This Non-Profit Is Making Plastic-Free Living The Latest Summer Trend

Plastic is everywhere. It’s in our shoes and our chewing gum. Look at all these items one Twitter user discovered that use plastic:

We all use plastic in so many parts of our daily lives. Unfortunately, which means plastic is also in our oceans. Plastic disturbs coral reefs, harms sea creatures, and clutters our world.

So, what can we do to fix this issue with plastic?

Since nearly half of plastic floating within our oceans is single-use plastic, recycling fails. In fact, we only recycle typically 9% of all plastic used in the United States. Even when people do recycle, the reused plastic turns into a lesser quality material. A water bottle, for instance, becomes a straw instead of another water bottle. Eventually, all plastic just becomes waste. Which means that in order to have less plastic, we must stop using it.

This is exactly why Australian-based non-profit The Plastic Free Foundation started Plastic-Free July.

Essentially, Plastic Free July is a “personal challenge that's part of a worldwide effort.” The goal of the task is to reduce or eliminate the quantity of single-use plastic in our lives. This season, the campaign is urging people to join on the “choose to reuse” train.

Plastic Free July's website provides excellent tips to help you find ways to make the difficult, but important, change to reusable or plastic-free options. If you sign up to participate in the challenge, you receive motivational emails and additional resources to assist your plastic-free efforts end successfully.

This year, 120 million people joined the Plastic Free July campaign, which means refusing plastic is not only the responsible thing to do, but everyone's doing it!

Although the month is almost over, it's never too late to own plastic-free lifestyle a try.

After all, consider all the pretty instagrammable morning cups of coffee in mason jars you are able to snap!