Who would have thought that in our lifetime, we would experience a pandemic? I didn’t, but scientists have predicted a pandemic upon our midsts as early as five years ago. Yet, many did not believe the science. A theme that follows in the topic of the harm plastic has on our communities and climate change. As we’ve been stuck in our houses, soon to celebrate a year since the pandemic caused us to isolate in our homes here in Jakarta, many of us who try to be sustainable have found it difficult to reduce our plastic waste. With online shopping and food delivery services such as Gojek (although now using reusable bags for delivery) booming during this time, so has the buildup of plastic in our households. The removal of plastic waste only after the pandemic has been foreseen to be more complicated than before COVID-19. With the pandemics’ new form of plastic waste being introduced in bulk, a household’s weekly amount of plastic waste could double due to a family’s disposal of used masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer bottles. Thus, tackling this issue from its roots, we must seek alternatives for our covid waste. Options that, of course, still protect our loved ones and us from catching the virus.
Here are some ways to reduce plastic waste in your household:
Goal Setting
A helpful way to start before diving in is to list your beliefs and why you want to move towards a plastic-free lifestyle and ask yourself how you can connect further with them each day. Perhaps you are a student with interest in sustainability. Or maybe you’re fed up with our elected officials struggling to establish or pass progressive climate change policies? Write down your points forever online, either in your phone notes or on social media, so that anytime you need a little motivational kick, you can return to them. Getting sound reasoning often serves to make yourself responsible for behavioral changes. Once you’ve written down realistic goals, brainstorm what needs to be done to achieve your goals. How often do you want to perform this goal? Is it a permanent change or a timed trial? The more specific your goals are, the more realistic your reduction of plastic waste will be.
Use a Reusable Bag
Last July, Jakarta’s ban on single-use plastic bags at supermarkets saw a spike in reusable bags. Next to the cashier register, with stores offering those right in arm’s length. However, several grocery stores and other organizations have begun increasing their sanitary plastic bags for fresh produce and poultry goods since the pandemic started. Causing a loophole in the ban on plastic bags in Jakarta. The precaution, however, could be misplaced if you have your own goods. For example, our crochet bags I Want To Smell The Perfume are made to use as fresh produce bags. Research has shown that the virus could survive longer on plastics than on other materials such as cardboard. When shopping, if a plastic bag is required, make sure to use it as much as possible! If you have to use plastic bags while shopping for food, make sure you find ways to reuse them, such as garbage bin liners, for instance.
Buy From Sustainable Bulk Stores
Among eco-conscious shoppers who want to produce less waste by eliminating single-use plastic packaging and food waste, buying foods or other essentials in bulk has become a trend. If Indonesians are familiar with wholesale stores whose idea is to sell their goods in an overall volume/size, then what we might call the next category of the wholesale store is the bulk store. Not only do bulk retailers sell goods in bulk, but most importantly, the plastic wrapping that generally comes with the goods we buy is often removed. Customers planning to buy at bulk retailers should also have their own bags. Another alternative available is for the shop to allow us to borrow their containers that we will return at the next transaction. Usually, this alternative allows the customers to pay a certain amount of deposit that will be repaid when the containers are returned, with bulk shops in Indonesia becoming the spot to find out more about a zero-waste lifestyle. Many types of meat, ingredients, and personal care products are offered by most of the shops.
Bulk stores here in Jakarta include:
Saruga Pack-Free Shopping Store in Bintaro, South Jakarta
Naked Inc. in Kemang, South Jakarta
The Bulkstore & Co in Menteng, Central Jakarta and Kemang, South Jakarta
Responsible Disposal of Covid Waste
In individual nations, including China and Japan, or in hospital settings, medical face coverings have long been worn in the culture. But in recent months, facial coverings have boomed in worldwide fashion following the Covid-19 pandemic. Some masks are reusable (virologists frequently suggest machine-washing), yet each time you throw one out, you create more waste with landfills for single-use choices. Will masks become the next single-use plastic bottle of water in five years?
To remove the mask:
First, rinse your hands.
Remove it with the ear or head strap from behind (do not touch the mask’s front).
Remove the mask from your face.
Cut off the plastic straps, dump them in a closed bin immediately.
Wash your hands with soap and water or an alcohol-based hand rub.
While we do our hardest to dispose of our covid garbage as efficiently as possible, we never know how our waste is treated once it leaves our care. They may end up in lakes, wetlands, or landfills. However, we hope that it will not hurt any more animals or even us in the long run, for that matter. Thus, using a cloth mask is a great option to reduce the number of reusable covers being thrown. Just as safe as a reusable mask, all that needs to be done is wash them at high temperatures and reuse them.
Before the pandemic, our service club felt that we had truly accomplished our goal of banning plastic bags in Jakarta, which ultimately reduced plastic’s overall usage. However, as the pandemic introduced fluctuations in new forms of plastic waste, we’ve felt as though we’re back at square one. Yet, we’ve learned alternatives that we believe our community can take up to do our part in reducing our communities’ plastic waste. If we were able to reflect on making healthier decisions, so would the rest of our sustainable community. The pandemic provided an opportunity to sit, reflect, and work on new ways to alter service to an online platform focusing on making better choices and focusing on some environmental issues the virus has brought that we never had the time to focus on before. We hope you all try to make small changes towards more significant progress that the pandemic will hopefully outlast. As life gets in the way, COVID may get in the way. We never know what the future will look like, but all we have is now. And we need to make it count.
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