Plastic Is Our Undying Obsession, What Can We Do About It?

It’s no secret that humanity has a passion for plastics in everyday life. However, did you know that plastic has become a common condiment in your daily meals? In fact, the World Economic Forum states that we ingest about a credit card worth of microplastics each week.

It’s in our food, in our drinking water, it’s even in the salt we consume. In ancient times, people would defecate in their local water source due to ignorance. Today, we do the same thing except with plastics. When is this contamination going to stop?

Simply refusing straws is just not enough. We have to start refusing as much plastic as we can. Recycling is great, but frankly, we’re just not good at it. Research by University of Oxford states that only 20% of plastic waste is recycled. Instead of going out of our way to visit a recycling centre, why not start by refusing plastic and nip the issue in the bud?

Bit By Bit

Of course, I’m not saying we should all start making protest signs and start screaming at business owners for using plastic. What we can do is to start refusing plastic. Once we reduce the demand for plastic, the supply will dwindle.

It’s as simple as saying no. We can all start small by bringing our own containers and cutlery for takeaways at restaurants. Keep a recycle bag in your purse or backpack for any impulse shopping. In addition to that, we can start making informed decisions by reading up on the lesser known sources of plastic and try to avoid purchasing them.

Practising Plastic Refusal Imperfectly

It’s only normal to use a plastic cup or buy a polyester shirt from time to time. Nobody’s perfect. It’s important to know that the world doesn’t need a handful of people refusing plastic perfectly, it needs everyone doing it imperfectly. Reading up on impacts of plastic, trying your best to make the best decision – it makes a huge difference. After all, it is better than nothing.

Plastic Planet

Refusing plastic sounds cool until you walk into a supermarket and everything is packaged in plastic, even the fresh produce! So what do we do? Now is the time to pop in to a zero waste store near you.

If you haven’t been to one before, it’s basically a sundry shop filled with your daily necessities sans plastic packaging. Their mantra is to reduce wastage as a whole, which includes plastic waste. All you have to do is bring your containers, glass jars, recycle bags, and do your grocery shopping using the containers you brought.

Why You Should Shop At A Zero Waste Shop?

Other than reducing single-use plastic, zero waste shops are especially great if you need a small amount of a certain item. For instance, if you want to give overnight oats a try but don’t want to buy an entire bag of oats, you can just bring your jars to the shop and weigh out exactly how much you need. This way, you don’t have to throw out a bag of oats if you end up being too lazy to make overnight oats. Less food wastage, no plastic used, a win-win!

Generally, the prices of items sold are comparable to supermarkets. If you’re living alone and don’t need much of each item anyway, the price will definitely be more affordable as prices are set according to weight of the food item. Buy less, pay less.

Aside from food items, you can also get personal care from the zero waste shops. We’re talking skincare in reusable jars, reusable cloth pads and menstrual cups, metal straws and cutlery, safety razors, whatever you need to transition to a zero waste lifestyle.

Zero Waste Outside Of The Major City

If you’re Malaysian and staying in the capital city, Kuala Lumpur, I’m thoroughly jealous of you. You guys are spoiled for choice when it to comes to zero waste shops as most of them are concentrated in your neighbourhood. But for the handful of people staying in Shah Alam, Selangor, I have great news for you: we now have a zero waste shop right at your backyard!

Open for business since June 2019, Seedy Zero Waste Store (“Seedy”) has been providing the locals with plastic free lifestyle options, as well as educating the locals on how to slowly transition to a zero waste lifestyle.

Plastic-Free Alternatives You Can Opt For

Seedy has three sections in their store: food, lifestyle, and household items. The food section is stocked with a wide variety of options from rice and noodles to biscuits and oats.They even have a sulphur-free range of responsibly sourced Chinese ingredients. If you’re looking for Chinese ingredients like red dates, Lo Han Guo (罗汉果), and chrysanthemum, Seedy is where you need to be.

In the lifestyle section, they have all the usual personal care items. For example, they have skincare, cosmetics, bamboo toothbrushes, wooden cotton sticks, reusable cotton rounds- the works. Seedy will keep you looking good without harming Mother Earth.

I you’re low on body wash, dish soap, or any household cleaner, you can drop by Seedy’s household section. Of course, you’re encouraged to reuse your existing plastic bottles to fill up just the right amount of household cleaners to use around your house.

Purchase With A Purpose

All things considered, plastic waste, alongside other types of wastage should be reduced as much as possible. Every action counts, and your money matters. Purchase with a purpose, shop sustainably.

If you agree and want to do your part by embarking on the journey to zero waste, do drop by Seedy Zero Waste Shop at Kota Kemuning. At the same time, they’re also on Facebook and Instagram, so do ‘like’ and ‘follow’ them for latest updates on the products they carry.

All in all, our decisions today can directly impact the outcome of tomorrow. If we care about our children, why are we condemning them to a world of waste and toxic pollution? Starting today, we have to be the change we want to see in the world.

This article is part of Espoletta’s CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives.