SCUBA ’ s new environmental columnist Kerry MacKay has suggestions for what we can all do to fight the war on plastic pollution
Go Plastic Free this July
SCUBA ’ s new environmental columnist Kerry MacKay has suggestions for what we can all do to fight the war on plastic pollution
There ’ s a whole month dedicated to encouraging you to try living life without single-use plastic . Have you heard of it before , it happens every year in July ? Funnily enough , it ’ s called Plastic Free July .
A whole movement has built around the simple idea behind the campaign . Can you live one month without single-use plastic ?
The average UK household disposes of almost 3,500 pieces of plastic each year , yet only 12 % is actually recycled . The rest goes to landfill , incineration , shipped abroad , or worst of all , litters the environment .
A bin lorry worth of plastic enters our ocean every minute . There are floating islands of plastic out there . The largest , the Great Pacific Garbage Patch , covers an area three times the size of France .
Plastic , especially single-use plastic , is thoroughly ingrained in our culture of convenience . Some efforts are being made to stop these wasteful habits , such as the plastic bag charge , the plastic straw and cotton bud stick ban , and the bottle deposit-return scheme , due to go live in Scotland in March 2024 and the rest of the UK in 2025 .
Yet , these efforts are only scratching the
surface . Big businesses tout recycling as a great solution . It ’ s recyclable so it must be good … right ? Wrong . Big businesses advocate recycling because it ’ s the cheapest to implement – not because it ’ s the best solution to the plastics problem .
You have hopefully noticed the mantra ‘ Reduce , Reuse , Recycle ’, probably plastered on the side of a bin lorry . What many people don ’ t realise is that those actions are in order of importance . So , the most important thing we can do to reduce waste is ‘ Reduce ’.
Every snack wrapper , or plastic fork , or drink bottle that you use in a matter of seconds could float around our oceans for at least another 450 years . So , the best thing we can do is not create that waste in the first place – Reduce .
Even if you can ’ t eliminate single-use plastic entirely , you can easily reduce it . Plastic bottles alone ( drinks , soap , shampoo …) account for 67 % of the plastic thrown out of most households Here are my top easy swaps to try this July :
■ Reusable travel water bottle . Get the Refill App to find locations with free water refills wherever you go .
■ Reusable coffee cup . Always ask if you can get your coffee to go in your own cup and check the Refill App .
■ Old-school bar of soap . Be sure to choose ones not packaged in plastic . If you desperately love liquid hand soap , buy bulk bottles to refill the sink-side ones .
■ Shampoo and conditioner bars . This is all I will use now – they are great for travel as they won ’ t squidge all over your bag .
■ Bamboo fibre dish sponge cloth . The usual yellow and green dish sponge is unrecyclable and releases microplastics into our oceans . Simply sterilise your natural fibre sponge cloth it in the microwave occasionally .
If you implement all of these simple swaps , you will save over 400 plastic items from clogging up our world and around £ 1,150 . Imagine how many dives or what shiny new dive kit you could use that for !
You can sign up for the Challenge at www . plasticfreejuly . org To date , campaign participants have prevented 2.1 billion tonnes of plastic waste . Please join me this July and discover something fantastic with less plastic . �
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