Planet vs plastic: Tips and swaps to keep your single-use down this Earth Day

While policies are incredibly helpful, individual choices also play significant role in long-term environmental impact

'Sustainable swaps' can be applied at home for a greener lifestyle. Photo: Jason Briscoe / Unsplash

The fight against plastic is a collective effort between governments, companies and individuals – with top-down policies having more of an immediate impact.

This year's Earth Day is dedicated to tackling systematic problems of plastic use, aiming for a 60 per cent reduction in production by 2040. While governments and companies bear the brunt of the burden, individual efforts can play a big role in long-term environmental change.

In Dubai, single-use plastics were banned at the start of the year. In 2025, the ban will cover other single-use plastic products, such as stirrers, straws, cups, table covers and styrofoam food containers – before it goes full throttle in 2026 with a ban on single-use plastic plates, food containers and tableware.

The ban on single-use plastic bags has been in force in Abu Dhabi since 2022, with more plastic products being included in the list in the coming years.

With this, considerable progress is being made on the policy front. Now, it's up to individual residents to further reflect on their plastic use. Thankfully, there are several hacks and tips to aid in this mission.

Calculating annual plastic use

The first thing you could do is assess your plastic footprint. How much plastic do you use regularly? Organisers of the Earth Day campaign have created a plastic calculator to quantify people's use of plastics – considering that it's easy to unknowingly contribute to the problem.

The online calculator, available on earthday.org, asks people to identify their daily and monthly consumption of a specific single-use plastic item, such as bottles, cling film and food containers. It then automatically estimates yearly consumption, making people, first and foremost, conscious of their plastic use, because “you can't manage, what you can't measure”, reads the website.

By instilling awareness, the campaign hopes to inspire people to adopt more eco-friendly habits in their everyday lives, but leaves the methods up to them. Companies with more alternatives available and consumers who keep tips and tricks to reduce waste in mind can come together to make a difference.

Researching eco-friendly alternatives

Once you've laid out the biggest culprits in your routine, researching sustainable swaps becomes a bit easier. These decisions might feel minute (and sometimes costly to set up), but they go a long way in terms of habit-building and long-term environmental impacts.

Most plastic products can be found in the kitchen and the bathroom, so that's a good place to start when implementing your plastic plan. Many people already opt for sustainable staples such as reusable water bottles, cutlery and straws, but this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to plastic use in our kitchens, bathrooms and beyond.

For example, instead of cling film for storing food, a beeswax variant can offer a long-lasting eco-friendly alternative. Shopping for a new toothbrush? Bamboo beats plastic. Cotton swabs are almost always made of plastic, but there are bamboo alternatives to stock up on. Food containers can be cardboard and nappies come in plant-based materials. Though, the biodegradable content of these products should also be checked.

Major supermarkets sell eco-friendly bags for an additional fee, which can be reused at local shops. When ordering from small supermarkets, you can verbally request fewer plastic bags. When buying fruits and vegetables, one collective bag can be used or, ideally, a net bag can keep loose items together.

Used plastic bags can then be repurposed as rubbish bags to maximise their utility (more on this below).

Going completely plastic-free can prove challenging, especially looking at factors such as time and cost. Sometimes, eco-friendly products seem more expensive than their plastic counterparts. When plastic can't be avoided, recycling steps in. UAE residents can check their local recycling programmes. There are several recycling kiosks in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, where people can dispose of plastic products such as bottles.

Online laundry service Washmen, for example, can take your plastic products as well as paper and cardboard for recycling every time you book them.

If you can't completely eliminate plastics, aim to get maximum use from them. Ice cream and butter tubs can be repurposed for planters or storage for small trinkets, for example.

For toiletries such as shampoo and shower gels, some companies have refilling stations. The Botanist offers refills for dish soap, hand soap and floor cleansers, while The Body Shop has refillable aluminium bottles. There are also water-refilling stations across Dubai and Abu Dhabi. So water can be topped up on the run, without the need to buy a new bottle.

Water and cleaning essentials aside, some supermarkets also feature a loose products section where customers can refill pantry staples such as pasta, nuts, spices and oil. Grandiose, with branches in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, offers this service, as well as major chains such as Carrefour and Spinneys.