Plastic-Free July!

In the green community on the Internet, July is a plastic-free month. Basically, it's a month where you try to avoid all the one-use plastics as much as humanly possible. Click here to join the challenge!

Why do we want to go plastic free? Plastic is not biodegradable, can release toxins when heated, and are really bad for aquatic life and aquatic birds. Even though plastic can be recycled, it takes a lot of energy to do so.

I know it can be really hard to completely shut out plastic out of your life so suddenly, but I've come up with several easy solutions we can all adopt to minimize as much plastic from our daily lives as possible. I've kind of touched on this subject before, so if you haven't read that post, here it is!

Such red!

1. Use renewable shopping bags!

In Toronto (and probably other cities as well), many grocery stores will charge 5 cents per plastic bag, so it would be a good idea anyways. The next time you go shopping, bring some reusable bags with you, and say "No thank you" to the ones offered!

Quite a lot of times, when I'm stopping by at the shops, I'm already carrying a school bag, so I just end up putting whatever I picked up in there. The reusable bags are also quite easy to come by, as I usually end up finding lots of them at promotional events. As you can see from the picture, I appears I have many red ones :)

2. Plastic-free food storage

Food storage can be done without plastic wrap. In my opinion, I think it's so wasteful to use that stuff. You use it for a day or two, then throw it away forever. Ugh! Instead of using plastic wrap, you can use glass jars or containers, stainless steel, and even paper! For more ideas on food storage, read this.

3. Plastic water bottles, WHY?!

Same idea as the plastic wrap, but EVEN WORSE. If infuriates me so much to see people carelessly buying cases upon cases of water being bought, and then people only half drinking it before just leaving it to rot (jokes, plastic doesn't rot). The sole reason of the entire bottle of water is to hold 2 cups of water, and then most likely never to be used again. Most of it isn't even recycled.

I know that there are some countries where tap water is literally so dirty that you cannot safely drink it. But, in my glorious country of Canada, as well as many other first world countries, we have the privilege of clean drinking water. Why don't we use that to our advantage?? (Also, would it help in some countries to boil the tap water? I don't know... That's what my mother used to do in China) For more info on bottled water, watch this.

So much energy is put into making the bottles, then shipping the bottles out to put on shelves, only to find that a majority of it comes from the tap anyways. What a waste! And let's not even begin on what happens to it after you're done with it.

The solution? So easy! Use reusable water bottles! It only takes max 30 seconds more out of your day to fill up a reusable water bottle, but will give you a lifetime of happiness, just knowing you didn't contribute carelessly to the destruction of the biosphere. (I am so cheesy, I apologize)

4. Travel mugs

This one is kind of like the water bottles. Cafés like Tim Horton's, Starbucks, McCafé (and probably 95% of all other cafés) all have cups with plastic lids, plastic lining, and sometimes even use plastic straws! So much plastic going towards a drink that you can finish in like 10 minutes! If you buy yourself a coffee 5 times a week, that'll be 20 lids, 20 cups, and maybe 20 coffee stirrers/straws each month! Why would you do that when there's such an easy solution?

Starbucks (and maybe other places) even encourages the use of reusable travel mugs. Every time you buy a drink with a travel mug, you get a 10 cent discount on your drink (that's 26 dollars a year, if you drink 1 coffee 5 times a week)

If you're looking for cute travel mugs, Starbucks themselves have some, and I also really like the ones by KeepCup.

5. Bar soap

As I was doing my readings for this blog post, this one surprised me a little at first. But it makes so much sense when you think about it. Every time you buy another bottle of hand soap, shampoo, shower gel etc, you're buying another bottle of one-use plastic. On the other hand, most soaps come in paper packaging. This one is actually going to be kind of hard for me, though, as I prefer liquid soap to bar soap. But, I would gladly make the change.

In the picture, I have the shea butter one from Dove, and while that's a good one, my FAVOURITE one by Dove is the green tea and cucumber one (sounds strange, but don't hate it till you sniff it). If heaven were a scent, it would smell like the Dove green tea and cucumber scent.

In regards to shampoo and body wash, Lush actually has shampoo bars and body soap that you can buy! I'd never even heard of solid shampoo before this, but apparently, they can last even longer than regular shampoo.

6. BYO Cutlery

Buy here

When I was at university in my first year, I carried around with me a spoon and fork so that I wouldn't have to continuously use new plastic ones every time. I would recommend you guys do this too, makes for a very guilt free meal :)

7. Biodegradable plastic 

Like I said before, usually, I would say use reusable cutlery, but, if you're throwing a big party and you don't have the muscle or time to wash 50+ sets of forks, spoons and knives, you can always spend a little more and go the biodegradable plastic route. (Or use the good ol' bamboo chopstick haha) This should be used as a last resort, though, even though some plastics are labeled as biodegradable, they are often not 100% safe for the environment.

Random April Favourites!

This favourites really doesn't have any beauty products at all, as they usually do. But, here are the things that I enjoyed in the month of April.

Muji Products

Items from Muji: 2 black pens, light blue pen, dark blue pen, pencil case

Muji is a Japanese store that literally means "no name brand." And for that reason, I love it. I love how minimalistic and plain everything is. All of the labels can be stripped off for a sleek look. I haven't tried their paper or home products, but I'm sure in the future I will be making lots and lots of visits back to that store!

Mildliners by Zebra

I very recently got these highlighters in the mail from Japan, but they are an instant favourite. These pastel colours are so lovely and candy-like. Can't wait to actually start using these!

Avatar

I saw that "Avatar: Legend of Korra" was on Netflix and was immediately intrigued because I had seen some of "the Last Airbender" when I was a child. And, oh my goodness, let me just say that it's better than some of the shows that were meant for adults. A must watch. I also went back to "Avatar: The Last Airbender" just to re-jog my memory, and I'm so glad I did. I'm enjoying the two series immensely. I love how every second is either action-packed, hilarious, or adorable. Why can't we be benders?? ):

Drawing

It's been so long since I've drawn anything, and I'm so glad that I now have the time to do it again. I recently borrowed the how-to book from a friend and am having much fun drawing these chibis.

Word Swag

The last favourite is an app that I purchased in April. Word Swag lets you create stunning words to go with your stunning images. It's the app that I used to create the first picture of this post!

6 Steps to an Organized Life

Hello! Long time no post... Sorry :( The first week of uni has been rather overwhelming, haha.

With school back in (most of) our lives, I thought it would be a good idea to share my experience with you on the subject of organization.

Use a Journal/Planner

Some of the text is blurred for my privacy :')

Whether it be a journal the school gives you, or one you buy yourself, it's a good idea to write what you need to do and when it needs to be done down. I personally don't like the planners schools give, I just feel like it doesn't give me enough freedom to write what I want down, and therefore isn't as useful as it could be. If that's the case for you too, then you can try some other journal systems such as: the bullet journal (I use this), filofax, midori (sells good travelling journals).

Actually Use Said Planner!

It's fine and dandy to have a pretty notebook/planner and all, but for it to actually work, you gotta actually use it! This means spend some time to plan your day out, and at the end of the day, spend some time going over the list, to see if there's anything you've missed. And, throughout the day, use your planner as reference. 

In the picture above, is an example of me using my Bullet Journal, specifically, to plan this post! 

Start the Day Right

Many of us (me included, much of the time) press the snooze button as many times as we can, and groan about having to get out of bed. But, in my experience, starting the day off in a positive way can really help make the rest of it a good one.

For example, many people start the day off by making their bed. Even something as simple as that could set you off on the right foot, and make your day instantly brighter. There are actually studies out there that prove this. Others take it a step further and have a mini meditation session. A great app for that if you want to get into it is "Calm" (available to both Android and iOS). I've tried it out, and it really does help take some of the stress away! :)

Get Help from the Apps

In this age and day, most people have smartphones, and what better to do than let them help you lead a more organized life? Here are a few apps that I use that make my life easier.

1. Evernote

Evernote is a note-taking app that can sync on all your devices. It's great for those of us that go to school. You can make notebooks, jot down notes, draw, take pictures, record, make to-do lists, and many more! If you haven't tried it out, I highly recommend you do.

2. Swipes

This is an app where you can create to-do lists. This app also collaborates with Evernote, so you can get the most out of both apps. What's special about this app is that it organizes your list for you, showing the most important and most upcoming at the top, and ones that are due later, later. Visit here for more information! (this app is available for most mobile devices, it even has an app on the Mac App Store!)

3. Google Now/Siri
Okay, well, neither of these are really apps, but both of them can certainly help you make your life easier!

On Google Now, you can tell google what you would like to see, and it'll pick cards that it thinks are important to you (eg. travel times, interesting articles, weather). You can also tell google now to create a reminder. There are so many things that Google Now can do, so if you have an Android phone, I suggest you read this, this, and this, to help better familiarize yourself.

Siri, in many ways is just like Google Now. However, it lacks the cards, and (no offence to Apple fanboys/girls) also lacks the ability to understand what you're saying. I don't think Google Now has ever misheard me... but it's not the same story with Siri. (those using iOS 9 should experience this less, though, with the new and updated Siri)

Anyways, enough bashing... Siri can take reminders, will listen to your commands to text your best friend, tweet things for you, perform web searches and many more. For all the iOS readers that would like a better insight to how Siri works, go here, here, and here.

Pick One and Stick to It!

Pick one way to do things and keep at it! Whether this be apps or journal systems, or even schedules. Once you find what works for you, stick to it. The key to an organized life is structure. But how can structure be found if you keep on changing things up?

JUST DO IT

This step is the most important of them all! You can make many to-do lists, have many things written down on an agenda, and have tens of reminders, but none of them will actually give you a more organized life unless you DO IT! 

Little things like getting up and making the bed, even if you're thinking, "What's the point? No one's going to see it anyways." Just do it! Even if you don't feel like opening up your math textbook to do practice questions, just do it! There is no way you can make your life more organized and put together unless you take action!

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I really hope this was helpful-ish to you guys, and not just me rambling on and on. Again, apologies for long time no write... Hopefully I can figure out a good balance between uni life and blog.

Until next time,

Jakie