My Plastic-less Journey
by Dawn Wragg
November 2025
My journey began in the year of decimalisation in the “Toxic Town” of Corby.
Money and industry in the opening sentence of my journey in this unnatural world that the Human species creates. In the process of making money through industry, humans generate products, waste products and pollution. Plastic falls into all three of these categories.
Plastic is a made from fossil fuels (crude oil, natural gas, coal) and is a big, profitable and expanding business. It is valued at over $524 billion dollars in 2024, and expected to be worth over $754 billion by 2032.
Roughly half of the plastic produced each year is for single-use purposes, such as plastic in chewing gum, cigarettes, vapes, food packaging and sanitary products.
In 2024, over 50% of the plastic discarded in the UK was incinerated (source: The Big Plastic Count), 17% was recycled, 14% exported, and 11% went to landfill. The remainder litters the UK environment.
My parents eventually set up our family home near Matlock, Derbyshire, and taught me and my brother to appreciate the beautiful natural world in which we live.
As an adult, I was lucky enough to marry into the farming community, and learnt first hand how to care for the environment.
Everyday, I picked up litter, untangling it from tree branches, hedges, hay meadows, and from where it had been trampled into the earth.
However, it was not until much after that, after raising my own family, then divorce, and setting up my own home and self-employed business, that I became aware, and then concerned about the problem with plastic.
In 2019, I decided to be part of the solution, and I made the choice to reduce my plastic consumption.
I vowed that if there was a non-plastic option available to me, then I would take it, even if it meant spending more time and money.
I don't earn a lot of money, but I can make do with what I've got until I can afford the non-plastic products, and once you've got them, you've got them to reuse over and over.
I soon realised that this was going to be a long trek, and that small steps in the right direction was the right way to go. It had taken me nearly half a century to reach this point, but my plastic-less journey had begun.
My first step was to say no to water in plastic bottles (why is this even a thing?!) and I invested in refillable stainless steel bottles, which are still going strong six years on.
I then turned to hygiene products. I swapped individually wrapped dishwasher and laundry tablets for loose powder in cardboard boxes.
I stopped buying toilet roll wrapped in plastic. There are lots of “environmental toilet rolls” and I tried them all until I settled upon one that suited me.
Washable period pads and period pants feel much more comfortable to wear in my opinion. They wash well in the machine with minimum mess and effort, and like the water bottles, are still going strong six years on.
I tried solid bars of soap, dish soap, shampoo and conditioner. I still use the solid hand soap bars, but didn't get on with the others, so have since reverted back to liquid alternatives from a good refillable service called “Refills on the Road”.
Food packaging is the biggest hurdle, and plastic-less shopping in supermarkets is near enough impossible.
Luckily, I have a choice of nearby independent outlets: high quality butchers, farm shops, an excellent bakery, and an amazing refill van service for dry foods.
People often say to me “I can't afford to do that”, but I earn the minimum wage, and I can.
Not everything is more expensive. Dry food refills are often cheaper than their plastic wrapped supermarket counter parts, and a sack of potatoes from a farm shop is definitely the most economical option.
If you buy high quality meat from a butcher, and loose fruit and vegetables then you choose more carefully, buy only what you need, and waste less. I'm sorry if that sounds preachy, but it works that way with me.
Recently, I have been reading lots of worrying facts about microplastics and their effects not just on the environment, but also how they are polluting the human body.
As a result, I have stopped using tea bags (yes, plant based plastic is still plastic and some “bio-degradable” ones contain plastic). Loose leaf tea tastes so much better in my opinion, and once set up with a good pouring diffuser tea pot, it's no extra time or mess either.
My plastic-less path stretches onwards to the horizon and I still have a long way to go.
My next area of interest is plastics in fabrics and soft furnishings/bedding.
I like the process of researching and then making better informed choices. It may seem strange to say, but I am enjoying my plastic-less journey.
I feel like I am responsibly playing my part, and I believe that its
money well spent.
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