Over the past year, I have found myself trying every day to live a more sustainable, eco-friendly lifestyle. I’ve talked about how I am trying to be more conscious in my fashion choices and I really want to start bringing this into my overall lifestyle. Something in particular that I have lately challenged myself with is going plastic-free. It’s been a while that I have been wanting to do this for a while, but I knew that it would be difficult. Finally last month, for plastic-free July, I decided to really go for it.

Keep scrolling to find out what happened when I tried to go plastic-free and read tips on little things you can do to start transitioning to a plastic-free life.

I Tried To Go Plastic Free- Here’s What Happened

Going plastic-free is way harder than I ever imagined. I already bought some reusable metal straws in the past to take with me when I leave my house but wasn’t in love with the ones I got so I went online and bought these. LOVE them. Expensive, but worth it. Also purchased were a few things off Amazon (more on that below) to help me prep for the month ahead. All was well the first few days as I was mostly at home and went to the grocery store a couple of times to do some shopping. The next few days were a BIG challenge.  I was gone from my home all day and then went on a road trip. That’s when I couldn’t stay away from plastic. It was hard.

I came to realize that in order to stay plastic-free I would have to go to farmers markets to get fresh food in order to avoid packaging. Unfortunately, all we could find when we were starving on the road were commercial shops like Starbucks that only had prepackaged meals with PLASTIC. Ugh. So frustrating! I went to the grocery store as well to pick up something to eat and so much of it was already in plastic. Even the fruits were wrapped in plastic (like the berries). I repeat, SO FRUSTRATING.  Another issue was that I  kept forgetting to put my reusable shopping bags in my car!

It was in these few days that I realized how hard it really is to do plastic-free. Plastic is literally everywhere. I felt defeated but quickly reset and realized that there are little things I can do to combat this. Realizing that maybe sometimes I would have to be ok with plastic when on the go and make small decisions here and there to reduce my waste was also a big changer. It’s impossible to be perfect, but what really matters is to do little things every day to help out! Just because you can’t go fully plastic-free does not mean that trying isn’t worth it because little things add up.

In case you are looking to follow this same path (yet don’t know where to start, I’m sharing below a few things that I did (and you can do too) to help reduce your daily plastic intake. Keep scrolling!

TIPS for plastic-free living:

• Carry Reusable shopping and produce bags. I have extras in my car in case I forget!
• Switch to beeswax instead of plastic wrap. Have been using these for the past two months and LOVE.
• Get reusable produce bags: I recently got a bunch of these reusable ones from Amazon.
• Ditch plastic straws and buy some reusable straws. I prefer straight metal ones because they are easier to clean! Highly recommend this one.
• Stop buying plastic water bottles and switch to reusable bottles. MY HYDRO FLASK IS MY BEST FRIEND!! Always have carry reusable bottle in your purse/car incase of random drink pit-stop!
• Go for the bulk bins! (almonds, granola, lentils).
• Get a non-plastic toothbrush (I bought myself a bamboo toothbrush. Love that it’s biodegradable and creates less waste than your average toothbrush.)
• Pre-plan meals when you know you will be gone from your house for too long.
• Head to the farmers market for fresh produce and fruits instead of the market (you can find berries not packaged in plastic here).
• Return containers for berries and fruits to farmers markets to be reused

Other things you can do:

• Donate: There are great nonprofits like Plastic Pollution Coalition you can donate to !
• Raise awareness! Talk about it to your friends and family and share via social media! Share this post via your insta stories !
• Take part in cleanups. There are so many beach cleanups! I recently did it with I Love A Clean San Diego and it was so easy and hassle-free!!

Remember: going plastic-free isn’t easy. Heres a thought though: Imagine if the whole world tried to go plastic-free, but still did a bad job. Even the whole world doing a bad job at this would  make a HUGE impact on our environment. Little things matter so anything we can do in our day to day lives makes a BIG difference.

Any tips on going plastic free? Would love if you shared below!! Thanks for reading.

xx Francesca