September 19th - 25th marks Recycle Now's annual Recycling Week, so it only makes sense for us to get the low down on this annual event.
From a brief history of the ‘holiday’ to our favourite ways to reduce plastic waste and everything in between (including an overview on just how the team here at Innermost are doing their bit as individuals, and us as a brand, are using less plastic), this overview has it all.
What is Recycling Week?
Recycling Week is a recycling initiative started by Recycle Now, that was created to both educate and encourage people on the impact of plastic-usage. The scale of our single-use plastic usage is truly unfathomable, and this day aims to both educate people on the current state of the crisis, whilst advising how to use less plastic, how to reduce waste, and how to adapt your lifestyle to be more sustainable and ultimately minimise the impact we are having on the environment.
With the need and to recycling becoming increasingly important in recent years, Recycle Now started their first Recycling Week campaign 19 years ago and haven't looked back since. This year’s theme is ‘Let’s Get Real’ and will challenge perceptions and myths around recycling, and target contamination to improve recycling behaviours.
Why is it important to recycle?
Aside from the obvious – that being, minimising the production and use of single use plastics, it’s important to recycle for several reasons.
Why do we recycle, you ask? The reasons are pretty endless, including:
- Assist in the ongoing prevention of pollution
- To reduce the amount of energy we use as a planet
- To enhance our air and water quality
- To assist in the global effort against climate change
- To save money on unnecessary plastic production
Here’s what you can do this Recycling Week
If the above reasons don’t convince you, we don’t know what will. So, to do your part, the good news is that there are a number of things you can do.
Aside from, of course, recycling (if you don’t already…), there are a few things that you can do to spread the word, champion the cause and do your bit to ensure that we are all contributing to the global recycling movement.
Some of our favourite ways to celebrate Recycling Week include:
- Reshare educational posts on social media
- Champion the cause, both online and in person
- Advise and educate others on recycling best practices
- Celebrate each other’s recycling efforts
- Propose recycling schemes in your school, university or workplace
- Replace single use plastics in your home with reusable alternatives
- Use the day to re-evaluate your plastic usage
Our top sustainable nutrition tips
When it comes to becoming a more sustainable individual, cutting down on your plastic use isn’t the only thing you can do (although, it’s definitely a great start). Adapting your diet to reduce your carbon footprint and implementing sustainable nutrition strategies is a great way to make a difference – a bigger difference than you think, actually.
Here are a few sustainable nutrition strategies that you can implement into your day-to-day life to make a difference:
- Go dairy-free
- Try out veganism (for a week, a month, or even a day)
- Integrate veggie days or meals into your week
- Try out a plant-based diet
- Eat and shop local where you can
- Reduce your food waste (hello, leftovers!)
Our favourite sustainable brands
Aside from sustainable nutrition techniques, you can also do your bit by switching to sustainable brands, too. Now, we know that finding sustainable, high-quality brands that don’t cost too much seems like finding a needle in a haystack, but even in the last year alone the number of fantastic sustainable brands has gone through the roof.
To help you on your search and give you some inspiration, we’ve listed some of our favourite sustainable brands below:
- Panda Soft Bamboo Toilet Paper
Let’s face it, we all use toilet paper. It’s a necessity.
The team at Panda Soft have created an affordable product that uses recyclable paper and bamboo to create the ultimate sustainable toilet paper. Available in packs of 24 all the way up to 96 rolls at a time, whether you’re a home or business, you can start your sustainable journey from the bottom up (if you catch our drift).
- Chilly
Doing their bit to rid the world of single-use plastic bottles, if you don’t know what a Chilly bottle is yet, where have you been?
This company creates high-quality reusable water bottles, flasks, hot food storage and more to ensure that you’re investing in reusable containers and bottles that rid us from the extortionate number of single-use plastic bottles and containers that litter our seas every single year.
- Patagonia
Named UN Champion of the Earth in 2019, Patagonia are changing the game when it comes to outdoor wear that is both stylish and sustainable, too. So stylish in fact, that the brand has become one of the hottest street wear brands around.
Patagonia donate 1% of their annual sales to environmental groups and regularly launch campaigns to educate the world on renewable energy projects and sustainable practices.
How to reduce waste: Innermost style
As a health and wellness brand that champions our community’s effort to maximise their potential through proper nutrition, lifestyle practices and exercise, we are more than aware of our responsibility to do our bit for the environment. Transparency is key here, and there are three core values that reflect our commitment to becoming a more sustainable brand and reducing our plastic waste too, and what better time to champion these strategies than in the run up to Recycling Week?
- We’ve changed our capsule jars from plastic to glass
- We’re removing our plastic scoops from our protein and booster products
- We’ve committed to removing all plastic packaging within the next year
As a brand, there is plenty that we can be doing to reduce our carbon footprint, and the above is just the start.
Summary
If you’re reading this on September 19th - 25th, Happy Recycling Week from all of us here at Innermost. If not, the above tips still apply, and luckily you can integrate all of these into your day-to-day life whenever and wherever you are to make a difference in the global fight against climate change.
