Why Plastic Free July is Important

Our Living Smarties group watched Bag It last week. It was a great way to kick off Plastic Free July. It reminded me that there are very important environmental, health and social reasons to reduce our family's use of single-use plastic.

The environmental reason that struck a cord for me is that plastic is made from fossil fuels (oil and natural gas), which take hundreds of thousands of years to form in the earth. They are non-renewable and, after a fossil fuel is burned, can never be used again.

Many single-use plastic products are used for less than a couple of hours before they are discarded. It doesn't make any sense to buy a single-use plastic bottle of water, for example, when we live in a country where we can get clean drinking water straight from the tap! It is such a waste of precious fossil fuels. My re-usable bottle is so much nicer to drink out of too.

The health reason that struck a cord for me is that since the late 70's we have been surrounded by plastic. It touches our food, our drinks, our medicines and everything else. Let's be honest. We are offered plastic shopping bags to carry food that is often packed in at least one layer of packaging or plastic. Although the use of some plastic elements (think BPAs) are being phased out of products that touch food we don't really understand the potential impacts of the other components yet.

Since plastic doesn't break down in the environment for millions of years it fragments and is eaten by wildlife, particularly in the ocean. Apart from being terrible pollution the plastic is then passed up the food chain to humans. How can we begin to understand the flow on health effects of that for not just humans, but all of the animals impacted within the food chain? Hormone mimicking effects (again, such as BPAs) are also realised through the food chain, particularly in the ocean.

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The social impacts motivating me arose directly from Bag It. The movie talked about plastic recycling and how numbers 1 & 2 (in the recycling triangle) are the most readily recycled products (as opposed to numbers 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7). I know this is true because when I was working to increase plastic recycling at my work the only plastics that were collected (because they have a market) were numbers 1 & 2. Bag It explained that numbers 1 & 2 (which include PET plastic drink bottles) can easily be recycled into the lower grade of plastics (3-7). The lower grade of plastics, however, can't be recycled into a plastic of high enough quality to be economical. This means that plastic is generally only recycled once and then it becomes unusable waste.

When the higher quality plastics are collected and recycled they can be shipped to third world countries and processed in abominable working conditions. Workers sift through plastic waste and melt it down with no safety equipment. That is a pretty considerable social price for my plastic use.

On a more positive note I should mention what an amazing product plastic is. It can do so many things and it is so cheap to manufacture! In countries where there is no clean drinking water I'm sure many would suffer incredibly without it. It's like everything - let's try to use a great product responsibly so that we can continue to use it in a much nicer world for a much longer time.

Do you share my concerns about plastic? 

Causes that touch the heart - donating money

In the wake of Cyclone Pam devastating Vanuatu, and upon finishing reading A Thousand Splendid Suns for the second time, I am reminded of how lucky I am to live in such a safe and peaceful country.

It is easy to get wrapped up in our day to day existence, which is sometimes difficult to navigate.  This year has started off with some rather sad events for me and my family.  However, when considering the magnitude of losing your island from a natural disaster, or your country through war, it can provide some perspective.

As someone who has, thankfully, never had to go without any essential basics I cannot imagine how hard it must be to suffer and survive tragedies such as these.  My family has always been at hand to ask for help and they have always had enough.  Don't get me wrong, there has been some tough times but never so bad that we didn't have a roof over our heads or food to eat.

I studied my senior high school at an Adult College where many refugees were learning to speak English and were finishing their high school studies.  Some of the experiences that were shared with me about living for years in refugee camps, fleeing war, and lying about their age to marry all opened my eyes to a very different life experience to mine.  They definitely made me feel pretty lucky.

I found A Thousand Splendid Suns to be a book that truly touched my heart and made me feel a connection with the women of Afghanistan.  When I finished reading it last year for the first time I was overwhelmed with a desire to do something.  The vivid account of the devastating impacts to families from the war and the repression of women horrified and saddened me.

Although I was inspired to do something I had no real idea on what or how to do it. One of my friends recommended CARE Australia to me. She was donating to them and saw that they were involved with educating women in Afghanistan.

After doing quite a lot of research between charities that work in social justice and poverty alleviation I started donating $15 a month to CARE Australia, which I felt was a small but important contribution towards their work rebuilding and educating communities.

When doing my research I looked at the type of projects that each organisation worked on, if it aligned with my interest and concerns, and the breakdown of expenditure to see how much was going to activities like fund raising and administration and how much was going into the projects that help people in need.

I also started to donate $15 a month to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) since they play an extremely important role in assisting and housing displaced people.

There are so many causes that deserve our attention.  I did try to find a charity that would provide support to Indigenous Australians but I, unfortunately, didn't find one that I was comfortable donating to.  Not because I doubted the companies but I had some specific ideas in mind and I struggled to find programs that aligned with them.

I believe that my families regular contributions are valuable because it is money that these organisations can rely on in their project planning.  It is something small that I can do to feel that I am contributing to initiatives that I hope bring hope and comfort to people that have lost a lot and endure tough times.  I hope the organisations I have chosen help them to build a better life for themselves.

When I see disasters like Cyclone Pam I feel good that I am already contributing something towards helping.

Have you also been inspired to support a cause? I'd love to hear about it

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