Top 11 Tips on How to Live Plastic Free - COCO LOIVE Ep.5 Special

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Plastic Free July is in full swing.

Here are our Top 11 Tips on How to Successfully Survive a Month without Single-Use Plastic:

1. Bring a Jar & Use Bulk Section:
   Stores don’t always advertise this, but at least some will let you use a jar for the bulk section. Go to customer service and ask to get it weight to see how it goes. Either way you are starting a conversation with them.
   OR you can reuse the baggies you already have.

2. Back a Bag of Essentials:
   Take a reusable shopping bag and add your essentials, including:

• Jar for bulk section or liquids
• Tupperware for leftovers or take out food
• Produce Bags
• Reusable straw for drinks
• Cutlery
• Bottle of water
• Additional shopping bags

3.REMEMBER: Ask for “No Straw”:
Every time you go out, even if you just get water, make sure to tell the waiter you don't want a straw. This extends for finding out what left-overs are packed in (if you forgot your tupperware)

1. Fresh Foods from Farmers Market:
   Are our best friend because they mostly come with no packaging and if they do you can ALWAYS ask to take it out of the packaging for them to reuse.
   PLUS it’s local
   PLUS it’s super healthy & fresh. Yumm

2. Abstain from Your Favorites:
   Just for a month can you commit to not buying your favorite packaged crackers and other packaged snacks? And instead look for alternatives. For example get bread from a local bakery instead of those crackers.

3. Make Your Own = DIY:
   You can make so much yourself, especially body products or cleaning supplies, such as detergent, toothpaste or body butters. And of course, another awesome advantage again is that it is so much better, since YOU choose and thus know all the ingredients and their quality. This can sound or feel overwhelming, so we encourage you to just pick 1, something you are running out of this month.

Here is a link to a great page with lots of different recipes:
https://www.wisebread.com/5-amazing-easy-diy-bath-and-body-products

1. Keep an Eye Out for hidden plastics:
   They are EVERYWHERE. I point out a few examples in the video. You can inspect packaging to the best of your ability, and even then you’ll still end up with plastic sometimes.

2. Ask for What You Want:
   Even if you don’t get it. Such as wanting to bring your own container to the deli. I keep getting a similar response related to health regulations. Even if there isn’t an immediate success, eventually companies have to and already have been listening to what their customers ask for. The power truly is in YOUR hand and in YOUR VOICE.

3. Avoid Compostable Plastics:
   That’s right, they count too. As a matter of fact, unlike you might believe, they can actually be WORSE for the environment. They only compost at special facilities, and there aren’t very many in place yet (Google it for your area). This means your compostable plastic will end up in the landfill where it sadly doesn't decompose properly - instead it actually releases methane. Methane’s greenhouse gas impact is 25 greater than CO2.

4. Reuse Unavoidable Containers:
   If there is something that is only available in plastic packaging and you absolutely need or can’t say no to choose a sturdy enough container that you can reuse over and over as a tupperware. This is last resort though, since we are still using plastic and the containers do start breaking.

5. Be Kind to Yourself & Others:
   This is the most important tip of all. Going plastic free, even just for a month if very challenging with how our current society is set up. Doing the best to YOUR ability is the rule of thumb, and kindly educating people only where it feels right and good. It’s a journey. Change takes time.

More than anything Plastic Free July is about awareness as well as slowly integrating new habits.

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And follow us on Instagram @cocoloive for more tips and tricks on a successful Plastic Free July as well as other insights for conscious & sustainable living.

We want to hear from you now:

1. How is your Plastic Free July going?

2. What are the biggest challenges you are running into?

Please comment below for our input and advice.
If you have this challenge other people do too. So let’s help educate each other.

Stay inspired!

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