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Plastic-Free Camping in Everglades National Park: Part 2…Groceries

Photo Credit: Mac Stone Photo

Rick Crawford

As previously mentioned in Plastic-Free Camping in Everglades National Park: Part 1, a few friends I grew up with  from Savannah, GA get together for an annual fishing and camping trip to Everglades National Park.  It’s a great escape as there is no cell phone service, the landscape is utterly unique and the fishing is excellent.  It’s a highly anticipated event, and I highly recommend it if you’ve never been.  However, this year I started thinking about how much single-use plastic and waste is generated on these camping trips.  I always practice leave no trace principles and recycle everything I accumulate while camping, but is it even necessary to buy items that are single-use in the first place?

The reason I wanted to see if I could go single-use plastic-free camping is because plastic pollution is becoming a serious threat to fisheries around the world.  In fact, it is estimated that there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean in 30 years!!!  The plastic pollution problem is scarier when you consider a growing population combined with how many people around the world depend on the ocean as a source of protein.  So, my goal was to refuse single-use plastics on this camping trip in an effort to create more awareness about the impact single-use plastic is having on our fisheries.  Also, because I want to protect what I love, and we were fishing in a place that I love, I wanted to draw more attention to the gross mismanagement of Florida’s water resources causing toxic algal blooms and massive fish kills in South Florida by not sending the water south to the Everglades.  (To learn more, please visit: www.gladesdeclaration.org and sign the Now Or Neverglades Declaration!)

Single-Use Plastic-Free Grocery Shopping Checklist

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Bring Reusable Shopping Bags!

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Buy in Bulk!

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Mother Nature already perfectly packaged its fruit!

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Avoid plastic toiletries!

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Reusable bags, buying in bulk and buying local are good standard practices whether you are camping, or not.  However, what was most eye-opening was taking the time to pay attention to all of the plastic packaging that our food comes packaged and wrapped in.  Next time you are in the grocery store do a 360 and it is an entire store quadruple wrapped in plastic!  In some cases it was even difficult to find food that was not wrapped in plastic.  I think that key word is “time” when it comes to eliminating single-use plastics.  Single-use plastics are convenient and functional, but if you take the few extra minutes to do a little planning you can significantly reduce single-use plastics for your next camping trip, or trip to the grocery store. is part of the problem with plastic.

A few years ago I started paying more attention to plastic as I became more educated on sustainability and it is truly mind-blowing the amount of single-use plastics that are out there.  It has become so automatic that I stopped even thinking about it.  Plastic bag?  Sure.  Plastic straw? Well it comes with the drink, right?!  All my fruits wrapped in plastic?  Wait…what?  I was in the grocery store the other day and there was an entire display of apples and they were individually wrapped with Saran wrap!  Is that really necessary?  Am I the only one who is perturbed by this?  Certainly not, but I do believe if we all took a couple extra minutes out of our day to make sure we are making small changes such as using reusable bags, buying local and in bulk and even something as small as using a bamboo toothbrush, we could make a tremendous impact!

I also think it is important to clarify that I am not up here on my high horse passing judgement because I am certainly not perfect, and just like everyone else, I sometimes forget my reusable bags or containers and have to opt for paper bags or buying a loaf of bread pre-packaged in plastic, but I am doing the best I can to be cognizant of the problem and do what I can to protect what I love.  I hope that this blog fulfills its purpose to create more awareness about single-use plastic pollution and is helpful in making positive change.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and stay tuned as we take a look at our camping gear in Part 3 of the Plastic-Free Camping blog!

 

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