What is Plastic Free July?

Plastic Free July is a challenge – taken by millions of people around the world – to reduce your use of single-use plastics and cut down on your plastic waste. By making small changes as individuals, we can make a big difference together.

Take the 7-day plastic waste challenge! (like us!)

We decided to warm-up for Plastic Free July by doing a 7-day waste challenge. For one whole week, a handful of us cleaned, collected and then sorted all our plastic waste. We took pictures of the results – and were surprised, even shocked, by what we saw.

Even though we’re all committed environmentalists, there’s still so much room for improvement. (Apart from Stella, our very own zero waste hero, she gets all the prizes.)

The good news is this pre-challenge really opened our eyes: everyone who took the challenge now has a plan for reducing one or two of their most problematic plastic items throughout Plastic Free July.

How it works

If you want to cut down on your plastic, we heartily recommend you kick off with the same 7-day challenge – we found it super interesting and motivating. To take part...

1. Choose a day to start (like today!)
2. Collect and clean all your plastic waste for one week
3. Once you’re done, sort through what you’ve collected – divide it into categories (like food packaging, bottles, bags etc).
4. Identify which plastics appear most often in your waste and then figure out how to remove that problem plastic from your life.
5. take a photo of your plastic waste, make a pledge about what you’re going to reduce and share it online. Make sure to tag #plasticfreejuly and @commonseas so we can see!