Why You Should Say No To Single-Use
We’ve all seen the devastating effects our modern-day disposable lifestyle has on our environment. That’s why we’re all trying to do our part to make a difference.
Social media plays a huge part in this newfound awareness. Like the video of that poor sea turtle who had a plastic straw removed from its nostril, the plethora of plastic water bottles accumulating on pristine beaches, or the plastic bags being mistaken by ocean wildlife for jellyfish.
Our dutiful response? Refusing to use plastic straws, bringing reusable tote bags to the grocery store, and doing everything we can to avoid plastic water bottles. Governments are thankfully also stepping up. By 2021, single-use plastic items including straws, food containers, and cotton swabs will be banned from Europe in an effort to reduce marine litter and encourage sustainable alternatives.
But there are still blind spots, even for those who think they’re doing their best. While you may give your local barista an evil glare if she so much attempts to put a plastic straw in your iced coffee, you probably don’t feel as much guilt reaching for your plastic shampoo bottle. Even though there are some amazing alternatives on the market for that don’t require plastic packaging (like shampoo bars or toothpaste tablets), these alternatives are far less ubiquitous than swapping your paper coffee cup for a reusable one.
The takeaway, of course, is not to get it 100% right, all the time. It is, however, our responsibility to become more aware and thereby educated to choose more sustainable alternatives when and where we can. This is the motivation behind the Good Move Sustainable Moving company. We offer reusable moving boxes as an alternative to cardboard. (Another area of life you probably didn’t realize needed an eco-make-over.)

When thinking about simple changes to make your life more eco-friendly, a good rule-of-thumb is to use reusable alternatives rather than single-use. Even if something can be recycled, like a cardboard box or paper coffee cup, the environmental impact of recycling something over and over again (paper products can only be recycled up to seven times), is far greater than something that can be reused thousands of times over many years.
Small changes, every day, add up to big changes over time. If everyone adopted this ethos, imagine the impact we could make!