Earlier this month, this blog featured a piece on the Plastic Free July movement. However, working towards eliminating plastic in your life when living in a rural community can seem especially daunting. Below is a short list of changes you can make living here in the Panhandle to reduce the presence of chemically harmful plastic in your life.
1. Swap goods and services with neighbors! Need a new blender but don’t want to buy a plastic wrapped monstrosity from Walmart? Check in with your neighbors to see if anyone has a spare in their storage or are finally ready to admit they just don’t like smoothies and pass their blender on to you. If you’re on Facebook, consider joining or creating a Zero Waste Swap group in your area. Oftentimes people are willing to give up items for FREE! How great is that? You don’t have to pay for something you need, someone else keeps from throwing that something into the waste stream, AND there’s no new waste introduced by your purchasing a new item. Saving plastic all around!
2. Stick to the basics! This includes using shopping totes, fabric produce bags, reusable water bottles and coffee containers, foregoing plastic straws unless you need them medically, packing a lunch instead of a store packaged one, and so on. While simple, these actions add up. Additionally, it is safe to use reusable shopping bags despite COVID-19 – just sanitize between uses. Cloth bags are the best because you can just toss them in your wash.
3. Create the means to be the change! This is related to the step above. If you notice a need in your community, fill it. For example, if you are in need of cloth bags, create them. You can sustainably source material from thrift stores in the form of curtains, sheets, mismatched pillowcases, and more. Then bring them home, sanitize them, and get to sewing! Pass the bags out for free to family and friends or make a small profit by selling them cheap outside grocery stores or farmers’ markets. This is just one example of how you can help reduce your communities reliance on plastic while you’re largely stuck at home during quarantine.
This article was largely sourced from the following blog, please check it out! It has a lot of great additional information and is a very moving piece on rural community: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/4/8/1848735/-Thinking-Outside-the-Plastic-Box-Going-Plastic-Free-in-Rural-America
