Day 1

I woke up on New Years Day with much excitement at the year ahead. I jumped out of bed, stretched, ate breakfast (weetbix with raspberries and soy milk) and blasted Ricky Martin’s 'Are You In It For Love' as I wrote out my goals for January, organised my school work and planned the rest of the holidays. 

I then thought about my plastic free/no buying/as little waste as possible year and I realised it was going to be much harder than I thought. I was bombarded with thousands of things that I realised weren’t ethical. Just from this morning I realised that I would have to find ethical versions of: 

hair ties (possibly cloth could do?)

apple stickers (do all apples have stickers on them?) 

earphones (can you even get ethical earphones?) 

deodorant (going to have to make my own) 

phone cases (would wooden ones be ethical enough?) 

tissues (handkerchiefs?) 

plastic sleeves (can you get ethical versions to put school work in?) 

napkins (can you ask for no napkins when you eat out?) 

This was only from this morning, imagine how many more I will think of. The more I think about it, the worse it becomes. How have we evolved so much, created so many new, sustainable things but we still use so much plastic? How can we be living like this? 

On a lighter note, I found a website which supplies school stationery this is a) uses recycled plastic or biodegradable materials b) that packages everything ethically c) has everything I need. I put everything I need in my digital shopping cart and it only came to $50 which is pretty good seeing as I ‘bought' a hole puncher, stapler, folders, notebooks, sticky notes and writing materials. Hopefully when I get back from my holidays I will buy all these things to get me ready for the new year. 

On the topic of stationery, I need a new pencil case as my old ones are falling apart. I’m not exactly sure where I will get it but I’m hoping my local markets may have some second hand ones. Actually, thinking about it now, if all else fails I could make my own one I suppose. Hang on, what about the zipper? If I don’t use a zipper I could use a button but aren’t they made of plastic? Maybe I could just make it an open pencil case…. 

There are so many things to think about but I am sure during the year I will find many alternatives.