Show Your Plastic Challenge Re-visited During Plastic Free July

At the beginning of 2013 I decided to become a more mindful consumer of plastic products. We undertook the Show Your Plastic Challenge for 12 weeks and documented our progress. The results were published on my sister's blog, The Frugal Greenish Mama. I hope to republish these posts here in the near future. This was a picture from our first week of shame...

I was so excited and determined to change our behavior after seeing first hand the affects that plastics have on our bodies and on the environment. So many issues result from the endocrine disruptors that are found in plastic products we surround ourselves with.

I recently gave birth to my third child and in preparing for the baby shower, I paced the aisles of a major department store attempting to register for items that would be conveniently available for my dear friends. My eyes were reopened to the shocking reality of how much plastic the typical parent surrounds there beautiful baby with. Absolutely everything, minus a few cotton textiles, was plastic. I was mortified at the idea of what lay before me. Thus, my registry list was very short. We cloth diaper our babies and exclusively breastfeed so he didn't require much. Our wonderful friends & family renewed my cloth diaper supply to add to ones that I made from repurposed materials. Blog post to come on DIY cloth diapers.

The timing of the birth of this blog is perfect to revisit our awareness of our family's plastic consumption.  It corresponds with Plastic Free July, an initiative to join the world's population in consuming less plastic for a month. Join me and thousands of others this month in raising your awareness to the amount of plastic you consume regularly. I'll be posting weekly updates of our family's goals to reduce our consumption and once again be part of the Show Your Plastic Challenge.

What plastic can you live without this month?