STOP WASTING PLASTIC

#1 Bring your own bag

One way to reduce plastic usage is by bringing our own cloth bags or reusable bags to the supermarket. Supermarkets around Malaysia sell reusable bags for us to get them easily.

#2 Reuse the plastic bags

Let’s say we had to use plastic bags from the supermarket, as we may have gone overboard with our grocery shopping (which we’ll talk about in the next point). Keep them at home and reuse them whenever you need to.

#3 Make a shopping list

Plan ahead our shopping trip; when, where and what to buy and stick to the plan. Planning what to buy helps us avoid entering the aisles that don’t contain the food we listed down, hence, lessen the amount of pre-packaged food.

#4 Bring reusable produce bags

Reusable produce bags are mesh cotton bags that can be found online on Shopee and Lazada or offline from The Hive Bulk Foods. We can’t possibly put our veges into our large-sized reusable bags because some of them need to be weighed first. This is where the mesh cotton bags come in useful. They vary in size and easy to see what’s inside.

#5 Have reusable cups ready

A lot of beverages are sold in plastic cups with plastic straws. To avoid using them, bring along a reusable cup. Reusable cups come with straws and there are a lot of options in stores nationwide.

#6 Use reusable water bottles

Using reusable water bottle is more convenient and cheap as we always have water in hand, so there’s no need to buy water outside. It also helps reducing the number of plastic bottles used.

#7 Opt for eco-friendly brands

We usually have a lot of empties after our beauty products run out, so one way to reduce our waste is to opt for eco-friendly brands . Eco-friendly brands are those that use recycled materials or sustainably-sourced materials to produce their products. An example would be Kiehl’s, whereby the consumers are allowed to recycle their empties at Kiehl’s stores and their use recycled materials whenever possible.

These tips are very useful in our day-to-day tasks because plastics have some negative qualities that affect our entire ecosystem. One of the qualities is that when plastic enters the ocean, sea turtles and other marine creatures mistake plastics as food and eat it. Plastic blocks their digestive system which will lead to death. Besides, plastic takes hundreds of years to decompose, and if it is used non-stop, the amount of plastic in landfills, oceans, seas and rivers will keep on increasing at an alarming rate.

P/S: If you have any other tips please feel free to share it with me through the comment section below! 🙂