#PlasticFreeJuly is just around the corner. The hashtag is optimistic— chances are, you touched at least a few plastic things between rolling out of bed, brushing your teeth, and stumbling into the kitchen for your morning coffee. But the movement itself, with over 100 million participants, is a little more realistic in its goals: Reduce the role of single-use plastic in our lives.
Single-use plastic is the kind of garbage that gets used once, often very briefly, then thrown away. A plastic bag, for example, is used for 12 minutes on average, but takes 1000 years to decompose (into microplastics, at that) in landfill. Ditto for plastic straws, granola bar wrappers, or takeout coffee cups.
The average American generates nearly 5 pounds of waste every day, amounting to over 30 pounds of waste a week. Extrapolate that to a family of 4, and average waste production is somewhere in the vicinity of 120 pounds.
This week, I was curious how my family’s trash production compared to the statistics. As a result, I may or may not have put our trash bag on a kitchen scale, reassuring my husband, “Just, like, you might think this is weird, but it’s for Substack! Nothing to see here!” The verdict? Our family of 4 generates, on average, 7 pounds of landfill-bound waste a week. While there is certainly room for improvement, that’s not too shabby.
My family has been living fairly low-waste now for several years. I often struggle with how to characterize this: It’s easy to call myself “low-waste” when we are generating only a small grocery bag of waste every week, but I’ve also recognized that there are ebbs and flows to our trash production. In seasons of cloth-diapering and bread-making, waste production is low; in newly postpartum seasons of frozen pizzas, we tend to generate a little more waste than I would like. For perspective, we are currently generating two to three small grocery bags of trash a week.
A trash inventory would find that our most frequent trash items are:
Disposable pull-ups. Both girls are mostly potty-trained, but use Dypers (which are compostable) for overnight and errands (with our two-year old). Home composting has not been successful, and it’s cost prohibitive for us to pay for their composting service. This is by far the largest item— by weight and volume— in our trash (to the tune of 2/3 of our landfill bound waste).
Plastic berry containers. We go through 3-4 containers of fruit a week. We grow our own blackberries and try to make it to pick-your-own farms, but to be honest, this barely makes a dent in our fruit consumption. Unfortunately, even our local food co-op and farmer’s market carry berries exclusively in plastic clamshells.
Miscellaneous food packaging we aren’t able to recycle— particularly cheese and butter wrappers and meat packaging.
In the interest of transparency, we do also use some packaged snacks— but nearly all of these, when they happen, are recyclable through TerraCycle or Thrive Market’s plastic recycling program. I’m not under any illusion that plastic recycling is a get-out-of-jail-free card (you might remember I wrote about how plastic recycling isn’t the solution), but it is a realistic solution to parenting little ones when a busy schedule catches up to us.
But every year, July reminds me to check-in on our waste consumption, and look for places to move the needle on our trash and recycling production. In past years, I’ve run a 30 days to low-waste living challenge, and I’ll offer tidbits of that challenge in a slightly different format again this year.
My goal for #PlasticFreeJuly is not actually a month of zero plastic, or even zero single-use plastic.
I’m realistic about my constraints: I live in the suburbs, where my nearest food co-op is 35 minutes away (and even there, refill options are limited). I make it there for glass-jarred milk and other organic goodies nearly every week, but I can’t justify the time and gas (read: carbon emissions) to make the drive unless it’s part of other activities we are doing in the area.
I’m in charge of everything from shampoo and toothpaste to groceries and next-size shoes for a family of four, soon to be five. My weekly grocery list is expanding, not shrinking— and it takes a very large tote bag to haul two or more gallons of glass milk and approximately five hundred pounds of fruit home every week. Things that are cost-feasible for an individual or even a couple (ex. toothpaste tablets, which are roughly four times more expensive than toothpaste tubes) are not always as feasible for a miniature army.
And as an already sleep-deprived mama, there are lots of things I will happily do to reduce my family’s waste. At this current stage, however, completely ditching overnight pull-ups— and suffering the consequences of midnight sheet changes or a fussy toddler who doesn’t like waking up feeling wet— is not one of them.
My goal, instead, is this: Intentionality. And progress, not perfection.
This month, I’m focusing on the places that I can realistically and with relative ease make a change. I’m also going to shine a light on the shifts, from shampoo bars to homemade sour cream, that have worked for my family over the years.
And friends, here’s the truth. You don’t need bamboo cutlery to reduce waste. You don’t need organic mesh produce bags. You don’t even need a stainless steel straw. Everything you truly need, you already possess.
You need creativity. To find the workarounds that fit your family’s needs. To problem-solve and compromise to make sustainable changes while honoring you and your loved one’s individual values and preferences.
You need resilience. To try again when your first zero-waste sour cream recipe completely bombs. To stay strong in your convictions if strangers— or friends— judge your choices.
You need to embrace routine. Because life changes that seem difficult and overwhelming rarely stay that way. The same reusable bags that were so difficult to remember— or even ‘embarrassing’ to pull out of your pocket— the first time you go to the store will be second nature in just a few weeks.
You need a sense of humor. Because life is so much better when you feel free to laugh along the way. And because laughing makes it MUCH easier to explain hauling seven potatoes in your arms across the grocery store when you forgot your reusable bag.
You need to give yourself grace. That it’s not the end of the world if you choose disposable diapering or picked up a frozen pizza. That reducing your family’s footprint doesn’t require you to be perfect, only to be present.
So this #PlasticFreeJuly, let’s have some fun together (no exclusionary trash jar required).
Yes. So much resides in intentionality! And your points are life goals as well!
Great read!! Thank you