Plastic Free July is in the books for 2022. Did you participate this year? Let’s start off the month of August by wrapping up Plastic Free July 2022. Today’s post has a summary of my learnings and observations from the past month. There is hope!

This is my third year participating in Plastic Free July. As I shared in my kick-off post at the end of June, my goal for this year was to find new plastic-free learnings and innovations to share with you. Let’s see what I learned…

Wrapping up Plastic Free July 2022 – What I learned this month

Celebrating the little wins

As I’ve commented before, once you’ve been focusing on reducing waste for a while, it gets harder and harder to find new swaps.

I’ve already made a lot of changes—some of them easier than others. The plastic that remains is difficult to replace. It’s hard not to get discouraged, but it’s important to keep our eyes open because glimmers of hope pop up when we least expect them.

A little win that made me happy this month was returning to in-person shopping at the Lush store at the mall. During the pandemic, I have been ordering online. Although I love Lush’s products and they are very good at avoiding unnecessary packaging when shipping online orders, I was so happy to go into the store and buy two completely naked moisturizer bars.  

More mainstream brands are adopting plastic-free packaging

Something else I was encouraged to see this month is that more mainstream brands are taking steps to replace plastic packaging. During a trip to the drug store in July, I noticed two examples, both from Proctor & Gamble:

• Secret deodorant in a paper tube.  
• Oral B dental floss in a refillable container, packaged in cardboard. I had been buying dental floss online from an eco-friendly brand. The great thing about Oral B is it’s much more affordable than the brand I was buying—about half the price.

As consumers, we have an opportunity to send a message with our wallets by supporting companies that make an effort to reduce plastic. If enough of us do that, other companies will have no choice but to make similar changes. If Proctor & Gamble can do it, there really is no excuse.

Legislation has an impact

While there are reasons to feel hopeful, large corporations continue to contribute to our plastic waste problem. Despite available solutions, change is slow and many companies won’t adopt plastic alternatives unless they’re forced to. That’s where government comes in.

The Canadian government has finally introduced legislation to ban several types of single-use plastic starting in 2023. One of the items on the list of banned items is plastic cutlery. On a recent trip to the supermarket, I saw this:

President’s Choice has a line of products called Planet First. This set includes compostable plates, bowls and cutlery. If you’re entertaining and reusable cutlery and plates aren’t an option, this is a step in the right direction. Now, if only they’d get rid of the plastic window on the box…

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So while we still have a long way to, there is reason to be hopeful. We just have to keep moving in the right direction.

Let’s keep the momentum going. If you missed out on Plastic Free July, that’s okay. It’s not too late to download my free printable calendar of 31 plastic-free swaps. You can use it in the month of August. Or, commit to making one change a week, or one change a month. The important thing is to make an effort. Your changes will have an impact.

What did you learn during Plastic Free July this year? Tell me your ideas below.