Plastic Free July Eco Tips and Why Plastic Free Sunscreen is Better
What is all the plastic free fuss about?
Plastic. It’s become a dirty word in the eco/sustainability world. But what’s the problem really?
- Plastic production has a huge carbon footprint! On average, the initial production process produces about 6kg of CO2 per 1kg of plastic.
- Making plastic places enormous demands on our limited global supply of accessible and usable water.
- Only 9% of plastic is recycled worldwide and each year, wash off from landfill or improper disposal means eight million tonnes of plastic ends up in the ocean. That’s a full dump truck, every minute.
- Eventually, plastic does break down… into microplastics - teeny, tiny fragments of plastic and they’re everywhere - our oceans and almost all species of fish have been found to contain traces of microplastics.
Okay okay we get it, plastic sucks. But instead of dwelling on how bad it is, in celebration of Plastic Free July, we wanted to share our favourite plastic free products that we have discovered over the years.
Reuseabowl - no we don’t remember to take it with us 100% of the time but every time we do use it that is one less single-use takeaway container sitting in landfill for the next thousand years so we feel pretty good about that!
Solid Oral Care - I love this woman-led, local business. They take back and reuse their glass jars too!
Ethique Pink Shampoo Bar - I tried a few of their shampoo bars before discovering the pink shampoo which is by far my favourite so far!
Caliwoods Stainless Steel Pegs - I hate hanging out the washing. There I said it. I know it’s a stupid thing to hate but it’s true. Using Caliwoods stainless steel pegs makes me hate this chore a little bit less. They are so sturdy and easily hold heavy towels and linen in place on even the windiest Wellington day!
Brewery takeaways - take your own empty glass bottle and get a cheap beer refill at the Brewery. Our favourite plastic free local is Parrotdog in Island Bay, Wellington.
The best thing about shopping plastic free is that it often means you end up supporting small, NZ businesses (just like us) so it’s a win win (read more on why you should buy NZ made here)!
Why Plastic free sunscreen is better
Seasick Sunscreen was designed to be plastic free right from the beginning. That’s because i’m on a mission to protect our oceans and as we all already know, plastic is choking our oceans. So the last thing we need is more single-use plastic sunscreen bottles. Instead, we use aluminium tins with paper labels (that’s why they peel off if they get wet) and our orders are shipping in Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) certified cardboard mailers. The coolest thing about our mailers is that you can just peel off the label and reuse it again and again! At the end of its life it can be torn up and used in the garden or compost or it can be recycled.
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