Time to go green: These fun and engaging activities will help your child learn about reducing the use of plastic

There is a lot that parents can do to educate their children about the harmful effects of plastic and avoiding plastic use. Parents and children can play an active part in protecting the environment by taking some responsible steps to reduce everyday plastic use.

Let us take a look at some simple ways to reduce plastic use. Also read about the harmful effects of plastic pollution, why it is important to prevent plastic waste, and some fun activities to avoid using plastic.

How to reduce plastic use

Here are some simple ways to reduce plastic use:

Importance of reducing plastic use

Plastics are choking the world. Here are some serious facts to ponder:

• Almost half of the plastics produced globally are disposable plastics designed for single use. This means they are used once and then thrown away, creating large amounts of waste.
• For example, disposable plastic bags take less than one second to make, are used for 12-20 minutes, but last thousands of years!
• Every year, we use a trillion plastic bags worldwide.
• For each minute you spend reading this article, two million more plastic bags are produced!

Harmful effects of plastic pollution

If you want your child to understand the scale of plastic pollution and the need to reduce plastic use, begin by telling her some facts.

Five fun activities to avoid using plastic

Here are five fun tips to involve your child in plastic awareness activities.

1. Plastic-free July

We learn best from our experiences. Join a fantastic global challenge to reduce the use of disposable plastics. Sign up for a day or whole month; focus on specific disposable plastics or challenge yourself to say no to all disposable plastics! This experience for your family is guaranteed to change the way you think and use plastics!

2. The bad plastic family hunt

As a family, join forces in a treasure hunt with a difference. Investigate your own home and search for unsafe or disposable plastics. Go through your kitchen cupboards, bathroom, bedroom and pantry. Search for the resin codes and pick up any unsafe plastic. Remember that codes 7, 6 and 3 are not good for you and your family. Collect plastic items that you use just once (disposable plastics) as these contribute massively to plastic pollution.

Make two piles of plastic (unsafe and disposable) on your dining room table, and as a family, brainstorm on how you can replace these items with plastic-free alternatives.

3. Zero plastic waste birthday

Start small but make it a habit to protect the planet from plastic pollution. Celebrate your next birthday with a party that does not pollute the planet for the next 1,000 years, by avoiding plastic use. Choose reusable tableware (ceramic, stainless steel, or glass). Challenge yourself to make your birthday all about having fun and not polluting the environment!

4. Water taste challenge

Did you know that bottled water is 1,000 to 2,800 times more expensive than tap water? Or that producing and transporting a 1-liter plastic water bottle release a hundred times more greenhouse gases than 1-liter of tap water?

Take the water taste challenge and see if you can find the difference between bottled water and tap water. Get a family member or friend to blindfold you, eat something sweet or salty, and then take a sip of water from two different sources (bottled water and filtered water). Try to guess which one is bottled water and which is the tap/filtered water source. Did you get it right? If not, then it is not surprising as bottled water is in fact just glorified tap water, and thousands of people who have done the same test could not tell the difference either!

5. Microbeads test

Microbeads are small round pieces of plastic that are added to personal care products and cosmetics including scrubs, face wash, shower gel and shampoos. They are flushed down the drains and eventually end up in our rivers, lakes and oceans.

Check for microbeads that have snuck into your bathroom without you and your family knowing it. Take a scrub or shower gel with microbeads that you find in your bathroom. Mix two tablespoons of this in a glass of water and stir it well. Pour the water through a black T-shirt, filtering the microbeads out. Feel the microbeads, and as a family make a conscious choice to avoid this hidden type of plastic pollution. You can also search for microbead-free products on www.beatthemicrobead.org.

These activities provide both adults and children an opportunity to learn about the impact of plastics on our environment and inspire them to make an eco-friendly choice.

The small step you and your family take today will go a long way in saving the world from the plastic menace. Inspire your children to say NO to plastics and be an example to others.