As the year rounds down and we start drafting our New Year’s resolutions, add eco-friendly to your list! It’s so easy to reduce our plastic consumption, and a necessary part of our lives now. Below are five easy ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle!
- Metal or Glass Straws
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These are relatively inexpensive and you can get a lot of them for cheap. Metal straws come in plain silver, in a pretty gold, rose gold, multicolored, basically anything. Many retailers sell them like Amazon, Walmart, and Target. They even have silicon ones too!
As for glass straws, they’re not as easily accessible in stores, but you can find them pretty easily on Amazon and other online retails, also check out your local boutiques to find them!
And of course, stores like Dunkin and famous celebrities all have branded ones (although, a little more expensive) to check out too.
This is such an easy step to slow down your plastic consumption. We all go to restaurants and order iced coffees to go, all that comes with a straw. We, as humans, use way to many straws and other “eco-friendly” solutions, like paper, aren’t always the greatest for something you might drink for a few hours. Lo and behold, metal and glass straws fix this solution and it saves not only the turtles, but trees!
Since most straws come with a carrying case and a cleaner, they’re easy to throw in your bag or purse, then every time you’re in a situation that needs a straw: bingo! You got one!
- Reusable Grocery Bags
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If you live in the state of New York, you already have to do this, but if you live elsewhere in the country, buying a few reusable grocery bags will save you from a lot plastic bags in the future.
For those of us who use plastic grocery bags for trashcan liners, it might be a sad move at first, but ultimately this helps our environment…and you can buy super cute ones, like Christmas ones!
- Reusable Ziplock Bags
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They sure do exist! And they’re kind of awesome. Throw your chips, fruits, snacks in any of the bags and you’re good to go! Once you’re finished eating your snack, you can just put a little soap and water in it to clean it and reuse it time and time again. It’s that simple! And just like reusable grocery bags, they come in cute designs. Bonus, though, you’ll also save a lot of money over the years using these bad boys.
- Reusable Water Bottles and Coffee Cups
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See the trend here? Just like the grocery bags and Ziplock’s, they come in super cute designs! Although $10 for a water bottle might seem a bit expensive, think of how many times you’ve bought a plastic water bottle while you were out shopping or at a sporting event? More than five times, that’s for sure. You definitely make your money back on reusable products and you’re thumb gets a little greener! Plus, cold water alllll the time. Go get that metal water bottle to match your metal straws.
And using reusable coffee cups helps too. And when stores start accepting reusable cups again, they even save you a little money on each cup you buy!
- Save Your Take-Out Containers…The Nice Ones, Anyways
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Go to Olive Garden and take away some leftovers? Have you ever looked at the Olive Garden to-go containers? They’re really nice, and a lot of other restaurants have really nice to-go containers too. If it’s a hard plastic container that can easily be washed and used again, keep it! When you have dinner guest over, you can pack away take-out in them and you won’t mind losing a few of them. Or balling on a budget and don’t want to buy plastic food storage containers, save up on nice to-go containers. It’s worth more than just a one-time stay in your fridge and then directly to the trash, and it’s such an easy and simple way to reduce, reuse, and recycle.
Overall, lowering plastic consumption isn’t a hard thing to do. In fact, it’s quite easy. There are so many ways to lessen our plastic waste, so much easier than getting rid of completely. Although, we should still work toward getting rid of plastic completely, taking baby steps to lessen your own carbon footprint is a great place to start, and it does have an impact!
Think twice before using single-use plastics!