I don't drink a lot of coffee but when I do I like a proper coffee. Walking around the city I see that there are a lot of people who love coffee, particularly the takeaway kind. Those disposable cups and plastic lids are almost a uniform now that winter is here warming the inside and out.
It is estimated that an unbelievable 1 billion takeaway cups and lids are landfilled or littered each year in Australia. That's a pretty scary figure.
The Responsible Cafes program encourages cafes to discount coffee for those customers who bring a reusable cup. Generally the discount is between 30c and 50c but some have been know to discount more. As part of the program, the cafes are placed on a map to make them easier for us to find.
As many cafes are not aware of this program, or Plastic Free July, why not spread the word.
There are so many 'International Days' of this and that that I sometimes lose track and they're gone before I have had time to acknowledge them. World Environment Day and World Oceans Day fall within days of each other at the beginning of June and both were over for another year before I had blogged or Instagrammed about either.
1 Million Wonen have put together a great article about how our rubbish is ending up on the ocean. Reading through this reminded me of when I found nearly 100 of these bits of plastic at the beach.
After a bit of investigating I was pretty sure the these were cotton bud sticks. These were just on a local, metropolitan beach, all within a few metres of each other and all collected within half an hour. Grrrr.
Microbeads is another plastic that are mentioned in the article. These are tiny pieces of plastics put into face scrubs, hand soaps and toothpastes that wash down the drain and enter the waterways. Fish, birds and turtles mistake these for fish eggs and eat them.
If after reading the article and watching The Story of Stuff movie above and you are feeling that you would like to do something about this you could sign the petition. There is also an app that you can use to check items when you are out shopping or you could even use the product list.
There are so many alternatives to these plastic filled products and over the next couple of weeks I'll be looking at some homemade alternatives that will be better for your body, better for your wallet and better for the oceans. This will also be a great opportunity for you to share your recipes too.
It's incredible how quickly time can fly by and 10 months have suddenly passed.
I look back over the last 5 years and see how my life and the lives of my family have change (for the better, I think) as we have tried to live a little greener. We eat better, waste less and tend to appreciate the little things more. It has all been a gradual change but many of the changes have been permanent and I think it is because it all happened in small steps, when we were ready. It does get a little harder as the kiddoes get older as there are so many more influences in their lives. I suppose as parents we just hope that the little messages we try to teach embed themselves somewhere in their young minds.
With Plastic Free July less than a month away, it is time to get the focus back on reducing more single-use plastic from our lives. There is a lot that, as a family, we refuse but there are always the little things that sneak back in when we are feeling rushed. I think it is time to do a bit of an audit.
I'm looking forward to getting back into the blogging world and feeling excited about living a more waste-free life.
