Planning ahead is the easiest way to reduce your plastic waste – but for Plastic Free July participants, there have been some surprising outcomes too
This year is the 10th Plastic Free July, a campaign that asks individuals to change their approach to single-use plastics for one month a year. The campaign’s founder Rebecca Prince-Ruiz says she never intended it to be a campaign or global movement. “I wanted to change my own behaviour,” she says.
In 2011, while working in local government in Australia, she visited a recycling facility and says she “was overwhelmed by how much waste we produce”. That year, she decided to cut back on her single-use plastics, and 40 co-workers joined her in the challenge.
This year, the campaign estimates they had 326 million participants, worldwide. “Back then the whole plastic pollution problem … just wasn’t on people’s radar. Plastic Free July really grew because so many people felt the same thing. This was something practical and tangible we could do about it.”
from Lifestyle | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3ffPY8G