Thank you so much everyone for participating this year! We all did an excellent job and it's exciting to see how much our cumulative efforts have added up :)

This month was really interesting to see all the ups and downs; there were both good and bad days but it was really eye opening to see all the different changes we can truly make in our life time!

Ending this PFJ and calling it a mixed bag of success for this year. On a last note, I am mulling over a piece of news I saw coming out of Germany. A grocery chain there picked nine items to sell for one week at prices reflective of their true ecosystem/environmental cost. In some cases, these items were 94% more expensive because they accounted for the cost of offsetting NOx, methane, and CO2. Responses from the public ranged from positive, since it spurred them to more carefully consider the impact of their purchases, to neutral, with people simply opting to wait until the week-long "promotion" to end before buying the products again. I wonder what people would say if we did something similar with regard to the cost of plastic.

Last day! Upon reflecting on everything this month, I still feel that the biggest action we can all take against single use plastic is to advocate companies to own the responsibility. Major changes will only come from the producers - citizens currently have few plastic-alternative choices and that needs to change. Once plastic is created it is already a lost cause for the most part - its here to stay. We need to push companies to create more alternatives or just not use plastic packaging - through our purchasing power and by also uniting our voices by contacting companies directly. Governments and large non-profits can continue to pass bag & packaging bans so that companies are forced to reduce their plastic use. Let's push big businesses to create big changes across the globe!
https://ecocycle.org/our-programs/reducing-plastics/producer-responsibility-for-plastics/

I am very grateful for this opportunity. I try my best everyday to make some better choices for our environment because without it, we wouldn't survive. This whole month also taught me that having to be a little more focused on less plastic packaging, I am eating healthier! Extra bonus!