Think about all the plastics and disposable items you encounter each day. With a little prep, you can avoid quite a few.
Get started by gathering a few reusable essentials:
The most sustainable solution is always to use something you already have, but if you need to invest in something new, look for durability and a design that you love.
Perth City Farm Ready to level up your efforts? Here’s how:
What about coffee cups? Well, WA has led the way by banning plastic-lined coffee cups and plastic coffee cup lids. Many cafes now serve takeaway coffees in compostable paperboard cups instead, which is great… if you’re able to compost them. But often they end up in landfill bins, so all the resources used to make them go to waste after just a few minutes of use. (Remember, coffee cups don’t belong in recycling bins!)
It’s far better to bring your own reusable cup. With regular use, the environmental impact of a reusable cup is much lower than all the single-use ones (whether plastic-lined or compostable) that it replaces.
As a bonus, many cafes offer a discount - typically 20 to 50 cents - when you bring your own cup. Use the Responsible Cafes map search to find discounts.
So keep a clean cup in your bag, car, pram, desk drawer, locker, or wherever you’ll remember it when heading to your fave cafes. A mug from your kitchen is just fine, or look for a travel cup with a well-sealed lid. Fressko cups, available at Pigeonhole, come in a stylish range of matte solid colours.
And it’s not just disposable coffee cups we can cut out of our lives. Cold drinks like freshly squeezed juice and bubble tea create lots of waste too. If you regularly buy them, find a suitable reusable cup with a lid and straw. Your favourite drink outlet may offer one in the perfect size - for example, Presotea sells reusable bubble tea cups (with a wide straw for the pearls) at their multiple locations across Perth City.
Presotea Reusable Cup, image courtesy of www.presotea.com.au If all these ideas seem overwhelming, remember that you don’t need to change everything at once. Pick one thing to try at a time and soon enough you’ll be putting much less in the bin!
Plastic Free July’s theme this year is “Small steps, big difference”, reminding us that every time we choose to refuse single-use plastic, we’re contributing to a positive change.
