For the past five to seven years I have been trying to reduce our plastic footprint. I use plastic bottles to keep dry ration like rice, pulses, flours etc but these bottles are used for several years. I use glass bottles for all the spices. We carry cloth bags to buy vegetables and fruits. In the Pre-Corona days, we would get some of the dry ration in a cloth bag or its own container as we could go to the store and buy them. That way we avoided a few plastic bags.
As a practise, I refill all the groceries at home on Sundays. That way the week is taken care of and it also gives me ideas for what could be cooked during the week. This Sunday when I went about refilling the groceries, I realised that I was also filling the blue waste basket! Every single package that I threw out was a plastic bag :(.
The pandemic has had a negative impact on efforts related to reducing plastic usage. With social distancing and not wanting to touch other people’s things, one-time-use plastic bags have become common again.
The popular online grocer, Milk Basket, who delivers groceries to your doorstep every morning, refuses to take back their bags. Earlier many of us switched to Milk Basket because of two reasons – they would deliver before 7 am the next morning and they would take their bags back. With the pandemic in full swing, they have stopped collecting their bags.
Just last year I wrote this blog – Plastic Use Reducing across India, but the pandemic has slowed things down a bit. Ofcourse, with food deliveries reducing significantly, and overall “shopping” decreasing, hopefully the plastic use has also reduced.
Single Use Plastics are on the rise due to Covid19
#MakeTheEarthGreen
Dear Malu, it is impossible to eradicate the use of plastic. Only we can reduce it a bit. How can you avoid it in toothbrushes, Water cans, milk and other sachets, etc..etc..?
Not totally eradicate, but we must make efforts to reduce the usage. Milk sachets are recycled. Toothbrushes can be made using bamboo or some other fibre. The plastic bags and spoons etc are easily given up.
Bindu, Is your real name “Malu”?
Thank you for your attention to the overuse of plastic. I figure the packaging industries must be the major beneficiaries of this coronavirus panic-demic. Those and the pharmaceutical companies and mask-makers, as well as the governments.
Plastic definitely has its uses, but single-use packaging, including plastic and paper, is extraordinarily wasteful and environmentally disastrous. If the coronavirus doesn’t get you, environmental toxins will, and the plastics industry–a subset of the petroleum industry–is a major polluter. Both the manufacturing process and the products themselves are toxic over the long term.
We can’t get away from plastic, but we can certainly minimize our consumption of plastic products, especially single-use plastic. Even the simple act of using reusable canvas shopping bags shows awareness and commitment to making wise use of resources, as well as respect for the future of the earth and all its inhabitants.
Katharine, Malu is the name used at home for me. The person who used it is my cousin 😊.
You are so right about single use plastic !! We really have to get rid of those for starters.
Stay safe, my friend. Hopefully we end up with a wiser, less polluted Earth post the panic-demic!!
Bindu,
Thanks for the quick reply and for your always enjoyable posts. Your refreshing perspective gives me hope for our world, and for all its components.
You are very welcome Katharine 👍🙏