What exactly is the so-called no-willpower-needed plastic-free movement?

After my article was published last time, one day my friend D suddenly messaged me, saying she had carefully gone through all the items in her home and found that living a plastic-free life was simply a pipe dream! This thought made her feel even more depressed about the world. I smiled at my computer and replied: Look at it from another angle - the plastic life has already hit rock bottom, and it can't get any worse. If this time there's no option other than plastic, the world will keep running just the same; but if one day you discover some new option, even a tiny one, as long as you start putting it into practice, things will immediately be different.

Aren't we on a path that only moves forward and never goes astray? Isn't that a wonderful thing?

This is why Small Things Life deliberately adds the words "no overexertion" before "plastic-free movement." The plastic-free movement is a long-term challenge, but it is not a contest where whoever uses the least wins a grand prize.

I remember when I first started my plastic-free living experiment, I would always stand in the snack aisle of the hypermarket, searching carefully again and again, holding on to a tiny hope that this time there would be snacks wrapped in paper! For the first few weeks I didn't buy any cookies to bring home, and I turned down all the desserts my roommate treated me to, but the cry inside me - ”I want to eat snacks” - never stopped. Then one day, I finally succumbed to my enormous craving for snacks and bought more than a dozen packs of plastic-wrapped cookies in one go. When I took the first bite of a chocolate cookie, my heart was filled with boundless joy (hey, why does this process feel so much like dieting?).

After this experience, I realized that the biggest key to truly living plastic-free is "not forcing yourself at all." Living plastic-free is not about becoming an ascetic; it is not about throwing away all your emotions and desires, all food and pleasure. What we want is a process of enjoyment that we can truly commit to, without burden. Who wants to be eating chocolate while worrying that some seabird might eat the wrapper in their hand and die a miserable death?

After the dozen or so packs of snacks I had bought were consumed, I returned once again to the tug-of-war between snacks and plastic, but this time I had a new tactical plan. I thought carefully about the packaging of the snacks I love to eat: often, to keep the outer chocolate coating intact, they first wrap it in a small individual plastic wrapper, then put it into a compartmentalized plastic box, then wrap it in another layer of foil-lined, light-blocking plastic bag, and for the extra-labor-intensive ones, add a paper box on the outside. Before enjoying it, you have to help it take off four layers of clothing - and it's just a chocolate cookie! Since food and plastic packaging are inseparable, then start by eliminating multi-layer packaging.

So I mapped out a few directions for buying snacks:

1. Give priority to snacks in jars. Besides plastic jars, there are usually options like tin cans and paper cans, and jars of every material can be reused. Jarred snacks usually also offer a higher portion and better value for money than bagged snacks; you can eat a whole jar slowly, which further slows down the pace of buying more snacks.

2. Choose snack packaging that can be recycled. Food packaging bags usually have little labeling on whether they can be recycled, but clear plastic packaging has a higher recycling rate. Bags containing shiny foil components, such as potato chips and small cookies, currently cannot be recycled. (Abroad, there is already technology to recycle mixed foil-plastic bags and remake them into large plastic playground equipment; hopefully one day manufacturers in Taiwan, China will also use this kind of material.)

3. If only non-recyclable packaging is available, mainly buy large packages. Although large packaging bags cannot be recycled, at least they can still be used as trash bags for one more reuse, reducing the direct use of new plastic trash bags.

4. Keep looking for bulk cookie stores with reliable quality where you can bring your own containers.

5. Start learning to make the snacks you want yourself, completely breaking free from the limitations of plastic packaging and food additives!

Just like buying cookies, when you first start facing up to your habit of depending on plastic, you will find that at the same time there are so many small, interlocking things that need to be understood and done with your own hands. At first you think of it as enormous, and the goal seems distant and unattainable. The "no overexertion" mode of practice breaks the goal down into gradual, effortless steps, cultivating new habits at a pace you can bear, and slowly, from a new perspective, looking at the original problem.

I firmly believe that a way to enjoy life to the fullest without burdening the environment is not far away.

Image credit: djwallpapers