There’s no denying, Earth drew the short straw in the single use plastic bargain! And the irony of it all... ‘straws’ themselves are one of the worst offenders!! So smoothie and juice fans...listen up! The real ‘power’ in your morning superfood mix might not lie in the ingredients, but more in the sea-sparing potential of how you choose to drink it!
Luckily, many of us are now becoming more attuned to the environmental impact of some of our healthy lifestyle habits. Plastic-packed fruit, shopping bags, cotton buds, they all contribute to the ‘plastic footprint’ which has resulted in an estimated 150 million tonne build up of plastic in the world’s ocean (comprising,in part, 4.7 BILLION plastic straws)!! Many question as to what extent ‘just one straw’ really contributes to the grand scheme of plastic pollution. The answer? More than a lot, since just imagine the cumulative effect of 8 billion people having this same mindset! As with many things, there is a strong visual element to understanding our ‘plastic footprint’, and this is something that Greenpeace are utilising with their online personal plastic use calculator. Once you can see in visual terms what ‘just one bag’, ‘one bottle’ or ‘one cotton bud’ adds up to in a year, you’ll have a sound jumping off point for more informed buying and lifestyle decisions. As today is Global Recycling Day, there’s never a better time to champion the case for making small, everyday changes towards a more sustainable lifestyle. From switching to bamboo toothbrush or natural cotton buds, to shunning plastic packed fruit in the supermarket...it’s the little things that really do make a big difference when it comes to wider environmental change. Team these efforts with such habits as using your own Bambeco bamboo straw next time you grab a smoothie, or reusable cup when you stop for a coffee, and you’ll be on your way towards helping prevent the trebling of plastic sea waste that one report has anticipated by the year 2025!
Beyond reusables, don’t forget to recycle your unwanted household products too. Recyclables have recently joined the six major natural resources (water, air, coal, oil, natural gas and minerals) to become the world’s Seventh Resource, and the one which will hopefully avoid us having to strip the earth of its finite natural resources in years to come.
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