Zero Plastic Week: Day 1

If you have been reading recently, then you know that this week is Zero Plastic Week.  The goal is to not use any new single-use plastic for the whole week (i.e. plastic wrap, shopping bags, coffee cups, etc.)  Since the challenge is only a week, they say that you can use plastic you already have (i.e. bottles of shampoo).  (Plastic Free July will certainly help you take care of those things :)

So I started out my morning with oatmeal and tea, both of which were bought in bulk with my own containers last week.  I'm always pretty good with grains and oats, but I have been a little lazy with the tea, as I have to make another stop because the Whole Foods near us does not carry it.  Which is not an excuse, so I made sure to pick some up.

We are very lucky to have returnable, glass-bottled milk (that is bottled on the farm!) available to us.  However, they do use plastic caps, which is how I ended up with this piece of plastic this morning:

Any thoughts on how to recycle the caps?  Our municipal recycling does not take them...

I will be updating everyday this week with our plastic-free solutions and any more plastic trash we manage to accumulate.  And that's what this is really about-garbage.  Garbage that is ending up in our oceans and polluting our natural resources.  There are uses for plastic (like the keyboard I'm typing on, for instance), but we need to re-think how we are using the material as a disposable commodity.  Here is a great piece from the BBC on plastic pollution in our oceans.

Also, if you haven't seen it yet, I am giving away four bulk bags from The High Fiber so you can shop plastic free, too!  The giveaway is over on Wednesday, so enter now! :)