Single use plastics are a growing problem that is causing the death of hundreds of thousands of marine animals every year. As our oceans fill with plastic, our way of life keeps adding more to it, making cleanup efforts in the ocean futile.

In order for our oceans to be clean and safe for wildlife again, we need to ‘turn off the tap’ so to speak, and stop using so much single use plastic. “Plastic Free July” is a campaign that encourages average citizens to give up as much single use plastics as possible.

How to reduce plastic consumption

Suggestions the campaign offers to help you reduce plastic include swapping single use plastics like your coffee cup, grocery bags, and utensils for reusable versions. These easy swaps can help get you started right away, with the goal of looking at every single use plastic in your life for a potential change.

Single use plastic is so ubiquitous that our eyes tend to pass over the plastic packaging of our food and other supplies when we’re in the store. Nearly everything in the store is wrapped in plastic or has the potential to be.

Plastic Free July helps us open our eyes and see all that plastic—and asks us to look for solutions to try and change that.

It’s nearly impossible to be perfect

Many people start out with the goal of not using any single use plastics the entire month, but that’s often easier said than done. Where do you find a loaf of bread that doesn’t at least have a plastic window? How many miles do you have to travel to get to a store that offers shampoo or conditioner bars instead of bottles? How many oil bottles do you have to knock on to determine if it’s really glass before you find one that’s not plastic?

The pervasiveness of plastic makes it hard to go completely plastic free but becoming aware of the problem is a part of the solution. By becoming more aware of the single use plastics in our life, we can take steps to making it better.

If single use plastics aren’t easily avoidable with some of your favorite products, writing the company to ask for change can make a big difference.

Why single use plastics need to go

Single use plastics are one of the biggest problems facing the natural environment. Whales, sea turtles, and seabirds often mistake plastic for food and either eat it or feed it to their children—resulting in their deaths. Animals can become entangled in plastic and die, or get plastic jars stuck on their head and be unable to free themselves.

Despite being used just a few minutes or days, plastic will stay in the environment for hundreds of years before it is broken down by the environment. Every piece of plastic that has ever been made still exists today.

On top of this, most plastics can’t be readily recycled. Even when it is recycled, it is seldom made into a copy of what it originally was, but is downgraded into a different material.

Plastic does have a part in our lives—but something that will exist forever really shouldn’t be made to throw away. Plastic Free July helps us get on that path, so we can reduce the amount of plastic in our lives.