Reduce single use plastic

Plastic Pollution

Over eight million tonnes of plastic ends up in the oceans every year, where it’s predicted that by 2050 plastic in the ocean may outweigh fish. Every year more than one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals are thought to be killed by plastic. 

Once in the ocean plastic will remain there for hundreds, if not thousands of years, impacting on the marine life, habitats and coastlines. To further increase the issue of plastic pollution, over time larger pieces of plastics degrade into smaller microscopic particles known as microplastics. Microplastics, as its name suggests can often be too small for the human eye to see can be ingested by marine life which leads to exposing them to toxic chemicals. It also leads to us consuming our own plastic waste.

You can do your part in reducing single use plastic by: 

• Shop using reusable shopping bags
• Refillable bottles #OneLess
• Replace tea bags with biodegradable tea bags or loose tea with a tea strainer. 
• Reusable coffee cup or flask for your hot drink
• Avoid using plastic straws #strawsuck #TheLastStraw
• Substitute glitter with eco-friendly biodegradable glitter: www.ecoglitterfun.com
• Get milk delivered in bottles by local small businesses, which also supports local farmers
• Purchase foods such as cereal, rice, pasta, from bulk bins and fill a reusable container or bag 
• Swap plastic shampoo bottles for shampoo bars 
• Replace plastic toothbrushes with wooden eco-friendly toothbrushes
• Swap plastic cotton buds (one of the worst polluting single use plastic items) with cardboard or bamboo alternatives: www.lastobject.com/products/lastswab-basic