Start Here: Cut the Top Four Types of Plastic Waste!
- Plastic bags
- Water bottles
- Takeaway coffee cups
- Plastic straws
How to start?
- Cut plastic bags consumption
Buy or make some simple cloth produce bags!
If we can adjust to taking our cloth shopping bags to the grocery store we can adjust to using cloth produce bags as well.
You can buy cloth produce bags at health food co-ops, eco-friendly shops and online. You can also sew very simple produce bags if you prefer. Store your produce bags in your shopping bags. Place your store bags within bags in a place where is visible for you before leaving your house, or getting of your car. Therefore, store your bags somewhere where you will remember to take them with you when you go shopping. Just as you wouldn’t leave home without your keys, you won’t leave home without your reusable bags.
2. Reduce water bottles consumption
To avoid buying bottled water, try to carry a reusable water bottle or mason jar with you wherever you go. If you prefer to drink and cook with filtered water, install a water filtration system in your home. Or if using a plastic bottle, try to reuse it as much as possible instead of throwing it away.
3. Reduce takeaway coffee cups if possible
Thin plastic lines the inside of paper to-go cups in order to prevent coffee and tea from leaking all over the place. Again, a mason jar works wonders. To prevent burning your hand, wrap a few rubber bands around the jar or sew a cloth sleeve for it out of scrap fabric or a worn-out sock. Or bring a ceramic mug with you to your café or invest on a reusable mug.
If, like many people, you have many mugs, keep one packed in your zero-waste kit, one in your car, one at the office (if your office doesn’t have real mugs, in which case, consider working on changing that) and so on. If you need to buy mugs, your thrift shop may have a large shelf full of them.
4. NO STRAWS!
Starting down the plastic-free path is hard. You can’t change your routine overnight and sometimes, just when you get your routine down, new obstacles will pop up (hello, Covid). But the point is to use less plastic where possible.
People who start their plastic reduction by refusing plastic straws won’t likely stop there. No doubt they will become more aware of plastic pollution and more active in addressing the problem.
Of course, no one advocates the taking away of straws from anyone with disabilities who needs them. But for those of us who can drink without a straw, we can either lift the glass to our lips or buy reusable metal or glass straws.
At Tops Day Nurseries we avoid buying any one use plastics including; cling film, carrier bags, food bags, aprons, and wet-wipes.
Tops Day Nurseries have been awarded the status of Plastic Free Champions by Surfers Against Sewage.
We are passionate about reducing our environmental impact in order to protect the future of the thousands of very small children that attend all our day nurseries. This means taking every opportunity to avoid buying any one use plastic, to work with suppliers and colleagues to reduce the need for it by finding alternatives or just stopping. We are also actively communicating with politicians, manufacturers, retailers and waste handling organisations to make our concerns heard, on behalf of the children.
Providing happy, nurturing childcare for the hours you need, across over 30 nursery settings in: Babbacombe, Plymouth, Bournemouth, Charminster, Copnor, Fawley, Gillingham, Corfe Mullen, Havant, Lakeside, Lymington, Taunton, Newport, Poole, Portsmouth, Salisbury, Southsea, Wareham, Wimborne, Winchester and Yeovil.
