July is not just the seventh month of the year, it also hosts an important and global scale month-long initiative that works towards a cleaner and greener earth. The month of July is home to the month-long movement, Plastic free July.

Plastic free July is a global movement that focuses on creating and implementing solutions to work towards the goal of reducing single use plastic usage while also educating the public to make conscious decisions about their plastic usage. Participants of the movement span across 177 countries with the top participating countries being China and USA.

In 2021, 139 million metric tons of plastic of single use plastic waste was generated, that’s the equivalent to the weight of 21.4 Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt or each person generating 23.17kg of plastic waste. And the alarming fact is, that all this plastic was generated in only a year.

There’s a projected rise in wastage of single use plastics, with past examples of an increase of 6 million metric tons in plastic usage per year from 2019 to 2021. This figure is a staggering increase, with an estimate of each person using around another kilogram of single use plastic per year.

Single use plastic also takes up to 20 to 500 years to decompose, depending on its environmental factors.

This further pushes the narrative of the importance for us to take action now and say no to using single use plastics as much as possible, if we want a real shot at reducing our single use plastic usage.

The movement has met success, with a success rate of close to 9 in every 10 participants making at least one long-lasting change even after the month-long initiative has ended.

(https://plantishfuture.com/blogs/zero-waste-living/crushing-your-plastic-free-july-from-single-use-to-sustainable)

Furthermore, in the past five years, participants have managed to avoid 10 billion kilograms of plastic wastage, this demonstrates the impact that the movement has caused in reducing single use plastic consumption.

But just their collective effort is not enough, we should also step in to play our part and help contribute towards avoiding using single use plastic.

It's never too late to play a part in reducing single use plastic. There is still half a month left to participate in the movement, so, what are you waiting for? Come join the 326 million people participating in this movement and go plastic free!