Plastic Free July Just Makes Me Mad.

Why on earth is is so hard to avoid single use plastics?

There are plenty of great reasons to stop using single use plastics.

I used to think that plastics play an insignificant role in climate change. This was before I had ever heard of Plastic Free July. I assumed plastics had a minor impact compared to the big causes of climate change. It took some time for me to see how how important plastics are in the big picture of climate action. My turning point was when I listened to the podcast Mothers Of Invention. Along with giving me so many reasons to care about climate justice, their eye-opening episode about plastics completely changed my outlook. Here are the main points that have stuck with me:

Great reasons to ditch single use plastics:

Stop sea life dying from ingesting plastics
Enjoy garbage free oceans
Help reverse the climate crisis (plastic is made from fossil fuels, and their production releases carbon dioxide)
Begin to scale back landfill use
Reduce how much plastic you inadvertently consume
Stop financial support of fossil fuel companies

Also, to not be a total downer on this subject, I’ll mention a few things that give me hope:

The Ocean Cleanup Project, while off to a bumpy start initially, has started removing plastic pollution from the pacific ocean. Yay!
In Seattle, the local startup Ridwell collects plastic film (bags, wrappers, packaging, etc.) and recycles it into composite lumber. (yes, I am a customer!)
And after a video went viral of a sea turtle with a plastic straw stuck in its nose (poor thing) a ton of cities and businesses banned the use of plastic straws. This progress may be small, but it’s an awesome example of how quickly we can change once people are moved to take action.

Here is my gripe: I shouldn’t have to turn my life upside down to eat without using plastics.

Plenty of other household categories are offering great alternatives to plastic packaged products. Right now I’m trying out my new shampoo and conditioner bars instead liquids in plastic jugs. I’ve replaced my old razor with a beautiful shiny chrome Leaf razor. Its replaceable metal blades cost far far less and use zero plastic. I have similar switches in mind for our hand soap (dissolving soap tablets!) and laundry detergent (dissolving sheets!). So my gripe right now is with the food industry.

On the last day of June, I glibly signed up for Plastic Free July. I could opt to participate for just one week, which sounded so doable I was thrilled. We’ve already given up lots of single use plastics in our kitchen. We using beeswax wraps instead of plastic wrap, and reusable containers instead of ziplocs. So for Plastic Free July I was ready to tackle our groceries, one of our biggest plastic culprits.

75% of my family’s typical groceries come in plastic packaging.

I conducted an audit of our typical groceries. Out of 80 grocery items our family buys regularly, only 21 come without any plastic packaging. (Mostly loose produce, canned goods and jarred goods). That leaves 75% of our groceries that come in plastic packaging. At Costco, there are only 3 items we buy that come without any plastic packaging (butter, spindrift, and refried beans).

I figured we could find some alternatives to our usual snacks. (Cut up mozzarella instead of buying string cheese!) I assumed we could go to our local co-op store for bulk rice. I imagined buying sausages from the butcher counter wrapped in plastic-free parchment paper. Then I started digging in to figure out the details. After about two hours of reading the internet about how to go plastic free, I decided to give up instead.

Turns out, I don’t know anywhere that I can buy cheese without some kind of plastic wrapping around it. Two hours of doomed plastic-free research informed me that the USDA requires that all meat be sealed in plastic. Even if you get a butcher to hand it to you unpackaged, no plastic waste has actually been avoided. Also, we’re in the middle of a pandemic and my husband informed me of the current closure of bulk bins. I crossed other ideas and alternatives off my list for blowing up our grocery budget or requiring weekend-only shopping. Why don’t normal grocery stores just sell products in non-plastic packages?

Just because I hate plastics doesn’t mean I have time to cook everything from scratch.

I follow a handful of instagram accounts about how to be less wasteful. (My favorite is going zero waste.) But I see a problematic theme when it comes to eliminating waste in your kitchen. Everyone who is doing this successfully is making it work by making some major sacrifices. So many solutions to single-use plastics involve giving up convenience and doing extra work at home.

” Mix your own cleaners! It’s so simple!”

“Bake your own breads and crackers!”

I often see photos of glass jars full of whole grains, dried beans, and other shelf-stable dry ingredients. Many of these require soaking overnight, simmering for an hour or more, and a lot of mandatory ‘from scratch’ cooking. It’s great that some people want to do this and I’m glad they’re out there acting as great role models for those willing to follow. But here are three giant problems I have with this line of thinking:

1. I don’t want to do all this extra work.

The problem with pre-packaged convenience foods isn’t that they’re pre-packaged and convenient. It’s just that the plastic packaging pollutes, kills animals and gets ingested by humans. I still want to grab sticks of string cheese out of the fridge and hand them to my kids. I just wish they were in a compostable wrapper. I love pulling fully prepared food out of the freezer and warming it up for dinner when I am exhausted. Occasionally we might choose to bake our own bread, treats or elaborate meals from scratch. But I want that to be for fun, not mandatory.

Maybe somebody out there is thinking I can just whip up all these great convenience foods on the weekends. But guess what? I don’t want to do that either. I use my weekends to be with my kids, take care of the garden, finish a house project, or maybe just have some time to myself. I am not interested in adding 4 hours of food prep to my weekends.

2. There is no way these workarounds will make plastic-free mainstream.

My personal preferences aside, climate solutions that demand people change their lifestyle and make a ton of sacrifices are a strategic dead end. Nobody should have to go vegan to avoid single use plastic. There is certainly plenty of discussion to be had about the climate impact of meats and dairy products, but let’s keep that a separate discussion from plastic use. I believe in a healthy climate vision where people can still enjoy eating meat (with better production methods that reduce climate impact and pricing that keeps meat consumption more moderate). And in that healthy climate future, let’s find packaging for all foods – meats and cheese included – that are plastic free.

3. This is putting responsibility on the wrong people.

The responsibility for ending single use plastics needs to be placed on the companies that create products and the agencies responsible for regulation of food packaging. There is a great role we can play as consumers in supporting the businesses that are already innovating with better solutions. But let’s stop distracting ourselves with how to contort our own lives to work around a broken system. Instead, I say we tackle the system. There are so many great reasons for businesses to focus more on eco action, all they may need is some encouragement from vocal consumers to get started.

Plastic Free July is not the right way to inspire people toward a green revolution.

Emails from Plastic free July are full of encouragement and pleas to not give up. (“If it were easy, it wouldn’t be a challenge!”) I love the awareness this event raises. I admire the energetic efforts of many people making big changes. But I also think Plastic Free July should make more people angry. Instead of giving up our time and energy to search for loopholes and workarounds, let’s challenge the system instead.

Long term solutions should let people continue to enjoy convenience in how we buy our foods. They don’t send us back in time to play at the homestead lifestyle.

The right solutions integrate new innovations and clever service models to deliver convenient, delicious, healthy food. They just don’t come with a side of guilt for destroying the planet.

The right solutions are scalable and work for all income levels. They don’t make plastic free options available only to the wealthy.

To everyone else out there who is frustrated or angry at trying to give up plastics:

I encourage you to shift your attention to the right solutions instead of beating yourself up for loving plastic-packaged favorites. Let’s focus on supporting alternatives to plastic-wrapped everything and pressuring our local grocery stores to provide better options.

Stay tuned for a follow-up post. I will share some great examples of plastic-free solutions that are already out there. I’ll also explore new ideas for how food companies can do much better with their packaging.

Thanks for reading!