By Laura Saunders
Close your eyes, take yourself to a place of peace, of stillness, of serenity. My place equals the beach, the sun, the sand, the salty air and most importantly those glorious waves rolling effortlessly into shore brings me back into my body.
There is just something magical about the ocean that calms me instantly, its beauty, its magnificence, its wonder, its everlasting glory and ability to serve us is so many ways. But there is something which is harming this beautiful gift from mother nature, something powerful and that something is us...
When you brush your teeth in the morning, have you jumped onto the bamboo bandwagon or are you still opting for the plastic value pack from ALDI? Did you know that those pesky plastic toothbrushes never break down...
Do you grab a coffee from your local on your way to work and fail to think twice about receiving a non-reusable cup each time?
Do you cover your leftovers with plastic wrap, do you freeze your banana’s and place them in a zip-sealed bag and discard it when your on the last banana, or do you 'forget' your reusable bags and use plastic bags every time you go to the supermarket?
These small snippets of our everyday life may seem insignificant to some, however, just imagine if we each just swapped one of these ‘habits’ with a new way of thinking.
That's roughly 365 coffee cups, 12 toothbrushes and 312 plastic bags just one person can save from harming our planet. In my opinion, plastic is required in the world we live in today, think our wonderful blenders and so forth, however, single-use plastic is not as we have the choice to reuse, reuse, reuse.
Working for my local organic food store was where I truly started to see the magic come to life, to build authentic relationships with conscious people. These people are the ones that go out of their way to save their brown paper bags from their last shop covered in scribbles and crossed out codes AND reuse up to five times until they could not be used anymore. People who save up all of their used jars, zip-seal plastic bags, olive oil bottles you name it and refill their containers with new pantry produce. These simple gestures bring me so much joy, to see there are good people out there in this big wide world, selfless and aware of the importance of protecting our planet.
So next time you are graced with the ocean, I challenge you to look carefully, scan the sand and take 3 for the sea (at least 3 pieces of rubbish) each visit.
Here are the first steps you can make to reducing your use of single-use plastics:
1. Invest in a reusable coffee cup
2. Say no to straws when your out and about and grab a fancy reusable one instead
3. Say NO to single-use plastic, always keep your reusable bags in your car and reuse those little zip sealed bags as much as you can until you can’t use them anymore then switch over to freezing in glass containers.
4. Shop at your local health food store that allows you to purchase as little or as much as you like because it's just as kind to your wallet as it is to the planet.
5. Use the brown paper ‘mushroom’ bags at the markets or your local fruit & veg store (or invest in some durable reusable ones that Banish has lined up for you)
Oh and one more thing, if you're looking for a new doco to watch on a Friday night check out ‘A Plastic Ocean’ its one of my favourites.
Laura is the founder of A Life Worth Nourishing. She lives by the sea in Currumbin on the Gold Coast, and is in her final year of studying Bachelor of Health Science - majoring in Nutrition & Dietetic Medicine at Endeavour College of Natural Health. Laura believes in a holistic approach to life and is passionate about helping Australian's reduce their consumption of single use plastics.