My family is giving up plastic for Lent (in the hope that we can give it up for good)

What are you giving up for lent?

When I was little I had a relative tell me that even though I had given up sweets for lent I should still buy sweets and save them up until lent was over and then I could have a sweet feast. The thought of having a huge pile of sweets after those 40 days got me through many a rough lent. As an adult though I've gone right the other way and have used lent as a way to cut back on spending and to cut back on waste. Last year I gave up buying takeaway coffees during the day. I found that most days, especially days I was in work I could end up buying one to two takeaway coffees a day which might not seem like much but it all adds up. Most coffees I would buy would average around €3 meaning that seven days a week I was spending between €21 and €42. That's almost €50 a week on coffee alone. Needless to say I say a huge difference in my disposable income once I stopped buying coffees but it was also a great way to cut down on the waste takeaway coffees produce. I also strive to be as environmentally friendly as possible but I'd be lying if I said that I always remember to bring a reusable cup or bag with me every time that I go out. That's why this lent my family and I have decided to give up something harder than ditching sweets. We're ditching plastic. While dropping plastic might seem simple enough it really isn't. Only last year one of my colleagues Jade went plastic free for just one week and found it incredibly hard. Our willingness to give up plastic is never the problem, the problem is that there is a serious lack of plastic free products. Every supermarket trip I struggle to do a completely plastic free shop as most fruit and veg are unnecessarily wrapped in plastic. All the cereals contain plastic bags inside the boxes and even products that seem like they are just made out of cardboard actually have a plastic lining which means they can't be recycled. That being said, it needs to done. At the moment most companies are still packaging their products in plastic and while the onus should be on them, until it is, it falls to us to hold ourselves responsible for how much plastic we're disposing of. Plastic can only be recycled a couple of times and many types of plastics can't be recycled at all so our consumption of it needs to stop. It definitely won't be easy but I figure if we can get through the next month buying little to no plastic then we can definitely do it for the rest of the year, every year.