t want me to bring any more straws home. I really like testing out new materials with straws to see what I like the most. From bamboo to silicone to simple metal straws, I’ve tried them all. I don’t like the texture of plastic straws anyways, so taking them out of my everyday life was not an issue. Whether I’m ordering a beverage from a fast-food drive-thru or sitting down at a fancy restaurant, I tell them I don’t want a straw and pull out whatever straw I brought with me in my bag.
Recently, I bought a metal straw travel set that comes with three different straws (a small straight staw, a bent straw, and a smoothie straw) that comes in a cute canvas bag. It's perfect to throw in my backpack. I don't have to worry about the straws getting dirty and it's something that can stay in my bag.
Outside of reusable straws, I’ve been able to remove most of the non-reusable items from my kitchen supplies. I grew up in a family where we would wash our plastic cutlery and reuse it, so I bought a pack of yellow forks, knives, and spoons that I’ve been reusing since last summer and it’s been working for me. Not only are they my signature colour, but I don’t have to buy any cutlery from the school cafeteria ever again. I would love to get a metal lunch containers, but being a college student on a budget, the containers I got at Dollarama will have to do for now. While they may not be the most visually appealing, they’ll last me a long time and it’ll encourage me to bring food from home. They do their job, and that's the important thing.
Cutting out plastic water bottles has been pretty easy when it comes to going to school or out in general. I have a stainless steel water bottle that I take everywhere with me and because I got to decorate it, the bottle is a little more personal to me. It becomes a little harder when I’m back in Belleville. For a while, our water filter wasn’t working and we didn’t have a filter in our fridge. Instead of getting a Brita filter or something similar, my parents bought two packs of water bottles to use until we got our normal water filter fixed.
Outside of water, I tend to forget that soda comes in plastic bottles for the most part. So cutting the plastic out with that will mean that I’ll have to cut down on the amount of soda I drink, and I’m sure my teeth and dentist will thank me for that. I've slowly become more conscious about looking for drinks that comes in glasses instead while I'm out.
Along with my water bottle, I recently purchased a small, glass coffee mug that is the perfect size to take with me to school without having to worry about taking up too much space. Apart from thinking the mug is really cute, I love that most places I go to get hot beverages gives me a small discount for bringing my own mug. Now not only am I reducing the number of throwaway coffee cups going out into landfills or the world as a whole, but I'm also reducing the price of my hot chocolate.
Currently, I'm living without my parents, which means that I have to do my own grocery shopping. Being a vegetarian means that I eat a lot of vegetables, both raw and cooked. While I love my vegetables, I hate that I had to put them into plastic bags. It's unnecessary and it doesn't let the produce breath. I had already made the switch to reusable shopping bags, so it seemed natural to switch over to reusable produce bags. I did this really quickly and find myself more excited about grabbing some fresh vegetables because of it. Doing this also allowed me to differentiate my produce from my roommates.
Most of what I've talked about so far has been about reducing single-use plastic in the kitchen or food-related. It's the area I've focused on the most during this journey, but I've been working on getting rid of plastic in my bathroom.
It seems a little pointless to just throw out the bath products I already have, so as I run out of each product, I replace it with a more environmentally-friendly option. I have a firm rule that all my beauty products need to be cruelty-free and either vegan or vegetarian. I don't believe that an animal should have to suffer on my behalf whether it be through testing or the ingredients. Now I'm taking my stance a step further by getting rid of the plastic from the products.
So far, I've switched my face wash to the Aqua Marina face wash from LUSH. It's the product best suited to my skin and I love it. After the product is gone, you can take the container the product comes in back to the store. When you bring back five, you get a free face mask. It's a great incentive when it comes to a broke person like me.
I've also swapped my shampoo to a shampoo bar from Beauty & Planet rather than something that comes in a plastic container. It took a couple tries to completely figure out how it works, but I love it and I'm not going to switch back. I recently ran out of conditioner as well and while I was buying my face wash, I picked up a conditioner bar from LUSH (it's called Jungle) as well. After a couple of uses, I can safely say that I love it and it makes my curly hair feel so clean and smooth after I get out of the shower.
There are a lot of single-use plastic items that I still need to replace, but so far, I think I've done a pretty good job. As I get the opportunity (and the money) I'm going to continue to reduce the things in my life that aren't good for the environment.
At the end of the day, I'm human and I'm going to make mistakes, but I'm going to try my best to not put harmful waste into the world.
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