The Single-Use Lifestyle: Why we need to change

Imagine if you woke up tomorrow morning and single use plastics were made illegal all around the world... how would this impact your day to day life? Those coffee cups, plastic bags, food packaging, toiletries, bottles of water, the lists go on and on. 

 

The realistic fact is that the world is currently going through a transition period, a period whereby as consumers we are slowly starting to become more self-aware of our contribution to plastic production. If we take ourselves back a decade, there was very little being done on reducing plastic waste, but thanks to campaigning and changing consumer behaviours, businesses are starting to realise that these issues are important to their customers. 

 

When it comes to changing behaviours, it is always the consumers (you and I) who drive this change, and eventually businesses cotton on to the trend and start to change the way they do business. Small changes such as bringing your own shopping bags, coffee cups and water bottles are just a few of the ways consumers are driving this change. 

In New Zealand alone, it's estimated around 295 million coffee cups are used each year, that's roughly 63 per person each year. From a business perspective, not only does using your own coffee cup when going to a coffee shop help reduce the amount of plastic entering our environment, but it also helps bring businesses costs down, a saving which in the long run will ultimately be passed onto consumers by reducing prices. 

 

The bottom line is this, we are in a transition period. There are always going to be people who turn up to a coffee shop without a reusable cup, but the idea is, over time the social norm will change. Make the change yourself, inspire and encourage others to do so too, and hopefully we get to a time where leaving the house with your coffee cup and water bottle is as normal and leaving your house with your keys.