"Every single piece of plastic ever made still exists on this planet today..."

This week on the podcast I am talking all about zero waste (specifically plastic). This is a hot topic at the moment and something which everyone seems to be talking about, but I wanted to explore if it is actually possible and what can we do to become more zero waste.

Here are some facts:
- next year we will produce more than 300 million tonnes of plastic
- there is a 9% increase in plastic every year
- the main use of plastic is SINGLE USE items and all of these go straight into landfill
- plastic is about 10% of general waste
- americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour
- only 1% of plastic bags worldwide are recycled
- plastic is the largest source of ocean litter and kills 100,000 mammals and 1 million sea birds every year.

Those are some of the reasons why becoming more zero waste is so so important.

I talk about how we can do that...
Here are the tips for reducing your plastic and living a more zero waste lifestyle:

1. SAY NO TO SINGLE USE ITEMS
e.g. plastic cutlery, straws, take away cups and containers, plastic bags...
be prepared and bring your own
especially make sure to bring your own reusable bag EVERYWHERE as this saves A LOT of unnecessary plastic.
buy loose items when food shopping, and go for items that have less/zero packaging.

2. STOP BUYING BOTTLED WATER
This will save 100 plastic disposable bottles every year!
Bring your own water bottle everywhere and refill it as you go.
I recommend Hydro Flask which are super awesome (you can find them here https://amzn.to/2I0w3yy)
Also, this saves MONEY! Bottled water only contains about 3p of water, but on average we pay over £1 per bottle. That is wasting a lot of money as well as plastic.

3. REFILL WHAT YOU CAN
Buy in bulk and try to refill items such as shampoo, conditioner, soap, dishwashing liquid etc. All these products are packaged in plastic, so if we can buy a 5L container rather than 500ml and then refill the smaller container then we are saving plastic.
You can also shop at stores where they have bulk foods such as oats, nuts and seeds, and bring your own jars to refill.

4. REMEMBER THE 5 Rs:
REFUSE
REDUCE
REUSE (AND REPAIR)
RECYCLE
ROT.

Finally I want to say, just do your best. No one is perfect and sometimes it is hard to avoid plastic. But merely doing your best is better than nothing and WILL make a positive impact on this planet.

I hope you all enjoy this episode, be sure to rate and review it if you did as this is super helpful for me! Much love