We’re three days into the Plastic Free July Challenge and it’s time for my first progress update. Overall, the challenge is going pretty much as I expected. It’s tough! I am learning that plastic is everywhere, even in the most unexpected places.

Before I go too far, I do want to remind you there are a few plastic items that I’m not willing to give up in the interest of my health. I wrote about them in Why I reject some zero-waste swaps. In my Plastic Free July Challenge update posts, I won’t include them in my comments.

July 1 – Canada Day

Today is Canada Day. On this national holiday, we celebrate the birth of our country in 1867. Normally, this is a day filled with barbecues, pool parties, parades and fireworks but, sadly, not in 2020. We’re celebrating Canada’s 153rd birthday quietly at home.

I slept in until about 8:15 today. When I went to make my tea, I had my first plastic a-ha moment when I took the milk out of the fridge. In Canada, most of our milk is packaged in plastic bags like the one pictured below. It’s a large plastic outer bag with three smaller bags inside. My daughters and I don’t drink milk but my husband does. Looks like this is an item to add to my list, although I think I will have a hard time convincing my other half to make a change to the kind of milk he drinks.

Next up – Breakfast! A couple of observations here:

• We drink orange juice out of a cardboard carton that’s recyclable under our municipal recycling program. But…the carton has a small plastic spout and lid.
• We had pancakes. There’s nothing more Canadian than maple syrup. Guess what! It’s in a plastic jug. Note to self: Start buying maple syrup in cans!

It’s not even noon and I’m not off to a good start.

The rest of the day was better until my husband cracked open a bag of chips tonight after we came back from our walk. This is definitely going to be hard.

July 2

Armed with my learnings from day 1, I am ready to take on day 2.

This morning’s breakfast was Greek yogurt with granola and fruit. Uh oh, looks like I will need to find alternatives to yogurt when I finish up my current supply. If you have suggestions on alternatives to yogurt, I would love to hear them.

When I was loading the dishwasher, I found a great example of how plastic sneaks into unexpected places. This also reinforces how the pandemic restrictions have impacted my efforts to be eco-friendly. I normally buy my dishwasher tabs unpackaged in bulk. When the store I buy them from was temporarily closed, I placed an online order for delivery. Unfortunately the only way to buy them was prepackaged. Take a look at this picture.

On the outside it looks like a paper package BUT it’s lined with plastic. I will have to console myself with a reminder that it’s far less waste than a hard plastic tub. Now that the store has reopened, I will go back to buying in bulk.

I discovered another hidden plastic surprise when I went to make dinner tonight. I bought a box of chicken pot pies at Costco. Each pie is individually packaged in another box AND wrapped in plastic. You really have to wonder what purpose the plastic serves here.

Celebrating small victories

Despite the challenges, we also have to celebrate the victories. Today’s win is my new fitness program. I have been working out at home using DVDs for many years. I am looking to step up my fitness routine for the second half of 2020. Instead of buying new DVDs in plastic cases, I opted for an online program that I can access from my iPad. 100% plastic-free!

July 3

The day got off to a good start. I did one of my new workouts and it was awesome! Then, I tried oatmeal instead of yogurt in my breakfast smoothie. It was delicious.

I managed to avoid single-use plastic until it was time to make dinner. I was putting some pork chops in the slow cooker. When I went to grab the barbecue sauce from the fridge, it’s in a plastic bottle. This really got me thinking about all the other condiments in plastic bottles: ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise. The funny thing is, this brand of barbecue sauce used to be sold in glass bottles until a couple of years ago. Although, as I shared in Plastic containers are preferable to glass, glass isn’t always a better option. It really is hard to know what’s best sometimes.

My husband loves to stock up on candy and always has some stashed away. For dessert tonight, some Easter Creme and Caramilk eggs appeared. Does anyone remember when these eggs were wrapped in foil? Now they are packaged in non-recyclable plastic!

It’s interesting that, despite all the discussion about single-use plastic, manufacturers are still switching to plastic from other forms of packaging. It’s really frustrating!

So, a better day today but I still haven’t been able to make it through a single day without using any plastic. 🙁

Let’s keep in touch! Join my mailing list and I’ll email you when I add a new post.

What have I learned so far?

I knew this wouldn’t be easy but it is way harder than I thought! I am definitely getting the learning I was looking for and a long list of items to research. Hopefully next week will be better.

If you’re participating in the Plastic Free July Challenge, tell me how you’re doing below.