7 Easy ways to Reduce your Plastic Consumption!

With Plastic Free July coming to an end this week, we want to ensure our we educate and inspire everyone to be sustainable and try to reduce your plastic waste production. ♻️ ❤️ 🌎

Whether you're trying to encourage a sustainable shift in your workplace, encourage your friends to be more eco-friendly or just want to start your plastic free journey, start your journey with SoL. 

If you’re on the hunt for ways to cut back on single-use plastic in your own life, look no further! Here are 7 simple ways...

• Say no to plastic straws. There are entire movements dedicated to this cause, and for good reason! Not only are plastic straws incredibly detrimental to the environment, but did you know that they also leech chemicals into your drinks? To be quite frank, when you use one, you're sucking in all sorts of yucky stuff polypropylene and BPA for starters. Next time you're ordering a drink at a restaurant, politely decline when offered a straw. The same goes for lids and coffee stirrers. There are several wonderful alternatives you can use instead - stainless steel, bamboo, and glass.

•  Keep reusable bags handy. Put one in your car, another in your purse, maybe even hang a couple of them up in your kitchen! Do whatever you need to so that you have them easily accessible and ready to grab when you head to the store.

• Carry a reusable cup for those mid-day coffee stops. Given that you're on the SoL Cups website, it just wouldn’t be right not to include this one! It's becoming a much more mainstream practice and there are a ton of little perks to doing so.! You spend less AND you're making an itty bitty difference in the world! Every day, I notice more and more people adopting this pratice and it makes my heart so, so happy.

•  Rethink how you store food. If I were to take a look at your kitchen pantry right now, chances are I'd find some Ziploc bags and saran wrap, am I right? Try opting for a reusable tin, bento box, or dishwasher-safe food container next time instead. There are lots of options - and they're so much cuter, too!

•  Stop using coffee pods. This is one that people always seem to overlook in their morning state of caffeine deprivation.These little pods aren't recyclable or biodegradable - no bueno, friends! It doesn't take much more than a quick search on the internet to see that there are a ton of high quality K-Cup filters on the market - they're universal AND reusable, so this one's a no-brainer!

•  Make recycling a priority. This one's probably the easiest (and most universally known) of the bunch.Make it simple for yourself- Have two separate trash bins; one for recyclables and the other for non-recyclables.In my house, it's become routine to toss trash in one and glass/plastic/paper in the other.

• Educate your loved ones. This is a key piece to the puzzle! Many people grow up drinking from single-use plastics and if they've never been educated, they simply don't know any better. Use the power of word-of-mouth to encourage them to begin creating habits that are healthier - not only for the environment but for themselves too.

  Once you get in the cycle of implementing these habits into your daily life, it becomes second nature. It's quite simple to do, really. If tackling the entire list seems overwhelming, begin by choosing one or two and committing to them daily. These actions may be small, but I can assure you, they add up!