The Plastic Diet

In light of all this thinking about waste and plastic, I have decided to try a little experiment to gauge how easy or difficult it is to live a relatively plastic free lifestyle.
Being Spring I thought it would be a good time to start this, so for the month of September, I will be embarking on “The Plastic Diet”. I have tried to make the rules as clear as possible for me to follow, although there are still quite a few grey areas that I will attempt to clarify during the experiment. Before I explain the rules though, here are some of the objectives of the exercise:

• To gain an understanding of my reliance on petroleum based products (predominantly plastics)
• To reduce the amount of non-biodegradable waste I am responsible for
• To provide an alternative perspective of “convenience” when it comes to the way we consume.
• To hopefully create awareness, and inspire you to think about this in the hope that you may make some small changes
• To understand how Todae could be better selecting and promoting the products we sell

As far as the rules of the exercise go, I have created a set of guidelines that I think should enable me to meet the objectives, although I have no doubt that issues will arise that I did not think of and I will have to add those to the rules as I go. Here is the list of initial guidelines:

• I cant purchase any products that contain any plastic
• I cant use or consume free products that contain any plastic (like straws or take away containers)
• I am able to use plastic products if I already own them
• I should be able to conduct this exercise without offending anyone (so if Im a dinner guest and provided with a straw, it would make no sense to refuse it)
• I am able to use food products wrapped in plastic that I already possess (such as peanut butter)
• I cant (and didn’t) stock up on products before the commencement of the diet
• Plastic in this exercise includes anything that is petroleum based such as wax or rubber
• Now the tricky one –Eating Out. This was a really difficult one to set some rules around, so I tried to keep it simple:
• Cant order products that come directly with Plastic (straws, plastic wrap, dips, etc)
• Cant eat out more than I would otherwise
• Try to order as much fresh produce as possible

So that’s it and the exercise is now underway. I’ll keep you posted on how its going…

Danin