“Plastic Free July® is a global movement that helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution – so we can have cleaner streets, oceans, and beautiful communities. Will you be part of Plastic Free July by choosing to refuse single-use plastics?”
Like many other similarly minded, environmentally concerned souls around the world, the idea of going 100% eco warrior and 100% impact free is rather daunting, not to say potentially impractical and likely doomed to not be sustained. Large technology project deployments are the same, changing multiple processes across whole departments or the organisation itself becomes almost unmanageable - causing or allowing users to revert to old ways, allowing users to find new ‘creative’ and not ideal workarounds rather than using the new process as intended. The same is true of making many well-meaning ethical lifestyle choices in one fell swoop - the change is likely to falter earlier and maybe even fail to be adopted completely.
And whilst being a parent is not a prerequisite to being concerned for our planet’s environment, it certainly focuses the mind on the future of our planet and our children.
It was last week that a post on Instagram from Plastic Free July, tagging the artist aware_animals, caught my eye, highlighting this very conundrum of wanting to make big lifestyle changes (for the right reasons) but seeing the goal as unobtainable.
Making iterative steps towards a goal (removing single use plastic, learning to read or write, introducing automation to accounts payable, becoming a one car family…) will always lead to far better adoption and potentially earlier attainment of that target. With these smaller steps, tracking the success or failure at each stage becomes far easier - you can see when the change has stuck or needs to be revisited / reinforced rather than it being obscured by all the other clutter. Plus with the visibility of success comes the sense of achievement which in turn motivates the next step.
As for this house, water bottles, coffee mugs, tote bags, cold-pressed soap bars, sustainable detergents and ethical bog rolls are all standard now. Our latest move is trying the products from a local(ish) refill shop. If we can work getting refills around our normal routine, then we won’t have to purchase any laundry or cleaning product in ‘new’ packaging for a very, very long time. There may be a bigger project in the future to install solar panels but I think the next ‘easy’ iterative move (after refills) might have to be a personal, reusable straw - I love a Five Guys shake but the paper straws are just a nightmare!!! (#firstworldproblems)
Whether changing your plastic usage habits, work processes, dietary intake or lifestyle, the same principle applies across most situations - smaller iterations towards a larger goal will produce better results, sooner and leave you motivated to do more.
What is your commitment this Plastic Free July to take on for the next month and onwards?
Toby Gilbertson, Director of Operations. June 2023
#PacSolUK #PlasticFreeJuly #Environment #ChangeManagement
