1. For a growing number of people, the humble plastic bag has become an unnecessary evil that must be stopped.

2. Discarded carrier bags litter our towns and countryside, they kill wildlife and hang around in the environment for decades.

3. Landfill operators dislike them for their annoying habit of being blown away from their intended burial site.

4. The only people who have a good word to say about them are those in the plastic-bag industry.

5. Big surprise, you might say, but in fact, the industry's arguments do make some sense.

6. Objectively, plastic bags are nowhere near the world’s worst environmental problem.

7. The reason they are being picked on, the industry claims, is because they are an easy and emotive target.

8. Like it or not, the plastic bag has become a part of our lives, and today most people around the world don’t use anything else to carry their shopping in.

9. Depending on who is asked, the UK gets through somewhere between 9 billion and 17 billion plastic bags a year.

10. Globally, we carry home between 500 billion and a trillion annually, which is 150 bags a year for every single person on Earth, or, to put it another way, a million a minute and rising.

11. Shocking as these statistics are, they don’t explain why plastic bags have become so hated.

12. Given that there are far more voracious uses of fossil fuels than the production of high-density polyethylene used to make the bags, the argument is possibly more about aesthetics than wasting resources.

13. After they have been carried home, bags may be re-used once, but most end up at landfill sites.

14. A proportion will try to escape somewhere along the way, blustering around the streets or flapping annoyingly in trees.

15. This irritating habit has earned them a variety of nicknames around the world, such as ‘white pollution’ in China, and the ‘national flower’ in South Africa.

16. Plastic bags can also have a devastating effect on sea creatures.

17. There have been a number of cases recently where they have been ingested by turtles and whales, leading to internal obstruction and death.

18. The Planet Ark Environmental Foundation in Sydney, Australia, estimates that tens of thousands of whales, seals, turtles, and birds are killed every year from plastic bag litter, far out at sea.

19. Yet at the seaside, plastic bags make up only a tiny proportion of actual litter, with plastic bottles featuring higher in the list.

20. According to the Carrier Bag Consortium, a group of UK suppliers which was set up in 2002 to fight the anti-bag campaign, measures like the Irish bag tax have done nothing to reduce the consumption or solve the problem of disposal of plastic bags.

21. The Consortium likes to point out that plastic bags have among the highest re-use rates of any disposable product and, what is more, they are more energy-efficient to manufacture and transport than bulkier, heavier alternatives like paper or cardboard.

22. Unsurprisingly, the industry takes issue with being blamed for general environmental irresponsibility.

23. So if plastic bags aren't as bad as they are made out to be, are governments and green campaigners jumping on the wrong bandwagon?

24. Well, yes and no.

25. While the plastic carrier may have been made a scapegoat, it is also true that if you want people to think about sustainability, an everyday object that most of them already feel guilty about is a good place to start.

26. Governments have realised that by focusing on something so symbolic, they can get messages across to people about their behaviour and how the environment is and will continue to be affected by it, unless we all undertake some lifestyle changes.

Recently there's been a lot of talk about plastic free living in the world. I don't think it's a really bad thing because let's face it, the world is kinda going to scrap right now. And (0:11) the thing that made me very interested in this topic is when I saw the straw stuck in a turtle's nose. That was kinda like a point of awakening for me, how bad plastic is. And I know that plastic is also the worst pollutant because it breaks down to small pieces and it never ever disappears. So with eating this it's toxic to us and it's killing the world. It's killing the animals. It's just not good full stop.

So I figured I'll just try to get rid of plastic altogether. And see how easy it is to live without it. Of course there's gonna be some challenges because I have to relearn the behavior of purchasing. Basically everything. I mean supermarkets these days are filled with plastic items. Everything is almost plastic, so I'm gonna look for different supermarkets, different products that I haven't use before, substitutes. And hopefully I can incorporate as much as I humanly can into my everyday life, because it's a lot easier than I thought. If not I'm sure, I will be able to take a few gems on how to cut down a little bit of plastic in my existence, which I'm sure is gonna be helpful anyway. So the week begins now. Oh wish me luck.

So in order to get started you gotta educate yourself a little bit about the flow. Within the first week I started familiarizing myself with the plastic free world. So that involved also getting supplies that could be prepared whenever I encounter a situation where I usually would need to have plastic utensils for example. I would bring out my cutlery set that's made out of metal. Other things I collected and purchased this week to prepare me for the plastic free month included a cotton rag, a stainless steel food container, my favorite cuppy, a reusable bottle which is plastic, because I bought it last year before I started this process and I figured out to keep continuing to using it until it busted and which it did the other day. So I'm gonna replace it with a stainless steel one. Let your mind be blown. But these are bees wax wraps, so this replaces clean wrap. This is genius to wrap your food up in your kitchen and it's pretty useful.

Another thing that I freakin love is stainless steel razor. Super sharp when you first get it. You just have to take it a little bit slower but I shave my entire body using this and as some of you guys notice if you've seen my video, I shave my face completely for exfoliation purposes and I use this every single day everywhere. Cut myself a couple of times but I'm doing pretty well.

One of the biggest differences you can make to the environment is literally just switching to a bamboo tooth brush. We use so many tooth brushes in our lives and plastic ones they don't get recycled. Nothing happens to them so they go to waste and then for a thousand years, they're hanging out, doing nothing, killing the world. Fun. With all of these tools it cut out like 70% of everything that I use in plastic. So that's a massive chunk. Let's see what else happened this month.

I honestly feel like I've made a special connection with my little cuppy here. Coffee taste way better. Today I've probably used about three disposable cups within three months. Cause I've been doing this for three months now. With me doing it for three months it means that it's working and it's viable so continue watching. I figured out to be successful in this world you have to be pretty prepared all the time. I used it even when I was at festival and I seemed quite prepared here with my little cup for drinks. I've got my water bottle and I've got my utensils in my back pocket in case I get hungry. And honestly I rocked it. I got a lot of compliments for being mindful about plastic use. It was really nice and I look like a little Bob the Builder kinda chick.

I got my period when I was on the run and I didn't have menstrual cup with me. So I had to buy this. Damn it. Obviously all covered in plastic.

I really wanted to do this challenge was I was flying as well because a lot of people use flying as an excuse. You are fed these disgusting, unhealthy meals on the plane. And they're all wrapped in plastic. Myself, I decided to take on that challenge and see how I could do. I packed my own food. It was delicious. I loved it so much. It was much better than airplane food. Because I was eating my favorite food on a flight. Because I was flying from Australia to Iceland, that's a very very long trip so I had to have a lot of meals planned and I ran out of time so I would have just the actual hot meal from each plane because they're wrapped in aluminum foil instead of plastic. I was like, "Ya". I used my own utensils and my little cuppy and asked people on that airplane if they can fill up my giant water bottle. So I managed to do plastic free on the flight.

I made a rookie error so I bought a chicken and I thought I was doing the best thing possible to avoid any packaging. So I was like, "yeah maybe I can have this". And then I started ripping the paper and it turns out that it's lined with plastic. But know I really just don't know how I'm gonna buy any chicken, any meat, any seafood. I have no idea how to purchase any of this stuff now. There're really some things that I really just don't understand how to do plastic free. My containers, we've been buying electrical products. I needed a converter, plastic.

Toiletries are another challenge. (4:40) I'm about to leave Australia in a couple of hours and I really want to dye my hair before. And obviously all the packaging inside the hair dye is plastic. There's a lot of restrictions when you go plastic free. And today I was like, "I don't care, okay I've done so well". And as soon as I started applying the product, I was like, "well my hair's gonna look great for what maybe three four weeks and this packaging is now gonna stick around for a thousand years". So I just realized this is a hiccup. I'm glad I'm having a hiccup cause everything was going really smoothly. But now I'm like, "my first hiccup, annoying but I can do this, I can get through this".

I can't be so harsh on myself. This is a transition period and I'm gonna stumble a lit bit until I figure out ways of how to live plastic free completely. I'm learning to find stuff that isn't in plastic. I've learned to make my own deodorant and my tooth paste. And I found natural replacement. As my moisturizer I use olive oil. And it works way better than any moisturizer. And it comes in a glass bottle.

Sacrifices. Junk food would be a massive one. You've gotta cut out a lot of junk food. Most processed foods obviously come in packaging. You can't find amazing chocolate that is without wrapping. Well hello being unhealthy. Being unhealthy and plastic free in Iceland is eaiser than ever. It's just wrapped in paper. Good times. You just end up being like detective that seeks out all the best stuff and junk food if you need to. And you get super excited when you find amazing products that are not wrapped in plastic. It's like Christmas, trust me.

It's hard to transitioning into this lifestyle when you are with someone else as well. Because I don't wanna force anyone else to be living this way. So me and my boyfriend would travel all the time together and he's taken this method on quite well. He's a great cook and sometimes a recipe that he wants to cook involve buying things that are quite heavily plastic related. If it was me I probably wouldn't make the recipe altogether. But that is not my choice and I can't force anyone to do it. The fact that he is already doing such a massive thing. If you have someone else involved, it's nice that you work together. If you have someone completely against it, you're gonna really really battle, because watching someone you love just going against something you believe in so strongly really really hurt. But it's not your life, you can't force anyone to do it. You can just kind of serve as an example and hope that maybe they'll pick something out of it.

Shopping takes a lot longer and it'll sometimes dictate it by what is available to you, that is not plastic freak. So for example sometimes I find honey that is all in plastic bottles. And then I find one that's just in a jar. Like, "yes heaven". So be prepared to spend a little bit longer in the shops until you figure out what you can and cannot buy. Or recipes you can and cannot have. These days sometimes I don't eat certain food as I mentioned before because I just don't.

Where I'm still failing it? Yeah. It happens. It's been three months. I'm still heavily sucking up bringing my own containers to markets and such. So I still do use some plastic bags which sucks especially in Europe and Iceland. Oh my gosh.

First day shopping in Iceland for food, so much covered in plastic. I was fearing this. That' why I wanted to do it around January to figure out how well. [A man] Even the broccoli. [Sorelle] Everything's covered. I find it that Europe is a little bit harder in certain areas to deal with this plastic. I don't think they are quite aware at all yet. Like Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia. People just wanna give you plastic bags. I like, "no don't worry don't worry. You have a gift from me for you". I'm like, "no no I don't want it". Almost battling people to get no plastic bag!

Toiletries still struggling with that one. I'm learning more and more to make my own natural stuff that doesn't require plastic. But I do love make up. And make up comes in everything plastic. So I still seeking brands that are gonna help me replace the plastic.

Textiles are the second biggest pollutant when it comes to plastic. It's recommended to shop second hand but because I'm almost a minimalist and I travel full time, like I hardly have anything, if I'm looking to replace something from my wardrobe, I almost always know specifically know what it is. So for me to go out there and try to find that second hand, it's very difficult. So I still suck in this department.

Recycling doesn't really work. It sucks when I find that out. The only material that doesn't require more energy to be recycled is aluminum. So that's good. Recycling aluminum is great. The rest take up a lot of energy. So the best thing we can do is literally eliminate it from the process. Don't stop recycling because there are some technologies that are advancing it. It's good habit and it keeps you mindful. But eliminate plastic wherever you can.

Living plastic free it drains you a lot. It's very hard constantly thinking about everybody's use of plastic. And you see it and it makes you wanna scream and just wake them up. But it's again not your place to say that is absolutely the hottest spot that you just don't understand how people can't make small changes like bringing their own coffee cups or bring a bag. The smallest things can make such a difference to the world and people choose not to do it that, that hurts. But the world is slowly transitioning which is super duper cool. And the more people that do these tiny little steps and just like, "oh I don't want that plastic bag." People be like, "what? Okay. May I should do that next time?" So everyone everyone that participates in this and makes tiny changes is making a massive difference all together.

And at the last, (9:30) three months of doing this, I've cut out probably 70% to 80% of plastic that I used to use. So it's a massive improvement. Still not perfect. I still have a dream to have like plastic free house except that I don't have a house so I don't think you can fulfill that dream until you have a house. Thank you guys so much for watching.